Assassin's Creed II is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the second major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and the sequel to 2007's Assassin's Creed. The game was first released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in November 2009, and was later made available on Microsoft Windows in March 2010 and OS X in October 2010.
The game's plot is set in a fictional history of real-world events and follows the millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight to preserve peace and free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and follows Desmond Miles as he relives the genetic memories of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, to uncover the mysteries left behind by an ancient race known as the First Civilization in the hope of ending the Assassin-Templar conflict. The main narrative takes place at the height of the Renaissance in Italy from 1476 to 1499, and follows Ezio's journey as an Assassin while seeking revenge against those responsible for the death of his father and brothers. Gameplay focuses on using Ezio's combat, stealth, and parkour abilities to defeat enemies and explore the environment. The game features a large open world comprising several Italian cities, including Florence, Venice, Monteriggioni, San Gimignano, and Forlì, all of which have been accurately recreated to fit the game's historical setting.
Using a newly updated Anvil game engine, Assassin's Creed II began development shortly after the release of Assassin's Creed. As part of the marketing campaign for the game, Ubisoft released a three-part live-action short film, titled Assassin's Creed: Lineage, which serves as a prequel to the main story and stars most of the game's cast. During development, two chapters—titled The Battle of Forlì and Bonfire of the Vanities—were cut from the game due to time constraints, but were eventually released as downloadable expansion packs on Xbox Live and later to other platforms. Additional in-game bonuses such as missions, outfits, and weapons could be redeemed through Ubisoft's Uplay service.
Assassin's Creed II received universal critical acclaim from video game publications, with praise for its narrative, characters, world design, and improvements over the first game; however, the PC version was met with some criticism in relation to the digital rights management system, and thus had the always-online DRM permanently removed. Considered one of the best video games ever made, it sold more than nine million copies within six months. The game spawned two direct sequels: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2010) and Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011), and a spin-off, Assassin's Creed II: Discovery (2009), all of which expand on Ezio's story while introducing new plotlines, characters, and locations. The next numbered entry in the series, Assassin's Creed III, was released in 2012. Remastered versions of Assassin's Creed II, along with Brotherhood and Revelations, were released as part of The Ezio Collection compilation for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 15, 2016, and for the Nintendo Switch on February 17, 2022.
Gameplay Assassin's Creed II is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective and set in an open world based on late 15th-century Renaissance Italy. Gameplay is nonlinear, and focuses on hack and slash combat, stealth, and exploration. The Animus 2.0, a new version of the machine of the same name present in Assassin's Creed, provides in-game context for changes and additions to several game elements. A database is also available, providing extra historical information about key landmarks, characters, and services that the player encounters. The health system has been made more dynamic, with synchronization to the Animus and causing the character to recover only from minor injuries. More grievous injuries require visiting a street-side doctor or use of medicine (which can be purchased from doctors or found on bodies).
The player may now swim in water, and Eagle Vision—the ability to identify specific people and landmarks—can now be used in third-person view and while moving. A young Leonardo da Vinci is present in the game, aiding the player by creating new weapons from translated "Codex pages" that Altaïr, the original game's main character, left behind for future Assassins' analysis and insight. Leonardo's flying machine (based on real-life aeroplanes) can also be used during one mission. Other means of transport available in the game include horses, which can only be ridden outside of the major cities; gondolas, found most prominently in Venice; and a carriage, which is also ridden during a mission involving Leonardo. Each of the places the player can visit is more detailed compared to Assassin's Creed, and NPCs have a more human-like behavior; for example, civilians can sometimes be caught coughing or sneezing. Additionally, the player can hire groups of mercenaries, courtesans, or thieves to fight, distract, or lure guards, respectively. A day and night cycle has been added to the game, giving the game more of a sense of time, in addition to setting missions and events at certain times of the day.
There are many ways to interact with NPCs. Money can be thrown to the ground, or a corpse carried and then deposited on the ground, may also serve as a distraction for both guards and peasants. There are also several different types of enemies, some more agile or stronger than others, and some of whom will actively search hiding places where Ezio was last seen. The player can also mock an enemy during combat.
