The Perfect Ending: Assassin's Creed Revelations 10 Years Later

november 15 2011 was in many ways the end of an era for my 10 year old self as it marked the ending of ezio's story in assassin's creed many of you know if you watch my other retrospectives that i hold the ezio trilogy very close to my heart i enjoyed them a lot when i was a kid assassin's creed revelations very much marked the end of the franchise that i knew and loved i really see assassin's creed wanted revelations as the golden age of assassin's creed it was never quite the same after so as i've been doing every year for the past two years we're here to do a deep dive retrospective into an assassin's creed game 10 years after its release or near enough to 10 years that i can do you know how i am with these retrospectives i can never release him close to the actual 10-year anniversary it just never happens i actually think revelations story is without a doubt the best written story in the franchise with the other main contender probably being black flag coming back to ezio desmond and altair one last time has been a pleasure and it's nice to experience these games again reveling in the nostalgia and the fond memories i have playing these games whereas assassin's creed ii is the story of accepting drastic change and facing your responsibility and assassin's creed brotherhood was about moving forward and protecting those who were defenseless against tyranny revelations is very much a more personal story for both ezio and altair assassin's creed revelations as the title suggests is about revealing something whether that be revealing the truth to altair's library or revealing to ezio that it is time to let the past go and to say i have seen enough for one life it's crazy to think that assassin's creed revelations is now over 10 years old already i still remember being literally in primary school and telling my friend about the leaked assassin's creed revelation cinematic trailer i'm now turning 21 very soon it's just weird to think that now the entirety of the ezio trilogy is half as old as me anyway let me stop rambling today we're going to take a trip back to 2011 to relive the memories of ezio auditore one last time back to constantinople in 1511 to find the masiaf keys uncovered the secrets of altair's library and to celebrate over 10 years of assassin's creed revelations i just want to say before we start this video that today's video is sponsored by manscaped again thank you manscaped you're allowing me to make money off content creation so i really i appreciate that because i don't make anything from ad revenue but i mean i'm not promoting their products just because they're giving me money like genuinely i use my manscape products all the time they're such high quality and today we're going to be talking about their performance package 4.0 manscape were kind enough to send me one of these and i've been using it now for a fair amount of time and i've got to say the novelty of the quality just hasn't worn off whatsoever so first off we have 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honestly travel bags great i use it all the time definitely definitely worth it so honestly what are you doing go to manscape.com today and get 20 off and free international shipping plus two free gifts when you use promo code lef20 at checkout i genuinely think if you're watching this you should consider buying this package it's genuinely really good and i wouldn't promote a product unless i used it and really enjoyed it so yeah go get at it and thank you to manscape for sponsoring this video there you go without further ado we can get straight into the deep dive retrospective into assassin's creed revelations as is commonplace in every ac game up to this point there's a story recap to briefly summarize the events of assassin's creed assassin's creed 2 and assassin's creed brotherhood i miss when this franchise used to care about continuity so much so that they would always include a recap of the previous games to get you back up to speed on where the story is at this point this particular recap is narrated by subject 16 who has been a consistent enigma since the first game which is all about to change because he is also a prominent character in this game this recap is just really nostalgic for me because when i think of assassin's creed i always think of this story with desmond ezio altair and the mystery of the ones who came before and the classic assassins vs templars nowadays assassin's creed barely resembles the series it once was in both gameplay and story so it's just surreal to come back to these games and realize that the story and law was once cherished by the writers but i digress we're not here to talk about the current state of this tired franchise if you remember the ending of assassin's creed brotherhood you'd remember that it ended on a huge cliffhanger desmond reclaims the apple of eden but in doing so his body is taken control of by juno who forces him to kill lucy now a lot of people don't even know why desmond kills lucy and brotherhood and that's because it's only explained in the lost archives dlc lucy was basically working under the templars in the end she was part of operation siren in which she infiltrated the assassins under the guise of being an assassin who had been captured by the templars