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My Top 8 Assassin's Creed Moments [SPOILERS]

[Note: This Top 8 is 100% my own opinion and I don’t intend any of you to take it as fact. Only take it as interesting food for thought and I hope you enjoy. Also SPOILERS! Play these games first!]

With Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Assassin’s Creed Unity on the horizon, I started thinking about the past games. And with that I remembered some of the best parts that made me love the series. So to celebrate the next iterations, I decided to list the times where I felt the games really shined and give my thoughts on the story and characters that are represented. So without further ado, here’s my Top 8 Best Moments of Assassin’s Creed.

8. Haytham Kenway’s death
As with every major assassination in Assassin’s Creed, the killed gets a few moments to speak in the White Room before they eventually pass. But when it’s a character that you’ve played as for the beginning of the game, the moments have more weight to them. Being Connor’s father, you expect a bit of remorse from Haytham to tell Connor in his final moments. However, Haytham literally shoots down that clichéd ending, telling Connor not to expect a palm on the cheek with a single tear coming out of his eye. He has no attachment to Connor, despite being his albeit estranged father and only sees the enemy Assassin. However, he goes on a bit more to say he might say he has a bit of pride that Connor sticks to his guns and stays fast to his beliefs, despite being the literal opposite of him.
Here is where Haytham is revealed as a simple, but complex character. He lives, eats, and breathes as a Templar and has zero tolerance for the Assassins who, in his eyes, have simply screwed up every time to really fix the world in lieu of keeping a simple belief in tow. But he also has the poise of a man who seems to understand what he’s talking about, even if you disagree with him. He’s not sad when he sees his end, and calmly accepts every misstep and moves on. Rather than complicating business with emotion, he’s able to be a simple character who stays fast against a dynamic environment, and the same could be said for Connor. You know what they say, sometimes enemies are two sides of the same coin. In this moment Ubisoft spares us the usual drivel of remorseful estranged fathers and their sons and instead keeps Haytham’s stoic character in tact while still leaving an impact. Haytham may have been a dick, but he was a memorable one.

7. Connor and Achilles
Not a lot of people are too fond of the third assassin Connor. However Connor’s character was greatest when he was with his master Achilles. The older games were not too focused on the relation between master and pupil. The first game was more of Al Mualim telling Altair what to do for half the game, but in AC III, Connor and Achilles hardly saw eye to eye. A naïve Native American and effortless old Assassin isn’t the best combination. While in some cases, constantly arguing with each other can grate on nerves after a while, what makes the moments memorable are the rare times that they do see eye to eye, like when Achilles finally gives Connor the Assassin robes and proclaims him as a full-fledged Assassin.
It’s also appropriate to say that the times they do argue, there’s no real right path. Both Achilles and Connor are in positions that are understandable, which makes for interesting discussion. The greatest moment though is not Achilles’ death, but the final moment in Connor’s story. He’s lost pretty much everything, his people, his allies, and now his master. But as he chooses to leave the important relic in his master’s grave, it slowly occurs to the player without a single word. Despite the constant fighting and bickering, Achilles was still his master that chose to believe in him and entrusts his grave to hold on to a very important relic, meaning that the old lonely crony in the house was still a good man to Connor.

6. The End of Assassin's Creed: II
Talk about mind-screws. Let’s rewind a bit for those of you unfamiliar, and just think of back when AC: II first came out. No bizarre instances of reincarnation, no weird fake game studios mixing with reality, no doomsday proclamations…at least not yet, you just know that there are a couple games with Assassin’s Creed in the title that let you experience the past with some schmuk named Desmond. After going through the spectacular Renaissance entry and punching the crap out of the Pope, Ezio finally enters the long-awaited vault, only to discover a hologram with a bizarre message in tow. For a second it’s passed off as a glitch until Ezio points out that she’s looking away, and then things take a different meaning. Minerva tells Ezio to shut up as she’s not talking to him. Then the player discovers she’s not talking to Ezio. She’s talking right to Desmond.
She leaves with a simple word of warning, confusing the hell out of Ezio. Both the player and Desmond let out a hearty “What. The. F***.” The series just took a dramatic protagonist switch, and focus is not only on the past Assassins, but now also on Desmond’s current events. I’m not a fan of the Mayan 2012 disaster the series almost throws in on a whim, especially considering the game came out in the height of the Mayan Calendar craze. But when a mysterious character in a game tells the supposed main character to shut up while she talks to the real main character, then that is definitely memorable.

