All Assassin's Creed Protagonists Ranked

I just worked in the shadows and I will kill you all everyone who sniffed the air that day in favor even if you aren't in Assassin's Creed fan you know the iconography the image of a hooded assassin with a strange wrist blade has carved its own niche in the modern Zeitgeist and it allows a wide variety of different characters from different time periods to take on the mantle of main protagonist while retaining a level of familiarity that said Special Care has always been put into differentiating these characters from those who came before to the point that even those tried and true character designs are no longer a constant this franchise has had its fair share of highs and lows when it comes to Main protagonists and unlike the beautiful worlds that I showcased in my settings video the characters that live in these worlds don't always hit the right Mark so in this video I want to focus on the characters themselves and how well utilized they are in the stories they are in I will be ranking the protagonists from the mainline open world game specifically while some of these characters are fleshed out significantly more in outside material like the novelizations and Comics it is the job of the games themselves to present a full picture of these protagonists so I'm not going to take those materials into account I'm also only ranking the main historical protagonists from each game that means Desmond Layla and unnamed abstergo employee are also off the table this is just a ranking of the main characters not any other characters you might happen to play as over the course of the game this is also a much more subjective topic than ranking the settings of these games while some characters clearly did get more time in the writing room than others whether or not they actually mesh with you in the end is just a personal thing so it's not like there can be a definitive ranking however people were asking me to make this video and I figured it would be a fun one to make as a result I'm interested in hearing what your favorite protagonists are in the comments I want to let you know that I am going to be spoiling some major character beats for the entries on this list so here is your warning for that otherwise here is my list for the Assassin's Creed main protagonists ranked the fight is mine Seeger is only here to watch me feed Uranus to my Raven avor is a really interesting character whose presence really doesn't live up to her premise while The Reincarnation of an ISU God should make for some riveting character work the game she is in does very little to capitalize on that good idea the game offers hints at a deep sense of survivor's guilt a poetic nature to contrast her bloodthirsty Tendencies and an overpowering loyalty to her people but these traits simply aren't expanded upon a whole lot in the game while Odyssey did its best to allow its characters eccentric personalities to shine regardless of what dialogue options you chose in Valhalla avor feels more like an empty player Avatar than any other protagonist in the series the structure of Assassin's Creed valhalla's story and side content simply gives her very little time to shine she'll travel to new regions and we get to see her react to other more interesting characters but we don't get to see her develop as a character herself a whole lot there is one scene where avor and the hidden one known as bassum sit around a campfire and reflect on their lives it's one of the most powerful and Well Done scenes in the series let alone Valhalla itself and it's a shame that in a 200 plus hour game we only get a couple minutes to really see what avor's character could have been all I had I'll have my best dress ready or my worst fear not Gerard I'll uncover his true purpose a pattern of these lower ranked characters is they all have great potential but their stories don't give them the room to show off their personalities Aveline is a victim of being in a handheld game in more ways than one strange storytelling decisions minimal cut scenes and a lack of interesting characters for Aveline to bounce off of make her presence in her own game hard to remember Liberation is attempting to tell a nuanced story about growing up as a wealthy mixed race woman in 1700s Louisiana but most of these themes are thrown to the Wayside as its very muddled plot stretches on and fails to find ground aveline's ability to credibly pass between social and racial groups due to her upbringing is an interesting idea but the Thematic weight of that concept was clearly too heavy for Ubisoft to do anything meaningful with no other assassin is ever put in a position where they are maintaining a public-facing alter ego but once again it's just a cool idea that the game hardly explores Aveline has great outfit design and she remains to this day the only woman who has ever been allowed to act as the sole protagonist of an open world AC game she deserved better than Assassin's Creed Liberation I will not die today the same cannot be said for you following up the iconic Ezio auditory was always going to be a daunting task and raduna gedu also known as Conor by those outside of his birth home was heavily criticized upon the release of AC3 his Brute Force approach to life