and forced to work on the animus project abstergo this is a very strange plot point and it doesn't really make sense it's especially strange given the reason that lucy was killed off is because the actress kristen bell wanted more royalty payment for her role as lucy but patrice de soleil didn't want to pay her and in spite killed off her character so in the end lucy's character was completely wasted due to a disagreement over payment although maybe it's good she died when assassin's creed was at its peak and not milked for nostalgia points over the years like shawn and rebecca anyway after desmond killed lucy and brotherhood he falls straight into a coma william miles shawn and rebecca hook him up to the animus to stabilize his vitals and this is where revelations begins okay i shut down the animus monitoring system to free up a lot of memory but even like this it's still risky desmond will be fine the partition worked the animus is stable and his signs are good for now but this was built to recreate memories not simulate entire cognitive processes the animus will do its part and desmond will do the rest what's happening i can't move i i can't no hello just walk right past me 16. no they didn't tell you my name oh god damn it i'm still in the animus quite a shock you suffered out there rebecca get me out of here they can't help you desmond you're a broken man your mind it's broken broken you feel fun look at me now [Music] let's talk buddy desmond has awoken in the black room which is also known as animus island this part of the animus is basically a safe mode think of it as safe mode for windows that you can turn on to securely use your computer when you're having issues with the operating system animus island is the original test program for the animus the original code that was used to create these virtual worlds that we explore in the games it consists of basic physics and weather simulation rather than living memory data the animus was unable to support desmond's crippled mental state after being taken over by juno killing lucy and reliving so many memories of different ancestors so close together and therefore decided to place him inside the black room to stabilize him to exit his coma desmond must relive the remaining memories of altair and ezio to the point at which their lives confirged in order to allow the animus to separate the genetic memories of desmond's ancestors from his own this is called a sink nexus this will be explained briefly by subject 16 but i thought i'd quickly go over it as he doesn't really go into much detail all you need to know is desmond's goal is to relive the memories of altair and ezio until he reaches the sink nexus and is able to wake up sounds like a pretty solid premise to a game right there that thing is your way out you're screwing with me here's the problem your brain is hash to the ghost in your head too many voices so how do you fix that you claw your way back into the stored data you find unfinished memories and you crack them open finish what you started until your ancestor has nothing left to show you that is a sync nexus and when you find it the animus can separate desmond from ezio and altair and send you home back to your body how do you know all this because it happened to me but my body it's worm food now so i'm stuck here a word of warning when you step through there everything changes nothing feels [Music] normal but you are still in control and it's up to you to find your way out right if you hurry you might make it back in time for lucy's funeral what oh i thought you knew lucy oh god i'm so sorry it wasn't me it wasn't me it's that voice juno she took hold of me she made me [Music] claudia my dearest sister i have been in akra a week now safe and in high spirits but prepared for the worst the men and women who have fed and sheltered me here also give me warning that the road to masyaf is overrun by mercenaries and bandits not native to this land what this could mean i dread to guess when i first set out from roma ten months ago i did so with a single purpose to discover what our father did not in a letter written the year before my birth he makes mention of a library hidden beneath the stones of martial castle a sanctum full of invaluable wisdom so what will i find when i arrive there who will greet me i host the bigger templars as i feel more strongly or nothing but the whistling of a cold and lonely wind massage has not been home to the assassins for almost 300 years now can we still claim it for our own are we welcome there ah i'm wary of this fight claudia not because i am tired but because our struggle seems to move in one direction only towards chaos today i have more questions than answers this is why i've come so far to find clarity to find the wisdom left behind by the great of the year so that i may better understand the purpose of our fight and my place in it [Applause] should anything happen to me claudia should my skills fail me or my ambition lead me astray do not seek retribution or revenge in my memory but fight to continue the search for truth so that all may benefit my story is one of many thousands and the world will not suffer if it ends too soon [Music] [Music] here we are back with ezio auditore da firenze one last time although in this game he's much older and wiser than previous entries sporting