Assassin's Creed: Revelations

=== Setting and characters ===
Assassin's Creed Revelations features all three of the series' major characters up until this point: Desmond Miles (Nolan North), Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad (Cas Anvar), and Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Roger Craig Smith). The main part of the story takes Ezio to Constantinople, present-day Istanbul, in 1511 AD, during the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Four of the city's districts are available to explore: Constantine, Bayezid, Imperial, and Galata. Ezio also briefly travels to Cappadocia, part of which is a completely underground city populated solely by Templars, and Masyaf, where the old Assassins' stronghold is located (featured in the first Assassin's Creed game). He discovers that Altaïr has allegedly sealed the power to end the Assassin-Templar war forever within the fortress, and had the keys hidden in Constantinople.
The game also continues the storylines of both Desmond and Altaïr following the previous games in the series. After falling into a coma at the end of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond has become trapped in the Animus 2.0, where he finds a safe mode known as "the Black Room". Helped by the preserved consciousness of Clay Kaczmarek / Subject 16 (Graham Cuthbertson), Abstergo Industries' previous Animus test subject, he must find a "synch nexus", a key memory that links him with Altaïr and Ezio, to reintegrate his splintered subconscious and awaken from his coma. Altaïr's part of the narrative is told in the form of flashbacks experienced by Ezio through the Masyaf keys he finds, which hold Altaïr's memories. It spans the years 1189–1257 AD and depicts several key moments in Altaïr's life, primarily his struggle to lead the Assassins into a new era after becoming their Mentor.
During the game, Ezio meets a variety of historical figures, including Prince Suleiman (Haaz Sleiman), the man who will one day become one of the Ottoman Empire's greatest Sultans; Suleiman's father, Selim I (Mark Ivanir), and uncle, Ahmet (Tamer Hassan); and Byzantine Templars lurking in the shadows of Constantinople, such as Manuel Palaiologos (Vlasta Vrana), an heir to the now-lost Byzantine Empire, and Shahkulu (Alex Ivanovici), leader of the rebellion of the same name directed against the Ottoman Empire. Ezio's love interest, Sofia Sartor (Anna Tuveri), is based on Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman by Albrecht Dürer. Other in-game characters include Yusuf Tazim (Chris Parson), Piri Reis (Alex Ivanovici), Tarik Barleti (JB Blanc), Ishak Pasha, Sultan Bayezid II, Al Mualim (Peter Renaday), and Niccolò and Maffeo Polo.