and his anti-social behaviors made him a far cry from what fans were used to that said I think fan reception has softened a bit in hindsight like with the last two characters on this list there is a powerful story beneath the surface redunagedu is an idealist who fights in vain against a colonizing force that threatens to take away everything he loves not realizing until it's too late that he is being used by all parties involved inside content like the homestead missions badunage comes off as very nuanced he is wise but inexperienced caring but reserved socially unsure but decisive when the stakes are high problem is the Whiplash you feel when you play through the main content and a lot of these strengths are nowhere to be found instead having the character come off as childish angsty and unintelligent this is in large part because of the way he is written when speaking to the antagonists in the game AC3 attempts to call back to the gray morality of ac-1 in which Altair would have his beliefs challenged in thoughtful conversation by his targets before their deaths in AC3 the villains simply aren't as complex they have less to say and the audience can easily poke holes in their arguments so to make them seem like they have a point the writers make redoon hege do Dumber to compensate instead of back and forth conversation we're doing again we usually childishly chastise the target then the target will call him an idiot and then they'll die you wields your Played Like a Man but your life like a child every single one of his six main targets makes a point to acknowledge verdunage stupidity and naivete really hammering in that theme much more than the actual philosophical differences between them it seems your tongue is tasted sour grapes in the side content and even a cut speech that was included in the novelization where do negative isn't dumb but instead blindly hopeful and stubborn in his beliefs unfortunately the story presents this by making him seem less intelligent when that is what is narratively convenient which I think is a disservice to the character he also suffers from Forest Gump syndrome the Assassin's Creed series loves inserting its characters into famous historical events but I think AC3 just goes overboard instead of having these Landmark moments and characters interspersed throughout the story Purdue negative is inexplicably present for a lot of the most well-known moments of the Revolutionary War even ones that really don't fit in Assassin's Creed game it makes him feel like a fanfic OC insert in moments where it's revealed that it was actually him that held the Reigns for the horse during Paul Revere's ride and Revere himself just pointed stiffly in the opposite direction of where they were trying to go Ezio trying to stop the Patsy conspiracy was interesting being slightly out of frame staring grumply while the Declaration of Independence was being signed maybe a bit less so in somber moments when Radu negative looks out at a country that both needs him and is willing to abandon him once his purpose is served the potential for a great character is seen so Crystal clearly once again however Ubisoft buckled under the weight of historical themes that they just couldn't handle and radoon hagedu suffers for it what are you doing there running Arno has such a great start in Assassin's Creed Unity he is portrayed fantastically by Dan janat and he immediately makes his Mark with his quick wit and Reckless attitude he comes off his slightly derivative of Ezio what with the clear homage to Ezio's original outfit and personality but he does stand on his own arno's privilege is contrasted with his status as an outcast he is well read and cultured but also a hard worker who is deeply loyal to those who took him in and while Ezio was quickly established as a ladies man Arno only has eyes for his sister adopted sister unfortunately Unity just doesn't prioritize building up his character many of the sequences in the game are two or three missions long in which a Target is identified Arno talks with the council and then an assassination occurs it leaves very little time for Arno to get fleshed out let alone for any of the other characters too arno's love interest Elise does get her time in the spotlight but other relationships are terribly rushed Arno meets morally questionable characters like the Marquis De Assad and Napoleon and I was left wondering if I missed something when Arno would go from distrust deventing his personal frustrations with these dangerous strangers in the span of a minute while his sarcastic nature starts out as fun it starts to get a little irritating as the story stretches on and the script feels like it's using these mean-spirited quips to express arno's personality instead of giving him interesting dialogue while side content is usually a place where you can give characters extra depth unity's side content sees Arno almost exclusively silent with no missions built around adding to his character I talked about avor being reduced to a player Avatar oftentimes but Arno is a borderline MMO protagonist outside of the main plot while we're doing a gaydu's character is elevated heavily by the side content Arno doesn't get that luxury so we only have what the relatively brief main plot