new robes a grey beard and a new goal to enter altair's library and unlock its secrets like his father giovanni wanted which means he has had to travel far from rome to the once home of the assassins massiaff i remember playing this for the first time and just being taken aback that we were playing as ezio and massiaf it was such a significant moment and i don't think revelations could have picked a more perfect place to begin ezio's last story it's even cooler that i realized that there were eagle vision ghosts of altair scaling the walls leading you in the right direction ezio was briefly taken prisoner and stripped of his weapons by the templars as you saw in the introductory cinematic so he scales the castle to find where they're being kept ezio manages to find his sword but one of his hidden blades is broken this is where we get our first little bit of combat and as to be expected the combat system in revelations is pretty much identical to the one in brotherhood bar a few new animations as well as the new slo-mo effect activates upon killing the last enemy of a fight i actually prefer brotherhood's combat to be honest simply because a lot of the newer animations in revelations are for some reason quite janky and slow causing the flow of combat to be a lot less smooth compared to its predecessor regardless the combat in revelations is great and chooses to stick to the formula that works in brotherhood and i can't really blame them in this case seo is currently trying to learn more about altair's library and how to get inside upon entering the castle and taking out the guards ezio finds himself at the door to the library and greets a curious man standing next to it be merciful please i am a working man with the family doing what kind of work digging mostly it took me a year to find this chamber and for the past three months i've been trying to break through this tour you've not made much progress i have not made a dent this stone is harder than steel i doubt you will this door is guarding objects more valuable than all the gold in the world oh do you mean gemstones there are keyholes here what are the keys these templars found one beneath to ottoman sultan's palace as for the others i suppose the little book will tell them what book a journal of some kind that ugly captain he carries it with him wherever he goes go home find work with honest men oh i would love to leave this place but these men they will murder me if i try pack your tools after learning about the keys to altair's library as well as the book that is carried by leandros the captain of this templar expedition to massiaf ezio sets off to find him this leads to a classic tailing mission in which we follow a group of templars into the lower village using eagle sense to find leandros eagle sense was the new take on eagle vision at the time it was explained that ezio had become so proficient with eagle vision through lots of repeated use that he mastered it and it truly became a sixth sense for him allowing him to track the movements of people before they even carried them out from a gameplay standpoint this means we can now track the movement of groups of guards to better plan stealth attacks after following the guards they lead us straight none of you leave until the assassin is dead do you understand economically he seems to confound us funny with ezio grabbing onto the rope that is dragging behind the andros carriage this leads straight into a chase section in which ezio has to frantically climb the rope whilst avoiding obstacles it's pretty hectic ezio finally makes it to the carriage and climbs a ball only for leandros to leap to another carriage causing the one ezio is on to crash luckily ezio grabs onto a third carriage and takes it for himself chasing leandros further this section is a recurring thing in revelations where you're in control of a carriage and have to ram other carriages out of the way although this isn't the first time a carriage set piece has been used in the ezio trilogy as in both assassin's creed 2 and assassin's creed brotherhood you have to drive a carriage to escape with leonardo to venice and when stealing and destroying the machine gun from the borgia in the leonardo's invention side missions ezio finally reaches leandros carriage and rams him only for a templar guard to throw a bomb under the wheel of ezio's carriage propelling him off the mountain look what crawled out of it all to die he's at death's door finish him off bring me his head or throw yourself into the canyon ezio easily dispatches the guards and heads in the direction of leandros using his eagle sense to track his footprints through the village after some searching he finally catches up with him and the templar captain is backed into a corner could it be that you are every bit as deadly as the legends say or am i in charge of an army of drunk swinging sticks right this way ezio nowhere left to run now not for me and not for you kill that dog cut him down i've always loved the line not for me and not for you the delivery is just so badass this is an ezio who's been through it all he isn't afraid of high-risk situations like this and he knows leandros is afraid of him and so he locks the gate to the courtyard locking leandros in there with him with nowhere to run ezio kills the remaining foot soldiers and acquires some