50 Fun Facts About Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed grew out of plans for a sequel to which Ubisoft series, rebooted by the same team in 2003?

Prince of Persia was meant to get a spin-off in which the player guarded a prince instead of playing one. Ubisoft balked at that idea, so the project became a new series.

In Assassin's Creed, a Leap of Faith from a rooftop perch traditionally ends in which soft landing spot?

A haystack breaks the fall from any height. The stunt was borrowed from Hollywood films, and the same hay piles double as hiding places from guards.

Which television star lent both her voice and her likeness to Lucy Stillman in the first Assassin's Creed?

Kristen Bell took the role of Lucy while starring in the detective series Veronica Mars, years before she voiced Anna in Frozen.

Ubisoft reused its Assassin's Creed Unity model of which Paris landmark for a virtual reality experience?

Notre-Dame caught fire in April 2019, and Ubisoft responded by giving the game away for a week and donating €500,000 to the rebuilding.

Which Renaissance artist decodes Codex pages and builds new weapons for the hero of Assassin's Creed II?

Leonardo da Vinci appears as a young man who turns the Codex schematics into poison blades and a miniature wheellock firearm.

Which notorious real pirate helps run a pirate republic at Nassau in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag?

Blackbeard dreams of a pirate utopia beyond the reach of any crown or church. The game surrounds him with other real pirates, among them Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Charles Vane.

Which deposed queen, at war with her brother Ptolemy XIII, recruits the hero of Assassin's Creed Origins to her cause?

Cleopatra hands the hero a list of targets, and later has herself smuggled into the palace rolled in a carpet to meet Julius Caesar.

Which actor both co-produced and starred in the 2016 Assassin's Creed film as Callum Lynch and his ancestor Aguilar?

Michael Fassbender signed on in 2012, and the film reunited him with Justin Kurzel and Marion Cotillard, his director and co-star from Macbeth.

Which real retainer of the warlord Oda Nobunaga is one of two playable heroes in Assassin's Creed Shadows?

Yasuke is based on a historical African samurai, and he shares the game with Naoe, a fictional female shinobi.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla follows the Viking raider Eivor, who leaves Norway to found a settlement in which country?

England is carved into four rival kingdoms in the game, and the clan's settlement, Ravensthorpe, grows as Eivor wins allies among them.

In Assassin's Creed, which machine lets Desmond Miles relive the memories stored in his ancestors' DNA?

The Animus translates genetic memories into a simulated reality. The writers invented it so that one series could visit assassinations from many eras of history.

Desmond Miles, the modern-day lead of the first Assassin's Creed games, is working which job when he is kidnapped?

Bartender is the quiet life he chose after abandoning the isolated Assassin community in which he was raised.

Which Florentine nobleman is the hero of Assassin's Creed II and returns in Brotherhood and Revelations?

Ezio Auditore is followed from his youth in Florence to old age, a story that ends in the animated short film Embers.

Which Assassin, demoted after a botched mission at Solomon's Temple, is the hero of the first Assassin's Creed?

Altaïr is stripped of his rank as Master Assassin and must earn it back by hunting nine targets spread across the Holy Land.

The first Assassin's Creed is set in the Holy Land in 1191, in the middle of which conflict?

The Third Crusade brings King Richard the Lionheart to the Holy Land, and the hero ends up pleading a case in the king's own camp.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is set almost entirely in which Italian city, then ruled by the Borgia family?

Rome begins the game in ruins, and the player wins it back district by district by destroying twelve Borgia towers.

Which gadget, new in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, lets the hero ride ziplines across Constantinople?

The hookblade replaces a wrist blade that breaks at the start of the game, and it reportedly makes getting around the city about 30 percent faster.

Assassin's Creed III follows a half-Mohawk Assassin through Boston, New York and the frontier during which conflict?

The American Revolution puts the hero beside Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and the Marquis de Lafayette. The game was among the first big releases to feature Mohawk people prominently.

The hero of Assassin's Creed III is born Ratonhnhaké:ton but goes by which adopted name?

Connor was the name of his mentor's late son, and the old Assassin passes it on to help his pupil blend in with colonial society.

Which Welsh privateer turned pirate captain is the hero of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag?

Edward Kenway only became Welsh after the team cast Matt Ryan and asked the actor to use his natural accent.

Which brig, seized from a Spanish fleet, does the hero of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag sail as captain?

The Jackdaw made open naval exploration a major part of the series for the first time, and the player keeps upgrading the ship throughout the game.

Which Assassin's Creed game casts players as Shay Cormac, an Irish-American sailing the North Atlantic in the 1750s?

Rogue was led by Ubisoft's studio in Sofia and is set around the French and Indian War, with its hero ending up on the Templar side.

Twin Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye take on a Templar-run underworld in which city in Assassin's Creed Syndicate?

London is seen in 1868, and the twins cross its seven boroughs by carriage and aboard a train that serves as their base.

Which German political theorist hands the Frye twins side missions in Assassin's Creed Syndicate?

Karl Marx is one of several real Victorians the twins assist, alongside Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and the Queen herself.

Which Medjay from the Siwa Oasis sets out to avenge his son in Assassin's Creed Origins?