gives us even with the limited time we spend with him including the DLC they managed to give Arno two dad death origin stories and three drunken stupors that he had to power his way out of to find new purpose which feels a little lazy I wish the writers let Arno show off his personality more because he is conceptually interesting as a character he's not a True Believer in the Creed and his own selfish motives push him forward in a world where the assassins and Templars have essentially become political entities exclusively I think that's a cool idea but we just don't get enough of that and the themes of extremism that the narrative touches on in relation to the French Revolution remained very shallow because of that when the game ends and Arno is giving this out of nowhere speech about the dangers of dogmatic thinking it feels unearned because the game barely featured the horrors of the French Revolution in the first place and didn't let Arno react to them much at all it is in my opinion a testament to janat's Fantastic voice and motion capture performance that the characters still managed to charm me with all these narrative and structural issues no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness but he shunned your Graces as was his right I feel like this is going to be one of the more controversial placings on this list out of 11 assassins I am putting the grandfather of them all Altair slightly below the halfway point if I were ranking these characters based on their in-universe impact then Altair would be much higher he has the template for the series's basic character design and he made the Assassin Brotherhood into the force we know it as in all subsequent games in ac1 we see him overcome his arrogance to become a man worthy of leading the Assassins into a new era something we watch him do over the course of Bloodlines and the flashbacks in Revelations my problem is that his portrayal across these games feels scattered surface level and inconsistent his dialogue in the assassination sequences of ac-1 is still some of the most interesting writing the series has ever had with thoughtful debates that showcase his intelligence empathy and curiosity outside of these scenes however his dialogue is very wooden with an out of place American accent that doesn't do him any favors it fits the structure of ac1 but gives him less to chew on compared to later characters in more cinematic games is relatively cliche Redemption Arc opens up the floor for more interesting stories to follow but what we get in Revelations and Bloodlines ends up being a little all over the place I read the secret Crusade when I was younger and I recommend it to any and all fans of the series it follows Altair through his entire life from his father's sacrifice all the way up through his obsessive quest to understand the pieces of Eden his story is tragic and moving but a vast majority of the most interesting stuff is relegated to this supplementary reading material as I said it is the job of the games to give these characters depth and the Altier we get in game is just so much less complex than the man we see in the books if you only play the games his revenge story and Revelations is pushed so far to the side that the player will barely have time to connect with characters like his wife Maria and his lifelong enemy Abbas both of whom have their entire backstory summed up for the player in a couple expository lines I get why this is he isn't the main character of Revelations the series was still figuring itself out narratively in ac1 and Bloodlines was just a portable spin-off a step back it's surprising how little of Altair's story has been done Justice despite how iconic he is more so than any other character I would love to see a return to Altair to give him the game he deserves personally I think I'll look into his time in Mongolia in his middle age would be really interesting but I think any opportunity to flesh him out to a wider audience would be worthwhile hell welcomes traitors like you did I go there proudly knowing I have done right one thing I had to do before fairly ranking Shay was separate my opinion of him from the character we were promised in marketing we were told Shea would be the Rogue assassin the ruthless anti-hero who betrayed his people with vicious Prejudice instead Shea is a jovial very moral man he is constantly shown doing things for the sake of others not for the sake of orders and his overcooked accent makes him feel lovable even in the game's tensor moments this was a bit of a disappointment the Shea ended up being less of a surprise than I'd hoped but ranking him on his own Shay is a solid protagonist his relationships with his former Brotherhood contrast well with his back and forth banter with fan favorite Hazen Kenway and it's cool to see an inside look at what the Templars were doing between the intro and Main segments of AC3 it's important to note that the game really does fail to properly portray the gray area between assassins and Templars instead just showcasing the Assassins doing cartoonishly evil things to justify Shea's defection the other assassins in this series and on this list aren't exactly moral beacons of light so it's not like we needed them to be accidentally leveling cities