Assassin's Creed: Ranking Every Game's Story From Worst To Best
One guess which Kenway places higher.
Back when the original Assassin's Creed dropped in 2007, few could have predicted that it would become the behemoth of today. Spanning nine main titles, numerous spin-offs and over 100 million copies sold (and counting), AC has, for better or worse, made quite an impact on the video game industry.
However, just as the quality of the games have been up and down over the years, so too have the plots within. For every gripping revenge story, there's a glorified treasure hunt that fails to fully take advantage of its setting.
With Assassin's Creed: Origins hoping to give the franchise the breath of life it sorely needs, time will tell where its story will fall in terms of quality.
Will we be gifted a riveting tale, steeped in Egyptian culture? Or will it fall apart faster than Unity's online servers?
Here I'll focus on the plots of the main games, not the quality of the games overall, and there won't be any handheld exclusives or DLC included. Also, because the present-day storyline never truly rose above "merely alright," the majority of the focus will be on the tales told from within the Animus.
Note: Beware of spoilers for all Assassin's Creed games so far.
9. Assassin's Creed
The original Assassin's Creed set the groundwork for the incredibly successful franchise, featuring unique gameplay and a breathtaking setting.
It was also incredibly boring.
AC's plot never rose any higher than the absolutely threadbare, consisting almost entirely of "go here, kill him, receive lecture from Al Mualim, repeat." While setting up the assassinations were fairly interesting, the plot did little to justify them.
By the time Al Mualim was revealed as the big bad of the game, players were interested in murdering the annoying fetch-quest giver than they were in killing the main antagonist.
Say what you want about the increasingly convoluted storylines or the shoehorned historical figures in the sequels, but at least Ubisoft was making an effort with those. The fact that there is barely a plot in the original means that the first is most certainly the worst.
Altair may have had some healthy character progression, but the flat (American for some reason) monotone voice he gave everything made him less of a stoic mercenary, and more of an angsty teenager desperately trying to be edgy and cool.
It was a smart move to revamp the performance for Revelations, giving more emotional weight and depth in the character in Altair's limited scenes. Speaking of which...