medicine healing the wounds he took from the fall this allows him to scale the wall of the tower that leandros is hiding in although he also must dodge incoming fire from the rifle when posted around the courtyard after a long climb under fire ezio reaches the top of the tower and confronts leandros head-on don't you ever stop howling well the old town still has a bite the book you carry where is it nicolo polo's journal this will do you no good not now we have found one of the massive keys already and are closing in on the rest what is in that library is not for you not for the templars you can have altair's books it's you we only want guidance we only want directions to the location of the grand temple grand temple tell me more now journal the secret crusade in hand and knowledge of what may lie inside altair's library ezio leaves massiaf and heads for the great city of constantinople desmond wakes up once again on animus island and is greeted by clay the animus keeps repeatedly bringing desmond back to the black room as a fail-safe as whenever he actively relives his ancestors memories the animus may think he's a virus and delete his consciousness clay is keeping the animus systems occupied whilst desmond searches for the sink nexus up until this point clay seems quite suspicious and sinister but it is here that his true intentions are shown he simply wants to help desmond return to his body as he was once in desmond's situation and failed leaving his consciousness stranded within the animus code with no way out he's trying to save desmond from his unfortunate fate and it's within desmond's best interest to trust him anyway with that out of the way it's time to head back to the memories of ezio to see how the game progresses once he reaches constantinople their sister maziaf is overrun by a battery of templars and their motive is clear they desire the secrets locked away in altair's library secrets they believe will lead them to something called the grand temple whether or not this is true i do know the library is real i have seen its door for myself but none can enter not without five keys which were sent to constantinople with nicolopolo almost 300 years ago claudia i must find these keys the templars have already located one and i do not know how difficult it will be to find the others only time skill and a bit of luck will tell [Music] a magnificent site it is a work in progress most city on europa has a skyline quite like this well to be precise that is europa that is asia ah some borders even the ottomans cannot move very few you are italian by the sound of it but your outfit is not have you been traveling long see i'm also tempted i love to draw almost one of months ago looking for inspiration and that search brought me here when i was a child my father told me stories about the fall of costanzinopoli you must mean the conquest of constantini i suppose the moral of any story matches the temple of the man telling it that we can agree on constantine is a city for all kinds and creeds students like me or travelers such as yourself [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i have so much work to return to but it is good to be home work when i was your age my interests were were mainly salve incredible i am surprised you got anything done as was my mother it was a pleasure speaking with you bear friendly i hope you find something to hold your interest in i have faith i will [Music] yeah dear boy a scholar and a gentleman you are full of surprises very few my friend exec all mine [Music] hush galden kardashian unless the legend is a lie you are the man i long to meet renowned master and mentor it's your auditory day la la la prego forgive me i have a hard time remembering that italian gibberish da firenze the city where i was born ah yes uh so by your custom i would be yusuf tazim the istanbul yet another name for this city evert it's a local favorite come mentor i will show you around after stepping off the boat to constantinople ezio is greeted by none other than the assassin yusef tazim yusuf is such a great character he is used in many cases for comedy and comic relief but he's also a believable master of the assassins in constantinople and he's good at what he does ezio follows yusuf through the streets of constantinople and you really get a feel for this city with tightly packed streets merchant stores littering the pathways and people busily going about their day constantinople isn't really underrated as an open world space in assassin's creed it has such a vibrant array of colors and beautiful architecture it really was the perfect city to end ezio's story they also went a little bit further and highlighted the conflict between the byzantines and the ottomans where yusuf makes use of their rivalry to avoid a fight thanks to the presence of the ottoman forces the assassins are no longer hunted by the byzantines meaning they have a strong foothold on constantinople for the first time in decades finally ezio and yusuf reach the main assassin bureau and constantinople the galata den mentor say hello to your extended family salute it is an honor to find such fast friends so far from home you see brothers our mentor is not afraid to weep openly in front of pupils do not worry i will not make a habit out of it ezio and i were ambushed on the way here i'd like