Assassin's Creed: Revelations is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the fourth major installment of the Assassin's Creed series, and a direct sequel to 2010's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, concluding the "Ezio Trilogy". The game was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows in November and December 2011. A remastered version of Revelations, along with Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood, was 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.
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 features the series protagonist Desmond Miles who, after falling into a coma during the events of Brotherhood, must relive the memories of his ancestors through the Animus in order to awaken and find a way to avert the 2012 apocalypse. The main story spans the years 1511 and 1512 and follows an aged Ezio Auditore da Firenze (the protagonist of the trilogy) as he travels to Constantinople to find five keys needed to unlock a library built by Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad (the protagonist of the first game in the series). In Constantinople, Ezio becomes caught in a war of succession for the Ottoman throne and must unravel a conspiracy by the Byzantine Templars, who are attempting to reclaim control of the city and acquire the keys to Altaïr's library themselves.
Revelations features an open world and is played from the third-person perspective, with a primary focus on using Ezio's and Altaïr's combat, climbing and stealth abilities to eliminate targets and explore the environment. Ezio, whom the player controls throughout the majority of the game, can freely explore Constantinople and complete side missions unrelated to the main storyline. Altaïr is playable in a smaller capacity, as he is featured only in a series of flashback missions set in Masyaf from 1189 to 1257. In the modern-day, the player controls Desmond in a series of first-person platforming levels within the Animus. The multiplayer mode returns from Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and has been expanded with additional maps, characters, and game modes.
The game was released with multiple editions, some of which featured exclusive limited-time content. Most notably, several editions included an animated short film, titled Assassin's Creed: Embers, which serves as a proper conclusion to Ezio's story, and which was later re-released as a free download on the PlayStation Store. Downloadable content (DLC) released for the game includes new maps and characters for the multiplayer mode, and a story expansion titled The Lost Archive, which adds more platforming levels to the modern-day.
Upon release, Revelations received largely positive reviews, with praise directed at the world design and narrative, although some reviewers noted that the gameplay of the series was getting overly familiar and the newly introduced features felt lacking in comparison to the ones introduced in previous titles. The game was a large commercial success, outperforming the sales of its predecessors. It was followed in October 2012 by Assassin's Creed III, which introduces a new storyline and protagonist in the New World during the 18th century, while also concluding Desmond's story arc.
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed: Revelations is an action-adventure, stealth game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game features three distinct protagonists: Ezio Auditore, Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad, and Desmond Miles. When playing as Ezio or Altaïr, the game retains the series' standard gameplay formula, consisting of a mixture of combat, stealth, and exploration. While the base gameplay remains virtually unchanged from the previous title, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Revelations does add several new features; most notably, the "Hookblade," which acts as a replacement for Ezio's second Hidden Blade (which is broken at the beginning of the game). The Hookblade is intended to facilitate traversal and compensate for Ezio's old age, allowing him to climb buildings much faster and reach further ledges. It can also be used to jump over large gaps and access ziplines across the environment. Reportedly, the Hookblade speeds up navigation by around 30 percent. The Hookblade also has applications in combat, allowing for new moves such as grabbing and yanking enemies for a combo attack.
Another new aspect of the game is bomb crafting. Introduced early on in the story, this mechanic allows Ezio to experiment with different shells and ingredients to create bombs with various effects, such as smoke to distract guards or lethal explosions that can take out large groups of enemies. There are around 15 different bomb variations in the game, although only three can be equipped at any given time.
Revelations is primarily set in the city of Constantinople during the rise of the Ottoman Empire. It is similar in size to Rome from Brotherhood, and just like it, it can be renovated by purchasing different stores, such as armories, book shops, and apothecaries. Doing so not only grants Ezio access to that store's services, but also increases the passive income generated by the city, which is deposited in the bank and must be collected regularly. The player can also renovate several of Constantinople's landmarks, like the Galata Tower, Hagia Sophia, and the Topkapı Palace, to increase their overall income. Other locations visited during the story include Masyaf and Cappadocia.