5. Ezio’s prologue in Assassin's Creed II
The original Assassin’s Creed had a rather bland intro. Some random dude in a hood with a misplaced American accent severely screws up and inadvertently lets the enemy kill an ally and launch an unsuccessful siege on his hideout. It’s hard to get attached or identify with a person who’s already a master of trade living in the middle of one of the most pivotal moments in the Middle Ages. So the second game decides to make an origin story of an Italian teenager who’s both playful and charismatic. Instead of the main character getting crapped on and then getting shanked by his master as payment, Ezio and the player get to experience Renaissance Florence, beat the crap out of the Pazzi, run around the orange roofs, and climb to the top of the tower with your brother enjoying the nightly Florentine skies.
After all that amazing experience, and a closing one-liner, the great theme of the second game, “Ezio’s Family” kicks in while the words “Ubisoft Presents: Assassin’s Creed II” slowly envelop the screen, and you’re already having a better experience than you did with the first game. The greatest part about this is that they could’ve easily had it start with Ezio becoming an Assassin and moved on from there. However, the prologue serves as a great way to get you connected with the character when he’s just a normal teen, which the first game never let you do. When Ezio’s seemingly perfect life begins to unravel, it carries more weight than Altair’s troubles in the beginning of AC I. And for that, it’s a great moment.

4. Edward Kenway’s dream sequence
Tired of the justice-hounding assassins that were the norm for the series, Ubisoft decided to do something unique and have a main Assassin who is just a pirate who for a majority of the game is just looking for some booty of all types. Not the best choice for a series whose main characters are supposed to be shining examples of chivalry and philosophical righteousness. However, what makes it all better, for me at least, is the dream sequence. By the time the dream sequence comes, he’s already lost most of his friends, been betrayed by half of them, and has no one to turn to.
In a drunken stupor, he stumbles through all the mistakes he’s made, being nagged by a lost ally in the middle of a storm along with his estranged lover, swimming through the corpses in the ocean of the people he’s killed, and crawling through a lineup of all his friends that have been killed, all while shouting at them and feigning ignorance to them, trying to make up excuses. Afterwards, Edward soon comes to terms with responsibility and decides to fight for a better cause. His conversion is where the moment gets a little weak, to me personally, but the entire game building up to him hitting rock bottom made it greater when he finally gets a grip on himself and the game reaches its climax. Edward is a dick, but when the game does that on purpose, it sometimes makes for a great moment, and in this case it does.

3. The End of Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Let’s be honest, AC: Revelations was not the best cup of tea to come from the series. The bland location, no returning characters other than Ezio, and relatively pointless gameplay additions made things a little flat. However, despite its short-comings, it still features an aging Ezio and the past unseen events of Altair, making for some interesting story bits that are a nice closing act to the Ezio Trilogy and the mysteries of Altair. First, let’s talk about Altair’s final moments. In my opinion, Altair was a pretty simple character and I wasn’t too fond of him in the first game, but his last moments were actually pretty heartwarming. No real explanation of what he’s doing is said, so the player eventually figures out on their own that the long sought library Ezio spends the whole game trying to open will act as his final resting place. It’s also nice that it’s kept short, sparing us of the tired final monologue sequence that most media does.
Ezio picks up after that, making it almost surreal that the two main assassins (albeit one is a corpse) are meeting. Ezio then refuses the Piece of Eden that Altair kept hidden, and does something quite interesting. He starts talking to Desmond. Of course, Ezio isn’t even sure he’s there and he knows he might just be talking to an empty room. But rather than Ezio trying to figure out things, he takes the gamble and expresses his utter wonder at, if it is true, how future generations can see the stories of their ancestors. He also realizes that he isn’t the main character of the story, that he serves mainly as a catalyst to pass on information to Desmond, but instead of being angsty about it, he accepts it, instead being a helpful ally to aid the future that he doesn’t even fully understand. Revelations was not the best entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, but one thing it does well is a nice closing note for both titular assassins, Altair and Ezio.