Bayek is voiced by Abubakar Salim, who was first told he was auditioning for an animated television series.

Which combat-free mode for Assassin's Creed Origins turns ancient Egypt into a series of guided history lessons?

Discovery Tour strips out every fight so that teachers can show the game to schoolchildren, and Ubisoft added it as a free update for owners of the game.

In Assassin's Creed Origins, the hero scouts enemy camps through the eyes of Senu, which kind of bird?

An eagle, specifically a Bonelli's eagle, replaced the sixth-sense vision mode of earlier games, and later entries kept the idea of a bird companion.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey lets players choose between the mercenary Alexios and which sister of his?

Kassandra was meant to be the game's only lead, but the team was told that was not an option, so her brother became playable too.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey casts players as a mercenary free to fight for Athens or Sparta during which war?

The Peloponnesian War was chosen so that players could meet Socrates and Hippocrates. Ancient Greece had been one of the settings fans requested most.

The hero of Assassin's Creed Odyssey fights with the spear of which Spartan king, an ancestor?

Leonidas opens the game himself, leading the Spartans at Thermopylae before the story jumps ahead to his grandchild.

Assassin's Creed Mirage follows the street thief Basim through which city of the Islamic Golden Age?

Baghdad gave the designers a much smaller map and a return to stealth. The game had begun as an expansion before growing into a standalone release.

Which Canadian city is home to the Ubisoft studio that created Assassin's Creed and made most of the main games?

Montreal's team took the climbing from an earlier Ubisoft hit into an open world, using new console power to render whole cities and crowds.

Which voice actor plays Desmond Miles, the modern-day lead of the first five main Assassin's Creed games?

Nolan North supplies the voice, while the character's face was based on the Canadian model Francisco Randez.

Which future ruler of France helps Arno Dorian escape the Tuileries Palace in Assassin's Creed Unity?

Napoleon is a young officer when the two meet during an insurrection, and a later expansion has his subordinates digging for an ancient artifact.

Which Florentine political writer appears as a senior Italian Assassin in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood?

Niccolò Machiavelli first turns up in Assassin's Creed II, and the sequel has him openly question the hero's judgement.

In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Eivor can challenge locals to flyting, a contest of trading what?

Rhyming insults are the whole game: Ubisoft described flyting as a Viking rap battle, and the real custom was practised for centuries.

In Assassin's Creed Mirage and Valhalla, the Assassin Brotherhood goes by which earlier name?

The Hidden Ones are founded in Egypt during Assassin's Creed Origins, and by the ninth century they train recruits in a mountain fortress.

Which Ubisoft pirate game began as a multiplayer expansion for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag?

Skull and Bones entered development in 2013 under the working title Black Flag Infinite, and it finally launched in February 2024.

In Assassin's Creed Syndicate, the Frye twins found which street gang to challenge the Blighters?

The Rooks start with nothing while their rivals control every borough, and the player wins the city back one gang fight at a time.

Aveline de Grandpré, the first woman to lead an Assassin's Creed game, fights the Templars in which city in Liberation?

New Orleans is home to the daughter of a wealthy French father and an enslaved African mother, and her game first appeared on the PlayStation Vita.

Which Syrian fortress town serves as the Brotherhood's headquarters in the first Assassin's Creed?

Masyaf is a real castle, captured in 1141 by the historical Assassins and later refortified by their leader Rashid al-Din Sinan.

Which novel by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, about a medieval sect, inspired the first Assassin's Creed?

Alamut is named after the mountain fortress of Hassan-i Sabbah, and the game's title plays on the creed that the novel's killers follow.

Which creative director of the first Assassin's Creed left Ubisoft and later made Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey?

Patrice Désilets directed the first three games, left in 2010 in search of more creative independence, and went on to found Panache Digital Games.

Which producer of the first Assassin's Creed went on to build Ubisoft Toronto and found Haven Studios?

Jade Raymond joined the project in late 2004, stayed on as executive producer of the sequel and later helped launch the Watch Dogs series.

Which Danish composer of the Hitman soundtracks scored the first four main Assassin's Creed games?

Jesper Kyd wrote a theme for the second game that became the unofficial anthem of the whole franchise, sampled in every later soundtrack.

In Assassin's Creed lore, which ancient species created humanity and made the Pieces of Eden to control it?

The Isu, also called the Precursors, died out long ago, and the games say their memory lingers in the world's mythologies and religions.

Which Ubisoft game engine, built for the first Assassin's Creed under the name Scimitar, went on to power the series?

Anvil took about two years to finish, so early work on the first game was done in the engine of an older Ubisoft title.

Which walled Tuscan town holds the family villa that serves as the hero's base in Assassin's Creed II?

Monteriggioni rewards investment: upgrading its shops with florins earns discounts and a growing income that piles up in a chest in the villa.

Which dice game sits beside drinking contests among the pastimes of Assassin's Creed Valhalla?

Orlog is an original creation, not a historical Viking game, and players meet it alongside hunting, fishing and brawling.

After the buggy launch of Assassin's Creed Unity, Ubisoft apologised by giving players which expansion free?

Dead Kings sends the hero to Saint-Denis as an epilogue to the main story, and Ubisoft also halted sales of the game's season pass.