some of you to do a sweep of the area amen and you as you your weapons and armor are in a beautiful state maybe find someone and repair what you cast there is a blasphemy nearby he's a friend what are you there this whole memory just serves as a contextual way to introduce players to shops and renovating once again like brotherhood there are five types of shops in the game blacksmiths in which you can buy armor weapons and ammunition tailors where you can dye your robes buy pouch upgrades and restock your parachutes doctors where you can purchase medicine or poison book shops where you can purchase many historical books these shops replace the art merchant from ac brotherhood and finally banks which can be used to withdraw money that you've earned from renovations there technically is one more shop type which is the bomb merchants that are scattered around the map where you can buy random bomb configurations yeah i literally never use these at all you'll notice that all of the shops work exactly the same as they did in assassin's creed brotherhood which is fine this was the last game in ezio's story and ubisoft were clearly waiting for assassin's creed 3 to change the formula up a bit i've said it before and i'll say it again if it ain't broke don't fix it you may remember me mentioning renovation and yeah renovating the city returns just the way it was in brotherhood where you can find buildings in disrepair around the map that can be renovated into functioning shops the more shops you repair the more income you receive every 20 minutes you can also purchase landmarks too which dramatically increase your income once again a robust system that worked well in brotherhood and really needed no changes for revelations after buying some armor and renovating some shops we returned to yusuf who was currently mingling with his students praise the heavens we feared we had lost our mentor to devices of the big city i am content with my own vices grazia so what's on your mind it's you tell me more about the templars you call them byzantines but the byzantine empire was overthrown 60 years ago these men are remnants of a line loyal to the cause of the last emperor constantine 11. who leads them now however i cannot say capisco i suppose it is up to me to find out it's you where is your hook blade my hook blade you've never seen one i grew up using these show me how it works after explaining the fundamentals of the hook blade to ezio we get a little tutorial mission in which we get to test out our newly acquired hook blade now the hook plate is pretty cool in concept but i do think it sometimes slows down traversal instead of speeding it up although it's a very situational tool you basically have to parkour in a way that always plays to the strength of the hook blade if you want to keep a good flow of movement consistently this means almost entirely avoiding scaling buildings directly unless you have no other option avoiding overhanging edges and always trying to judge the height of walls so you can consistently use the hook blade's ability to pull yourself up quicker the hook blade unfortunately makes wall ejects a whole lot more annoying to pull off because now every time you scale a wall it's going to have ezio latch onto the wall with his hook blade this extra time it takes thanks to the longer animation is actually much more than you'd expect and feels like so much longer when you're trying to quickly parkour through the city don't get me wrong the hook blade has many useful utilities but on the whole i just think brotherhood's parkour is better as i can use wall ejects way more consistently after getting to grips with this new hook blade and using it to climb around the golata district ezio and yusuf climbed to the top of the galata tower much like how ezio and federico climbed to the top of the church at the beginning of assassin's creed 2. welcome to constantine the crossroads of the world many generations of men have ruled the city but they have never subdued her she always bounces back it seems a fine place to call home it is raise you to the bottom the rest of the sequence is mainly aimed at teaching you about den defense bomb crafting and den attacks i'll briefly go over these now so we can get back to the story i just think it's worthwhile briefly explaining what these features did to evolve the formula of assassin's creed open world at the time firstly den defense was probably the most controversial of the additions as it wasn't really received well by anyone for some reason they added a tower defense minigame into revelations that you can play when templars are attacking one of your assassin dens it's not as bad as i remember thinking it was when i was a kid it's just one of those things that's just kind of fun to do every now and then i actually gave denn defense a decent go in this game and i actually only realized this year that you can unlock new types of towers to better protect your den it only took me 10 years to actually try out the den defense properly and it's safe to say that it could be taken out of the game entirely and we would lose nothing then attacks the opposite of den defense as the name suggests think of borja tower infiltrations from brotherhood and there's your den attack across the city there are templar strongholds which can be infiltrated and liberated