2. Haytham Kenway’s Opening Sequence.
You can imagine the hype for the Assassin’s Creed iteration that sported the mystical Roman numeral III. While this game was being marketed, it showed off all of Connor’s new abilities, new weapons, huge environments, and many side-activites to accomplish. People were excited. However, when players popped that game into their system for the first time, we didn’t see Connor. Instead, we were met with a character that was not even mentioned in all of the game’s marketing, which was an older man known as Haytham Kenway. The gaming world is familiar with sudden baton switches in characters, a la Metal Gear Solid 2, so people were a little upset at first. But as the sequences went on, people began to like Haytham’s sense of humor, his assurance in his abilities, and his unwavering beliefs.
However, at the end of the sequences, the character we assumed was a really cool Assassin turned out to be the Grandmaster Templar for the new Templar Order to be stationed in the Americas. If the first Assassin’s Creed wanted to have you question and think about the beliefs of the enemy, then this game kicked you in the balls with it. Haytham was extremely likable, and keeping his being a Templar a secret till the very end made us really think about if a Templar is really that different from an Assassin. When control switches over to Connor, you eventually run back into Haytham and he’s still the same person, and it’s extremely interesting to have Connor’s thin idea of being an Assassin duke it out with Haytham’s many years of hardened experience being a Templar. This character surprised us and we liked him despite his Templar allegiance. It could be said that people enjoyed the opening act more than the main event. Anyway, Haytham was a great surprise and it was memorable.

1. Assassin’s Creed: Embers
Yeah, I’m cheating a bit when it comes to the top place, but there’s no way I can leave this moment out. For those unfamiliar, AC Embers is not a game, but a short animated movie that shows the final moments of Ezio. The film is only about 20 minutes long, but that’s all they need. It tells about a very old Ezio living out a peaceful life in Firenze, having left the Assassin life behind and started a family. However the Assassin life doesn’t want to leave him, as a Chinese Assassin by the name of Shao Jun visits him to get some advice on freeing her people. After a few hijinks, Ezio tells her the major things on being an Assassin leader and what’s important. The moments are nice and it’s hilarious to see Ezio fight as an old geezer.
However, the real point that is the most memorable moment in the entire Assassin’s Creed series is only a few sentences long. Throughout the film, Ezio is trying to write his final words in a letter for Sofia, his wife. When Ezio finally passes on in the city while his family is looking around, which is debated whether or not the man next to him actually killed him, everything slows down, with only a few soft piano notes and Ezio’s voice reading out his final words. And this is where the real magnificence of the character that is Ezio is revealed.
Ezio in his final moments is something that is rarely seen even in movies. He’s content. As a man who was an Assassin for most of his life for the sake of pure revenge, it would be understandable had he had regrets. But in his old age and years of fighting, he realizes that his life was worth living, and despite his lost path, he is content with the mysteries he couldn’t understand and the problems he couldn’t solve. For years of being an Assassin and the boundless confusions on life and mystery, he arrives at a simple answer which is merely happiness with the life you lived, and to be grateful that you were able to live it. And that’s what makes this not only the best moment in Assassin’s Creed, but makes the indispensable character Ezio a great example of a character who doesn’t die with age, but lives on in the words he spoke.
So what’s your favorite moments in Assassin’s Creed? Did you agree with my list or do you hate every single moment I listed? Leave your thoughts down below and thank you for reading!