Plot

==== Single-player ====
Following the events of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Shaun Hastings stays in Rome to attend Lucy Stillman's funeral, while Rebecca Crane takes the comatose Desmond to his father, William Miles, in New York. To save Desmond's mind, they place him in the Animus's safe mode, the "Black Room". Awakening on Animus Island, a testing program within the Black Room, Desmond meets the consciousness of Clay Kaczmarek, Abstergo's previous Animus test subject, who explains that Desmond must repair his mind by fully reliving his ancestors' memories, at which point the Animus can separate Desmond from his ancestors and awaken him.
Desmond returns to the perspective of Ezio, who, in 1511, travels to the Assassins' former fortress in Masyaf after learning of a library built there by Altaïr. Ezio finds Masyaf occupied by the Templars, who try to execute him, but he escapes and discovers Altaïr has sealed his library using five keys. Ezio travels to Constantinople, where the Templars have already found one key, to search for the rest. While in the city, Ezio meets and befriends Yusuf Tazim, leader of the Ottoman Assassins, and a young student named Suleiman. He also meets Sofia Sartor, an Italian traveler and bookshop owner, and the two fall in love as they work together to find the keys, which were hidden by Niccolò Polo.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Princes Ahmet and Selim are quarreling over who will inherit the Sultanate. Revealing himself as Selim's son, Suleiman asks Ezio to investigate the Byzantine Templars, who are taking advantage of the feud to further their own goals. Ezio discovers that Manuel Palaiologos, with Templar support, is raising an army to overthrow the Ottomans and re-establish the Byzantine Empire. He travels to the Templars' hideout in Cappadocia, where he assassinates Manuel and recovers the final key. However, Ezio discovers Ahmet to be the true Templar leader, who seeks to open Altaïr's library in the belief it will allow him to further the Templar cause by "erasing the superstitions that keep men divided".
During these events, Ezio uses the keys to witness various moments in Altaïr's life. He learns that Altaïr, after killing his traitorous mentor, Al Mualim, took over and tried to reform the Assassins, but was challenged by a former friend, Abbas Sofian. While Altaïr, his wife Maria, and eldest son Darim were away fighting the Mongol invasion, Abbas staged a coup and seized control of the Assassins after executing Altaïr's youngest son, Sef, and best friend, Malik. Altaïr sought revenge, but Maria tried to stop him, leading to her also being killed. Altaïr was subsequently forced into a self-imposed exile but eventually returned to kill Abbas and reclaim leadership of the Assassins. Years later, Altaïr imprinted his memories on the keys before entrusting them to Niccolò.
Returning to Constantinople, Ezio discovers that Ahmet has killed Yusuf and kidnapped Sofia. After trading the keys to rescue Sofia, Ezio pursues Ahmet with her help, and ultimately recovers the keys. Selim, now the Sultan, arrives and kills Ahmet while sparing Ezio due to Suleiman's endorsement, though he banishes him from Constantinople. After completing this memory, the Animus begins to delete excess data. Clay sacrifices himself to save Desmond from being deleted.
Ezio and Sofia return to Masyaf, where Ezio unlocks Altaïr's library, finding it empty except for Altaïr's skeleton holding a sixth key. Through it, Ezio discovers the library was a vault meant to house Altaïr's Apple of Eden and that Altaïr had sealed himself to protect it. Understanding how much Altaïr had lost because of his obsession with seeking knowledge, Ezio chooses to leave the Apple there, having "seen enough for one life". He then speaks directly to Desmond, knowing he is watching, and acknowledges his own role as a conduit for a message. Hoping that Desmond will find the answers he could not and will make both his and Altaïr's suffering be worth it in the end, Ezio activates the Apple before retiring from the Assassins to start a normal life with Sofia.
The Apple displays a message from Jupiter, a member of the First Civilization, who explains that his race had studied methods to save the Earth from destruction and transmitted all the collected data to a central vault: the Grand Temple. Jupiter tells Desmond that he must find the Temple before an impending solar flare wipes out humanity. Awakening from the coma, Desmond finds Rebecca, Shaun, and William next to him, and tells them that he knows what they must do, just as they arrive at the Grand Temple.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer aspect has its own plot from the Templar perspective. After impressing Warren Vidic in the first stage of Abstergo's Animus Training Program, the player is selected to participate in the second stage of the program for further training. Upon being promoted to the rank of Master Templar, the player is allowed into the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order and is implanted with a tracker to ensure their trustworthiness. After reaching level 50, the player is dubbed an active agent and assigned the task of finding and capturing the leader of the Assassin Order: William Miles.

The Lost Archive

During his time in the Black Room, Desmond involuntarily experiences Clay Kaczmarek's memories, learning more about his life. Clay recalls his father's disregard for his career goals, demanding that Clay should become an engineer to provide for his family, and how he believed that his father's focus on wealth pushed his mother away from the family. Eventually, Clay was approached by William Miles, who invited him to join the Assassins. In 2010, he was tasked with infiltrating Abstergo Industries' Animus Project laboratory in Rome to uncover what Warren Vidic hoped to achieve by exploring the genetic memories of various Assassins. Lucy Stillman, an Assassin herself, had also been placed within the facility to extract Clay once his mission was complete.
Becoming Subject 16 of the Animus Project, Clay was forced to relive his ancestors' memories to the point of being driven insane, but eventually learned that Vidic was searching for the locations of various Pieces of Eden. In particular, Vidic focused on finding an Apple of Eden, which was meant to be launched aboard a satellite to mentally enslave the human race. Clay also secretly witnessed conversations between Lucy and Vidic, and discovered that Lucy had betrayed the Assassins and joined the Templars due to her distrust of William Miles and feeling abandoned by the Brotherhood. To obtain the Apple, Vidic masterminded "Project Siren", which would see Lucy remove Desmond from the Abstergo facility and transport him to a more comfortable environment, where she could use the Assassins' resources to locate the Apple before delivering it to the Templars. When Lucy eventually found out that Clay had learned about this plan, she got rid of the evidence proving he knew the truth and imprisoned him inside the facility, both to protect him and to keep her true allegiances secret.
These memories continue in a loop until Desmond collects all the fragments scattered throughout them, which allow him to access a final memory. In it, Clay emails his father to tell him not to worry about his disappearance, because he has found a greater purpose to serve, foreshadowing his suicide.