Summary
TheAssassin’s Creedfranchise has a lot going for it. Back when the firstAssassin’s Creedreleased in 2007, there were few big-budget stealth open-world games on the market, and over the next few years theAssassin’s Creedseries quickly filled that niche with its unique blend of parkour, stealth, and combat. But while those are all core parts ofAssassin’s Creed’s identity, they aren’t usually what set the series apart from its competition. Instead, it’s oftenAssassin’s Creed’s historical setting that’s the series' biggest selling point.
Working alongside actual historians, eachAssassin’s Creedfocuses on a completely new time period and historical setting, and a great deal of work goes into ensuring each one looks and feels authentic and accurate. But with eachAssassin’s Creedgame delving into a new time period, it’s only natural that the overall series timeline has gotten a little convoluted over the years, with the series' 13 mainline entries covering a span of well over 1000 years now.
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Explaining Assassin’s Creed’s Timeline
Chronologically, the very first game in theAssassin’s Creedfranchise isAssassin’s Creed Odyssey. Set in Ancient Greece,Assassin’s Creed Odysseysees players control eitherKassandra or Alexiosas they battle their way through the Peloponnesian War, uncovering some pretty big cosmic secrets along the way. Along withAssassin’s Creed Origins, which is set a few hundred years after,Odysseypeels back the curtain on how the Assassins and the Templars came to be, originally known as the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients respectively. These games also reveal a bit more about the First Civilization, also known as the Isu, a highly advanced species that lived 77,000 years ago and was wiped out by a solar flare, but not before they created humanity and passed on their own consciousness through their DNA.
The timeline then skips forward by 900 years, reachingthe most recent entry,Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which centers around a Hidden One named Basim. Basim goes on to be featured inAssassin’s Creed Valhalla, set just a few decades afterMirage, where it’s revealed he’s the ancestor of Loki, one of the ancient Isu that’s passed down their consciousness.Valhalla’s protagonist Evior is the reincarnation of another Isu, Odin.
Skipping forward a few hundred years, the very firstAssassin’s Creedgame is set during the Third Holy Crusade, where Assassin Altair finds a Piece of Eden, an ancient Isu artifact of unknown power. Another few hundred years later, the Ezio trilogy begins. Set in the Renaissance era,Assassin’s Creed’s Ezio trilogy ends with Ezio finding that same Piece of Eden. 200 years later,Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flagsees Edward Kenway become a pirate lord and a member of the Assassin Order. His son, Haytham Kenway joins the Templars instead, and his own son,Assassin’s Creed 3’s Connor Kenway, joins the Assassins.Assassin’s Creed UnityandSyndicatefollow pretty much straight after.
Of course, there’s a whole other section ofAssassin’s Creed’s story that doesn’t fit quite as snugly on the timeline. Throughout the series, there are multiple modern-day segments, where players control a character outside the Animus. These modern-day segments tend to move forward linearly between each new entry. Chronologically, the first modern-day protagonist is Desmond, introduced in the firstAssassin’s Creed. InAssassin’s Creed 3, Desmond sacrifices himself to stop another solar flare from hitting the Earth. The current modern-day protagonist is Layla, who recovered the Staff of Hermes from the Isu facility Atlantis, and was tricked intofreeing Basim/Lokifrom the Isu super-computer known as Yggdrasil. Trapped inside the network of information known as The Grey, Layla works with the disembodied Desmond to prevent another global disaster from taking place.