to do this you must get in identify the captain kill him and then light the signal fire at the top of the tower to signify zero assassins at the coast is clear again similarly to the border towers after taking a templar stronghold you unlock new shops in that region to renovate as you see fit finally the newest addition to revelations and probably the most creative is bomb crafting i actually really like bomb crafting i never really got involved with it before because i didn't see the need to but during this playthrough i actually made much more of an effort to craft more bombs and i must say they're a very nice addition especially when it comes to stealth you can throw a smoke bomb at a group of enemies then they throw an explosive into the smoke and you've basically taken everyone out with little to no effort the only thing you have to be careful of really is accidentally killing civilians but even then it's not much of a risk at all bombs are an absolutely brilliant addition and i'm very happy i made an effort to use them in this play through so upon defending your assassin den crafting some bombs and taking a templar stronghold for our own desmond is pulled out of etsy's memories and wakes up on alice island once again 16 desmond think about this what if i went with you with me where it could work just for a while until i found a way out another body maybe or a i don't know i just i don't want to be here anymore that's not going to happen i'm sorry no i guess i had my chance and i wasted it this scene really shows what clay has been going through whilst being trapped inside the alamus he must have gone insane somewhere along the line i mean he's completely immortal because his consciousness was uploaded to the animus as code and he has no means of escape so he was left to wander the many corridors of code in the animus endlessly trying to find a way out that must have been a different kind of torture what's so crushing about this scene is that desmond has to refuse to let him come back with him which just leaves 16 completely hopeless accepting his fate of being trapped in the animus forever afterwards we actually get a nice piece of dialogue between sean william and rebecca in which they discuss desmond and lucy i'll leave you with this to finish off memory sequence 2. were they close desmond and lucy i mean closer than friends uh well there was the occasional misty-eyed moment but she liked him bill that's what she told me interesting that's it just interesting i spent a lot of time training each other when they were younger she was a remarkable woman i just find this whole situation quite sad sad are you finally getting soft on us bill claudia costandinopoli called istanbul by the turks has welcomed me as one of its own the assassins here led by an offerable fighter named yusuf take great pride in their city a place as diverse and colorful as one could imagine but it is a troubled city too a rebellious faction of pizzantine templars still fights to retain influence and the recent attacks have delayed my search for the masjid of keys but this will not last as soon as i am able i will begin looking for nikola polo's former trading post in search of clues that will bring me nearer to the masjid of keys the beginning of this memory sequence has ezio speaking to yusuf after successfully taking the templar den although they took heavy losses in the process yusef asked ezio given his knowledge of building a brotherhood to find new novices to recruit to the assassin order the people of constantinople are growing sick of templar influence and so many of them will be willing to join the assassins this is where the critically acclaimed assassin recruit system from brotherhood makes its return only this time it's even better and more in depth than before you can recruit assassins in a variety of different ways of course there's the classic defender civilian which was the standard in brotherhood however there are actual recruit assassin missions dotted around the map which go into a little bit more detail than just defend citizen the missions range from helping a man save his family taking in a skilled thief who went down the wrong path in life fighting a man who ends up agreeing to join the assassins to use his fighting skills for a purpose don't get me wrong these missions really are nothing special they're extremely short but i do think it's nice to have these little contextual missions to show the struggles of the people in the city and how joining the assassins saved them from a life of perpetual struggle and unfulfillment once you've recruited new novices into the assassins you have access to call them in whenever you like to have them take out specific targets for you you to have them take out specific targets for you or to assist you in fights once you have enough assassins recruited you can actually opt to call in an arrow storm which kills all the enemies in an area just like in brotherhood also liking brotherhood you can also send assassins on missions across the mediterranean which upon successful completion awards your recruits with xp which can be used to upgrade their weapons and armor the higher level the assassin the more capable they are of taking on higher tier missions so it's recommended to send lower level recruits on missions and groups until they're a high enough