Assassin's Creed: Revelations is a direct sequel to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and serves as the last game of the Ezio Trilogy. It was originally released in November 2011 (a few days after The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) on PS3 and XBox 360. It was rereleased with the rest of the Ezio trilogy for PS4 and XBox One in 2016.
Plot
Desmond Miles is in a coma following his possession by Juno. To save his mind, he is put back in the Animus, where he meets Clay Kaczmarek's consciousness. Clay explains that Desmond must find a memory that separates his consciousness from his memories of Ezio and Altaïr in order to wake up from his coma.
Desmond reenters Ezio's memories as an older Ezio travels to Masyaf to seek wisdom from Altaïr hidden in a vault in the Assassin's home. Masyaf, however, was abandoned by the Assassins nearly 250 years before and is currently overrun by Byzantine Templars. Ezio finds out he needs memory disks to unlock the vault and that they are located in Constantinople, seat of the Ottoman Empire.
Ezio travels to Constantinople and meets with the Assassin's guild there, led by Yusuf Tazim. While searching for the disks, he gets involved in Ottoman politics, where he meets the future Sultan, Suleiman. The prince has Ezio investigate an attempt on his life, which lead Ezio to kill the head of the Janissaries, who they mistakenly thought was conspiring the the Byzantines.
Ezio is able to recover most of the disks with the help of a Venetian woman living in the city, Sofia. He then travels to Cappadocia, where the leader of the Byzantines is hiding. After assassinating him, Ezio discovers that it was Suleiman's uncle Ahmet who was conspiring with the Byzantines and threatens Sofia's life in exchange for the memory disks.
Upon returning to Constantinople, Ezio discovers that Ahmet has killed Yusuf and abducted Sofia. He gives the disks to Ahmet and rescues Sofia before going after the disks again. He recovers the disks just as Ahmet's brother and Suleiman's father Selim arrives. Selim kills Ahmet and commands Ezio not to return to the city.
The memory disks allow Ezio (and Desmond) to explore further memories from Altaïr's lifetime. After the events of the original game, Altaïr struggled to maintain his new status as mentor, even going into exile for a time due to the scheming of his rival Abbas. Altaïr only returns to Masyaf at an advanced age and is mentor again for a short time as the Mongol invasion gets underway.
The Animus occasionally spits Desmond out of Ezio's memories, where he can relive his own youth, from growing up off the grid to running away to tend bar before being abducted by Abstergo. Eventually, the Animus's safe room disintegrates, deleting Clay and forcing Desmond to continue reliving Ezio's memories.
Ezio and Sofia travel to a now empty Masyaf, where Ezio enters the vault to discover that it is empty save for Altaïr's remains and a final memory disk. The vault was built only to contain Altaïr's Apple, which Ezio decides to leave behind. Ezio senses that Desmond is watching and speaks directly to him, reaching the Sync Nexus that Clay was describing.
The Nexus allows Jupiter, another Precursor being, to speak to Desmond. Jupiter explains that he was working with Minerva and Juno on various attempts to stop a devastating cataclysm from ending the Precursor civilization. They created humans to work for them, but humanity rebelled, with the war distracting from their efforts to stop a coronal mass ejection. They fail and Desmond witnesses the destruction of the First Civilization before Jupiter tells him a second calamity is fast approaching and the key to stopping it lies at the central Precursor vault in New York.
Desmond awakes from his coma and discovers that Rebecca, Shawn, and his father William have transported him to New York while he was in his coma. He states that he knows what they have to do and the central vault activates as the game ends.
Gameplay
Out of all three games, Revelations has the most unique gameplay of the three. The hook blade is introduced, with allows for faster free running and allows for new combat moves. This game also greatly expands the use of bombs from the previous two games. Instead of just smoke bombs, the player can use bombs that distract, incapacitate, or kill enemies.
In this game, the player can recruit Assassins once again, though this time levelling them up goes into greater detail. The player does not necessarily recruit random citizens as in the last game, but there are specialized characters that have special missions when they are recruited. They gain experience in combat and by doing missions around the Eastern Mediterranean. When they reach a high enough level, special missions are unlocked that allows the recruit to become a Master Assassin.
Borgia Towers are replaced by Assassin Dens, which have to be liberated from the Byzantines. The notoriety system of the previous games returns, though this time if the player draws too much attention to themselves, the Byzantines will attack a den. They can be repelled in a sort of tower defense mini-game. The attacks can be permanently stopped if a Master Assassin is assigned to a den.
As with the other two games, there is a economy system that draws incomes from renovations in Constantinople. Collectibles return in the form of chests, Animus data fragments, and pages of an old Assassin's journal. Collecting the journal pages unlocks a special mission in the Hagia Sophia, where the player can unlock a unique armor set.
This was the only game of the Ezio trilogy where I noticed a significant difference in the graphics quality with the remastered edition.
Thoughts
The end of the Ezio story has an extremely moving ending that is carried out at the end of the game when Ezio gives up his Assassin lifestyle and speaks directly to Desmond. It was a long journey, playing as Ezio across three games taking up tens of hours (remember, I shoot for 100% completion), so the ending of his journey was very impactful in my mind.
The gameplay changes did not do much for me, either good or bad. I know a lot people criticized the Den defense mechanic, but if you are careful you only need to do that once early in the game and that is it. The new bombs were certainly interesting, though I perhaps did not use them as much as the game intended unless I was trying to complete a mission a certain way that the game stipulates.
Reliving Desmond's past was interesting, as you can see what he was doing before he was abducted. Playing as Altaïr certainly brought back some nostalgia. Really, this game was about wrapping up Ezio's story and I think it did a tremendous job of this.
But for the sense of finality to this game, the story carries on with Desmond in the present day. But that story is drawing to a close as well.
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