and paying gangs to harass elderly people in order for us to connect with Shea I can't help but think of how much more interesting Shea would have been if the story were more nuanced but as it stands he still holds the Zone against the other Main protagonists in this series don't die most people rank Jacob and Evie separately but I see them as a package deal who work in tandem to make their story work Jacob is unpredictable and impulsive while Evie is calculating and dutiful allowing for a fun sibling Dynamic that carries The Narrative of the game many criticisms of the characters are going to come down to tone and if you're not a fan of the humor in Assassin's Creed Syndicate then you're gonna find the twins hard to stomach especially Jacob however if you don't mind that the game doesn't take itself too seriously overall you will most likely enjoy their familial back and forth banter the development of their relationship as they learn to trust each other and work together is cliche but the earnest love they have for one another and their fun rivalry still made it enjoyable to experience The Narrative gives the characters a lot of time to breathe and express themselves and while humor is a focal point of the story the game is not without its dramatic moments unfortunately it is all heavily skewed toward Jacob despite being marketed as Jacob being the brawler and Evie being the sneaky one Jacob ends up getting both the combat heavy and assassination based missions this leaves Evie with a side Arc where she looks for a piece of Eden and falls in love because she needed to have a love story I guess it just feels very imbalanced but even with that the performances of Paul Amos and Victoria Atkin are superb and the over-the-top relationships they build with their contacts in and around the city are very fun to explore giving the twins plenty of fun personalities to bounce off of and if you did want some harder-hitting narrative beats Evie and Jacob both continue to shine in the Bleaker Jack the Ripper DLC which is one of the few stories I played through that stars a middle-aged woman which is cool the twins aren't for everybody but it's clear that the writers cared a lot about building fun Charming characters for this entry and I think they did a good job I'm looking for the one called Kira come in response to a call for help who missed while the RPG system stripped avor of a lot of her personality the team behind Odyssey was able to make Cassandra a distinct presence with a clear temperament whether you decide to play her as a cautious killer or a bloodthirsty mercenary Cassandra comes off as relaxed fun-loving and with a brutal streak to her despite dragging on longer than it should the main story does a very good job of keeping Cassandra's motives focused clearly on her family and her attempts to confront her past and ancestry the tension that builds as she tries to determine if her brother demos can truly be saved hits the right emotional notes and her Adventure feels sprawling and exciting reminiscent of 80's adventure films Melissa mahut's performance is just so charismatic exuding confidence throughout the story she does a great job of balancing Cassandra's self-assuredness with her loneliness and Trauma over having lost her family as a child just like with the twins Cassandra will not be for everyone plus the RPG dialogue options get in the way of what should be some poignant moments while avor really only gets the campfire scene Cassandra gets her fair share of well-acted character moments but it doesn't stop those moments that don't hit from really sticking out due to the lack of mocab in certain cutscenes for me Cassandra worked and her quest to bring her family together was one that I was invested in from beginning to end I think she's a lot of fun and while I would have preferred a shorter game if it would have meant more fleshed out cutscenes I very much enjoy what we do have from her father anymore [Music] is such a personable and realistic character his interactions with NPCs feel so natural and the character's charm is immediately identifiable at the same time from the very first moment you meet by it you can feel the intensity of Abu Bakr salim's performance and there are several bone chilling bits of dialogue that he gets to play with on top of that the love between him and his wife Aya feels really natural too which is really nice coming after Evie and Henry especially the character's tragic circumstances are established early on but the game does a fantastic job of balancing his rage and sadness with his Keen mind and protective nature Origins is full of subtle moments in which bayat connects to those around him in casual ways humanizing him and showcasing the character's empathy he strikes a balance between brooding and caring that fictional characters often times Miss while bayek is an amazing character what keeps him out of the top too for me is once again the story the strong emotional start to the plot Fizzles out part way through and eventually the character feels like he's just doing things to push the story forward the main antagonists are the least memorable final enemies in AC history in my opinion and while I'm not ranking the bad guys it takes a lot for a story to make me stop