level to go on their own there's also a little mini game of sorts within the mediterranean defense in which there are templar and assassin occupied cities and you must send assassins on missions to attack cities to gain control of them in return templars will periodically launch their own attacks and try to regain control of cities that the assassins occupy and so you must defend your cities or increase assassin influence to prevent attacks it's actually pretty cool now i don't know if you get anything specific if you occupy all cities at 100 assassin influence but it's a nice little mini game anyway and adds a small layer of additional depth to the assassin recruit system but that isn't all after sending an assassin on enough missions they will become illegible to become a den master you can assign them to one of the many assassin dens around the map and a new type of mission becomes available master assassin missions these missions are so great and are a real layer of additional debt for the assassin recruits that i think brotherhood lacked the master assassin missions have you go on actual assassination missions with your recruits stalking a target and eventually assassinating them now the actual content of these missions and nothing remarkable they're usually very short but again this isn't a big deal because they're merely small side missions for you to work your way through when you feel like leveling up your assassins to master and it's nice seeing ezio be a proper mentor to these assassins because he really doesn't interact with his apprentices that much in brotherhood there is also a pretty cool incentive to do all these master assassin missions too once you have seven of your assassins reached the rank of denmaster you will acquire ezio's master assassin armor which is this really sleek beautifully designed armor serves as one of this game's unbreakable end game armor sets just like the armor of altair and assassin's creed ii and the armor of brutus in a saturn's creep brotherhood the cool thing about the master assassin armor is that it has a hidden ability which is very very useful silent sprinting this is the only armor in the game that has this ability and to be honest it's downright op plus this armor is so beautiful how can you not want this to be your endgame armor set i think it's the perfect armor to end ezio's story with and really shows his status as a master assassin at this point in the sequence this is pretty much the first time we get properly let out into the open world with no tutorials to weigh us down so i normally take this opportunity to do a few viewpoints and get equated with constantinople a bit better now this is where i should take a moment to talk about this game's collectibles of which there are only two animus fragments and ishak passion memoir pages there are a hundred animus fragments to collect similar to feathers from previous ezio games collecting all 100 of these allows you to play each of the desmond sequences available on animus island these are nice missions that offer pretty important backstory on desmond's upbringing his relationship with the assassins his family how he ran away from the farm and the events leading up to him being taken to abstergo from a storytelling standpoint these missions are great but i'm just not a huge fan of the gameplay the desmond missions have you platforming in these strange animus rooms in which you can place blocks and jump from platform to platform i must admit the actual design of these levels visually is absolutely beautiful and the soundtrack that plays during these desmond sections is also superb but the actual gameplay itself really isn't that interesting to me this game's dlc actually has the same gameplay style but instead you're playing from the point of view of subject 16. i'm not going to be covering the dlc in this video as it really has no bearing on desmond or ezio's story but it does reveal that lucy was working under the templars and it has the first reference in the assassin's creed franchise to the instruments of the first will which become more prominent later on in the games and extended media the lost archive is an all-right dlc for its backstory but i never really liked it that much because it wasn't what we were used to with the battle of fawley bonfire of the vanities and the da vinci disappearance anyways the animus fragments let you play the desmond missions and they're pretty meh too from a gameplay standpoint not going to waste any more time talking about them in detail the other type of collectibles you can acquire in revelations are the ishak pasha memoir pages there are 10 of these dotted around the map and upon collecting all of them you can unlock a secret tomb which houses a special armor set ishak pasha armor now this mission itself is great you guys know at this point how much i love the linear set-piece missions of the ezio trilogy and this one is just a nice final callback to these style of missions as assassin's creed 3 only has one of these two style missions and if i'm not mistaken it was dlc anyway the armor itself has a really interesting design for those who like the very ornate armor sets in this game i personally prefer the master assassin armor because it's a lot more understated but i remember using this armor a lot back in the day honestly both