Similarly to Brotherhoods "Borgia tower" system, players can gradually take control of Constantinople from the Templars by destroying their towers in each of the city's districts and killing the Templar captain stationed there. However, this feature has been expanded, as now the Templars will attempt to reclaim their towers if Ezio's notoriety becomes too high and the player has not yet taken over all the Templar dens. When this occurs, the player will have to defend the tower in a "Den Defense" minigame, where they control a group of Assassins from the rooftops and must fight off multiple waves of Templar soldiers and siege equipment.
Another returning feature from Brotherhood is the ability to recruit Assassin initiates and call them for support during missions or send them on assignments to other cities around the Mediterranean Sea, which are controlled by the Templars. By completing contracts, the initiates gain experience and level up, granting them access to better equipment, and also reduce the Templar influence in a particular region. When Templar control over a city is weakened enough, the Assassins can launch an attack to try and take it over. To prevent the Templars from reconquering a city, Ezio can assign up to five Assassins to be permanently stationed there. An Assassin recruit who has reached the highest possible rank can be assigned to serve as the "Den Master" for any of the Assassin-controlled towers in Constantinople. This allows them to level up five additional ranks and also unlocks a unique mission for each district, in which Ezio and the Assassin hunt down a dangerous Templar in that area of the city.
Other side activities include Piri Reis Missions, which teach the player about the different types of bombs that can be crafted; Guild Challenges for any of the three ally factions in the game (Thieves, Mercenaries, and the Romani); and finding rare books for Ezio's love interest, Sofia Sartor. In-game collectibles include treasure chests, Animus data fragments, and Ishak Pasha's Memoir Pages, the last of which unlock a secret mission akin to the Assassin Tombs from Assassin's Creed II and Lairs of Romulus from Brotherhood, in which Ezio must explore the inside of Hagia Sophia to retrieve Pasha's armor set.
Outside of the Ezio sequences, the game also features six Altaïr memories, which are unlocked after Ezio retrieves each "key" for the Masyaf library. In these sequences, Ezio is reliving key memories from Altaïr's life in Masyaf, during which the player controls the latter. Besides Ezio and Altaïr, the player can also play as Desmond in the modern day, whose mind is stuck in the computerized core of the Animus, known as "Animus Island." The island acts as a mini-hub, from where Desmond can access five memory sequences known as "Desmond's Journey," as long as the player has collected enough data fragments or has The Lost Archive DLC installed. These sequences play differently from anything that has come before in the series, as they involve first-person platforming and puzzles, while the story is provided in the form of narration by Desmond, who recounts his life prior to the events of the first Assassin's Creed game.
The console versions of the game support the stereoscopic 3D mode for both 3D-HD and 2D-HD television screens. All Revelations gameplay videos and cinematics have S3D support.
Multiplayer Multiplayer gameplay also makes a return in Revelations, and builds upon the basic game modes from Brotherhood with new characters and locations and improved matchmaking and game interface. Before release, Ubisoft stated that although this component is returning, the narrative, which is considered more important to the franchise, is an area of greater focus. As players level up in multiplayer, they move up in their Abstergo Templar rank and gain access to more information about the company.
New multiplayer modes are added to the already existing modes, including "story-oriented quests," as well as a much-requested Capture the Flag mode. Some multiplayer maps are based in the island of Rhodes. Among the new additions is a new multiplayer mode — Deathmatch — which differs from the previous multiplayer gameplay in that there is no compass pointing toward your assigned target, rather, there is a box in the top right of the screen where your current target is displayed, which glows blue when you enter the line of sight of your target. There is also Simple Deathmatch, which also removes the abilities and perks from the players.
The multiplayer function is protected by the Uplay Passport system on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which requires a code for access. Codes are included in all new copies of the game but are tied to a single Uplay account. This means that players who purchased their copy secondhand will need to purchase a new code to access the multiplayer. Uplay players could buy a new Passport code online or activate a free trial.
Players who preordered the game with specific editions received three exclusive multiplayer characters: the Ottoman Jester, the Crusader, and the Ottoman Doctor. Those who played the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer received the Courtesan, a character who also appeared in the multiplayer for Brotherhood. More characters and maps were later added via downloadable content.
Ubisoft announced that the multiplayer servers for Revelations, alongside several other of their older titles, would be shut down on September 1, 2022. The date was later delayed to October 1, 2022. This turns all multiplayer-related achievements and trophies on the original console versions unobtainable.
Synopsis Setting and characters