Assassin's Creed Revelations

Unlike previously in the series, Assassin's Creed Revelations' (almost) whole open world is unlocked very early on. I did right away pretty much everything that didn't progress the main memory sequence and thus had an unusually story-focused playthrough after sequence 3. That may have had a slight effect but I think that even without beelining the story, Revelations' ending is a very satisfying and conclusive finale for the Ezio trilogy.

Worthy trilogy finisher

At the end of AC Brotherhood, the Assassins found the Apple of Eden they were looking for. Another Isu, called Juno, contacted them through time and then for some inscrutable reason took control of Desmond via the Apple and made him stab Lucy. Desmond entered a coma and was put back into the Animus in the hope of it fixing his fried mind.

Desmond's consciousness wakes up on Animus Island where I immediately discovered the game to have a flickering issue. A brief visit to the PC Gaming Wiki gave an easy solution, however: deletion of systemdetection.dll from the game's root folder. Afterwards the game ran without problems.

The other Assassins can be heard talking on the island but I think that's meant for the player since Desmond doesn't react to it. Instead he meets Subject 16 there, an earlier victim of Abstergo, who somehow spread the fragments of his mind into the Animus. Subject 16 has been the source of Templar and Isu information, hidden behind a score of animus puzzles. He explains that Desmond's mind is fusing together with Altaïr's and Ezio's and that Desmond needs to fully relive their memories to regain consciousness. And so back to the past we go again.

Ezio, even older now, has traveled to Templar-infested Masyaf where he believes Altaïr to have stored something. He discovers an impenetrable door and to unlock it he needs disc keys which he learns to have been hidden in Constantinople by Niccolò Polo.

Few main gameplay innovations

In Constantinople -- or Istanbul like the locals have started calling it -- Templars have the upper hand over the Assassins. Ezio starts restoring the latter's strength, doing pretty much the same thing as in Brotherhood -- Revelations has some of that quick and cheap standalone expansion feel I had expected from the previous title.

There are some additions too though. Ezio is given a hook to his blade, adding new tricks to parkour and combat. In Revelations, the series' combat finally got to the level I could always tell which enemy was about to attack and Ezio did exactly what I wanted. 100% sync challenges that required not being hit were still an occasionally difficult, mainly because of the large enemies whose attacks can't be parried.

I had to retry one story mission in the endgame multiple times, trying all manner of tricks, before I ended up just using and crafting all the smoke bombs I needed to get through the forced encounters without taking damage.

In addition to the old smoke bombs, you can craft many other kinds that come with impact, sticky, and mine variations. Challenges and achievements related to their crafting were slightly glitched though. Crafting bombs at a crafting table wouldn't count and instead I had to add each variation to the weapon wheel (on which you can have 3 different kinds at once) and craft them from there. And even then I had to go through them all multiple times before I had everything unlocked.

And speaking of glitches, Constantinople's geometry seemed to be a challenge for NPCs. I reckon the new under- and overpasses add enough complexity that the pathfinding algorithm starts struggling, not being able to find the optimal route -- or none at all: I witnessed that a couple of times during missions in which you accompany someone.

Notoriety mechanic returned as Templar awareness. It's accrued slightly faster and it's harder to remove due to posters not being a thing and town criers being a touch rarer. In addition to guards becoming hostile on sight, having awareness maxed risks one of reclaimed Assassin dens being attacked. When that happens, you have to play a tedious tower defense minigame to defend it. However, if you have trained a master assassin and assigned them to the den, you don't need to go do the defense yourself. Or you can just keep managing Templar awareness to never get attacked.

Assassin recruits can again be sent to do missions. The feature was expanded and is quite involved. Taking the time to manage your dozens of assassins around the Mediterranean does give you extra currency and crafting materials but the effort requirement is a bit too much for the 10-20 minute frequency the missions get completed in. Ignoring the metagame leads to Templars eventually taking over the cities, denying you of the income.

Missing pieces

It's somehow very Ubisoft to have made a piece of DLC, prophetically titled The Lost Archive, that can no longer be bought anywhere. Ubisoft used to have such contrived DLC deployment methods. At least The Lost Archive's lost content doesn't count towards Revelations' 100% sync. Still, it would have been nice to have it because apparently Subject 16's memories answer why Juno made Desmond stab Lucy. Visiting Vlad the Impaler's Tomb would have been fun too: this game's dungeons were as cool as they have been in the previous games.

The tombs also have nice new music tracks in this game. I think AC Brotherhood reused a lot of its predecessor's music, or at least I don't recall it having any new tracks. Revelations however definitely has new music. I felt ambient audio was more present and atmospheric in the whole game as well.

An ending to remember

While searching for the discs, Ezio gets involved with Sofia Sartor, an Italian book collector. I reckon she became another one of Desmond's ancestors. I had expected Caterina Sforza to be the one Ezio would have children with but Caterina was never seen again after she left Rome in AC Brotherhood. If you talk to Shaun in the present time at the right moment, he informs Desmond that Caterina later died to pneumonia (like the actual real life person).

Because I hadn't been impressed by how any of the previous titles ended, I was completely surprised by how incredibly well paced and satisfactory conclusion AC Revelations had. I would have never expected Ubisoft to be able to pull off something so great. I don't even remember the last I had felt as satisfied after beating a game. I thought the ending deserved a standing ovation. Easily one of the best ones in all video games.

Instead of jumping places and time, and/or fighting scores of enemies, there's a fun, unusual action sequence. Afterwards, with Sofia, Ezio returns to Masyaf. Sofia asks about the Creed and Ezio explains it to her, making sure the player has understood it as well in case they have previously not.

"You mentioned a Creed before. What is it?" 

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted." 

"That is rather cynical." 

"It would be if it were doctrine. But it is merely an observation of the nature of reality." 

"To say that nothing is true, is to realize that the foundations of society are fragile, and that we must be the shepherds of our own civilization."

"To say that everything is permitted, is to understand that we are the architects of our actions, and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic."

Behind the locked door Ezio discovers the remains of Altaïr and a disc containing his final memories, ending his involvement in the franchise. There is also Altaïr's Apple of Eden.

Ezio shows the character growth and wisdom he has gathered during his arc: he has understood his role in the grand scheme of things and realized he is no longer needed either. He takes off his assassin gear and addresses Desmond directly, wishing him luck with his endeavors.

Desmond is contacted by yet another Isu, this time Jupiter, who informs what needs to be done to avoid an impending solar flare (which I think was referenced in the later games) wiping out humanity. After that, Desmond wakes up from his coma.

I thought maybe Revelations would end Desmond's involvement too, the Assassin team's doings maybe happening offscreen, but I have since then seen a random screenshot, presumably from the following game's present time, which has Desmond in it. I do know that the past time protagonist will be a new one because Assassin's Creed III takes place in 18th century America.

That will have to wait until some time next year though: now I need to return back to playing my backlog in the order the games have been added to it.