The combat system is more complex than that of its predecessor, with the ability to disarm opponents using counter-attacks while unarmed. If the player steals an enemy's weapon, it is possible to follow up with an attack that instantly kills the enemy. Leonardo provides the player with specialized weaponry, such as dual hidden blades, poison blades, and the hidden gun (a miniature wheellock firearm), which are all based on schematics found in Altaïr's Codex pages. Generic swords, cutlasses, maces, axes, and daggers can all be purchased from vendors in each city. The player can also pick up any weapon on the ground or use improvised weapons, such as brooms or halves of a spear. In addition, players are able to purchase artwork for their villa, obtain new armor as the game progresses, and even dye Ezio's clothing with a number of different colors. Other equipment includes larger pouches to carry more throwing knives and medicine. Six additional weapons can be unlocked in the PlayStation 3 version of the game by connecting the console to a PlayStation Portable which contains a copy of Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines.
The Auditore family's countryside villa, located in Monteriggioni, acts as Ezio's personal headquarters. The surrounding property, which includes vendors selling items such as medicine, weapons, and clothing dyes, can be upgraded with earned florins, granting Ezio discounts at the shops and increasing the passive income that is generated by the villa over time. This income is deposited in a chest inside the villa, and must be collected regularly. Purchasing upgrades for Ezio and paintings also increases the villa's overall worth.
There is now a broader array of methods for hiding or blending in the area. One can dive underwater to break guards' line of sight, and blending may be performed with any group of people, rather than only a specific type (as in the first Assassin's Creed). The game features a notoriety system, with guards more alert to Ezio's presence depending on his behavior, location, and current mission. This infamy can be reduced through bribery, removing wanted posters, or assassinating corrupt officials.
The missions in the game now have an expanded variety, with different structuring. For example, a mission may have the objective to escort someone but may change to a chase and assassination. An investigation is less explicit, and instead, missions may follow people and/or a narrative. There are roughly 150 missions in the game, two thirds of which are part of the main storyline, while the rest are optional side quests, like assassination contracts and races. Cities also contain hidden locations such as catacombs and caves (the design of which have been compared by the developers to the Prince of Persia series), where the objective is to navigate the area. Exploring these locations eventually rewards the player with an Assassin's Seal; the collection of all six Seals allows the player to unlock the Armor of Altaïr, which is stored in a concealed section of the Villa.
Like Assassin's Creed, characters based on historical figures are present in the game, including Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, Caterina Sforza, Bartolomeo d'Alviano, the Medici family, the Pazzi family, the Barbarigo family, the Loredan family, and Pope Alexander VI. Locations in the game include the Tuscany region (Florence, Monteriggioni and San Gimignano), the Apennine Mountains, the Romagna region (Forlì), Venice, and the Vatican (only available during the final mission of the game). Specific landmarks include St Mark's Basilica, the Grand Canal, the Little Canal, the Rialto Bridge, Santa Maria del Fiore, the Sistine Chapel, Santa Croce, Palazzo Vecchio, Ponte Vecchio, and Santa Maria Novella.
Plot Following the events of Assassin's Creed, Desmond Miles (Nolan North) is rescued from Abstergo by undercover Assassin Lucy Stillman (Kristen Bell) and taken to a safehouse, where he meets her team, consisting of historian and analyst Shaun Hastings (Danny Wallace) and technician Rebecca Crane (Eliza Schneider). They have constructed their own Animus, which they intend to use to train Desmond as an Assassin through the "bleeding effect," which allows the user to learn their ancestor's skills at a rapid pace. Desmond is instructed to relive the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Roger Craig Smith), born into a wealthy Florentine family in 1459, during the Italian Renaissance.
By 1476, Ezio has grown into a charismatic but reckless young man. After his father Giovanni (Romano Orzari) and brothers Federico (Elias Toufexis) and Petruccio are framed for treason and executed by corrupt magistrate Uberto Alberti (Michel Perron), Ezio retrieves his father's Assassin equipment and murders Uberto in revenge. Ezio and his remaining family—his mother Maria (Ellen David) and sister Claudia (Angela Galuppo)—flee Florence and head to their ancestral home in Monteriggioni. There, Ezio's uncle Mario (Fred Tatasciore) explains their family's role as members of the Assassin Brotherhood, and reveals that Giovanni was killed because he had uncovered a conspiracy masterminded by the Templar Order, the Assassins' sworn enemies.