caring about the men who murdered the protagonist's child because of how much the plot falls off bayek also starts becoming less interesting to me just because I simply can't remember what he was up to for large chunks of the game unless I go back and play it bayak has moments in AC Origins that I think are some of the best scenes in gaming history and even if he's a little too big for the game that he's in that doesn't stop him from being a Powerhouse of a main protagonist my story is one of many thousands and the world will not suffer evidence too soon [Applause] Altier may have started the train but it was Ezio that ensured it wouldn't be stopping anytime soon Ezio was an incredibly popular character at launch and he remained so to this day Roger Craig Smith and the writers created a character that was so endearing while also coming off as believably dangerous the 20-year epic that is Assassin's Creed 2 allowed the character a lot more development than we usually get in these games The Arrogant but hesitant boy we meet at the start of the game is a far cry from the man we ended with seal was the perfect balance of suave rugged violent and compassionate and he was an immediate hit across the board without Ezio this franchise May well have died a decade ago did overstay his welcome a little and despite the introspective nature of Ezio's role in Revelations he does dip pretty far into action hero territory by the end fighting enemies midair while falling off cliffs blowing up cities to chase down Templars who can barely run and sweeping significantly younger damsels in distress off their feet but even if his first installment hits the hardest narratively the player can't help but feel like they have been with Ezio for every step of his Adventure seeing his birth in the prologue of ac2 and watching him die surrounded by his loved ones in AC Embers Ezio's life truly was an epic and his Trilogy did him Justice in the end for years I've been rushing around taking whatever I fancied not giving a tinker's curse for those I heard here I am with riches and reputation feeling no wiser than when I left home the Assassin's Creed franchise had some amazing characters but no game has done a better job of showcasing its protagonist than Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag Black Flag isn't really a game about assassins and Templars nor is it really even a game about Pirates it's a game about one man trying to become a better person and everything in the narrative plays into that internal progression much more so than the external progression Edward is funny without being silly dangerous while remaining approachable and fun loving while still having a very impressive skill set no other AC game has gone into so much depth into a main character's psyche adapting the central themes of Assassin's Creed to fit one man's personal journey toward Redemption there are so many memorable characters in Black Flag and Edward gets to play off of all of them so well something the other protagonists don't really get while the tried and true McGuffin and revenge plots are still present the moments I remember are not the bombastic fight scenes but instead the many reflective moments that Edward gets the flashbacks to his previous life that showcased how he failed his first wife at such a unique layer to his character and one of the most hard-hitting moments in the game is actually a dream sequence in which Edward struggles with his own insecurities there's no one left in your life to care I can handle this what Paul is tearing down when you could be building things up or building yourself up if nothing else just leave me of course Edward change your bloody course before it's too late Ezio may be the most prolific assassin and bayek may have felt the most human but Edward is by far the hardest any team has ever worked on putting its protagonist front and center in very few games could the emotional culmination of the story be a protagonist taking a Bittersweet stroll down the beach to give a little girl a flower [Music] their story for my going away and all the sweetheart once again these are just my opinions I'm actually very confident in my top three but the rest were pretty tough to sort through so I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments bassim is joining The Fray later this year and while we have already seen him in AC Valhalla I look forward to this younger take on the characters it's no surprise that my top three characters star in my top three games although not in the same order having well written and consistent protagonists does a lot to elevate the experience of playing one of these games and none of them would have been the same if the player was given different shoes to fill if you have any other topics that you want me to discuss please let me know I'd be happy to see what people are interested in and thank you for watching my other videos because it's been a lot of fun making them and I have been really surprised by how many people have been interested in them and all otherwise take care of yourself and you have a nice day [Music]

Channel: So Says Jay

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Length: 26min 9sec (1569 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 11 2023