10 Most Shocking Gaming Betrayals

In the Assassin’s Creed universe, the Templars are fascistic and domineering, while the Assassins believe in free will at any cost. There’s some wiggle room for interpretation, but for all intents and purposes, the Assassins come out looking like the heroes in this scenario, a position that’s upheld by Al Mualim, the leader of the Assassins during the Third Crusades.

But seemingly in an attempt to foreshadow his sudden but inevitable betrayal, Al Mualim also taught Altair the eponymous ‘Assassin’s Creed’: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”, and explained that the “creed does not command us to be free, it commands us to be wise.”

What he meant by this, was that he’d secretly been in cahoots with the Templar Order, before using the Assassin’s to seek out the Apple of Eden for his own uses. He sought the Apple’s mind control powers, the use of which would render the concept of freedom a thing of the past.

For all the stabbing that occurred prior to his betrayal, it was Al Mualim’s duplicitous ways that left the deepest scars of all.