of the end game armor sets look great in this game still nothing compared to the sheer beauty of the armor of altair but a damn sight better than the mess that was the armor of brutus you'll notice that a lot of this sequence has been me explaining various side content sequence 3 is basically quite short but it just so happens that you get the chance to properly try out a lot of the new things that are introduced in the sequence so i thought i'd just explain them all now before getting back to the main story we unlock faction challenges during the sequence now i'm not going to go into a ridiculous amount of detail for these as they're just challenges you complete passively and they basically work exactly the same as they did in brotherhood there are five different challenge types assassin romani thief mercenary and bombs the rewards this time around are basically the same as in brotherhood completing romani thief mercenary and assassin challenges either gives the respective factions new passive abilities or you get a faction weapon most notably for completing the assassin faction missions you get the sword of altair which i always make sure to get before the end of the game faction challenges work exactly the same as in brotherhood so if you've watched my brotherhood retrospective you know the drill lastly we're introduced to puri race and bomb crafting in which we can create and test out new bombs there are actually a selection of mission boards within pirirei's shop that can be interacted with putting you into a bomb quest memory in which you will test out different kinds of bombs it's weird these missions are basically tutorials so i don't really know why they're listed as bomb quests in the dna tracker they really should have been called bomb tutorials anyway these missions are actually quite useful if you're not sure which bombs you want to use as they let you play around with each type of bomb in the game impact bombs sticky bombs fuse bombs and tripwire bombs some bombs are used to distract some are used to kill and some are used to impair it really depends on what you need without a doubt though the best type of bomb in this game has to be the smoke bombs you can increase their radius by using british gunpowder which just makes these bombs ridiculously opaque if you're up against a large group of guards and can't be bothered to fight them just throw one of these bad boys down along with some form of lethal bomb and the fight is over pretty quickly not to mention smoke bombs are great for stealth allowing you to take out entire groups of guards without being seen and with that we've covered everything new to the open world in this sequence and we can get back to the search for the massif keys ezio returns to the den to discuss the massiaf keys as well as nicolo polo's journal with yusef you'll find many ingredients for bomb recipes scattered throughout the city so keep your eyes open and your nose to the ground as you move about that should keep me busy gracia have you ever seen this book no it's a journal see the secret crusade by nicolo polo eh marco's father i found this on a templar in masiaf it mentions their five keys to altair's library nicolo brought them here and hit them ah and the templars know this so it's a race against time they found one already beneath top topkapoh i want to recover it and find the other four so where will you begin the old polo trading post i think they ran a business in this area no i believe so speak with a man named petey reyes in the bazaar he can point you in the right direction and teach you a few more bomb recipes if you are so inclined in order to find hints as to the whereabouts of the massaf keys ezio heads to nicolo polo's former trading post and meets a curious woman sophia sator a fellow italian buongiorno maraba please come in oh excuse the clutter i have not had time to tidy up since my trip you sailed from roads no si how did you know we were on the same ship i am ezio aditore sofia sartor have we met we have now may i have a look around prego most of my best homes are in the back you may recognize sophia from the boat that ezio was on as he entered constantinople she was the woman that the young student helped with her belongings ezio and sophia meeting for the first time is a very significant moment as she is the love interest in this game which is quite significant as ezio hasn't loved anyone in a very long time not since christina died during the events of the bonfire of the vanities in which she was fatally wounded by florentine guards under the influence of the apple of eden controlled by savanarola the piece of music that plays during this scene is amazing too it's sophia sator's theme and it plays whenever there is a significant moment between her and ezio this is without a doubt my favorite piece of music in the game it's just so beautiful there are various versions of this theme played throughout the game and it's a joy to hear each time ezio looks around her shop and stumbles across a back room activating eagle sense reveals that there's a hidden entrance that leads underneath the shop ezio interacts with it opening a hatch leading down into darkness have you found anything interesting new deal who put that there incredible where does it lead why don't we find out who are you only the most interesting man in your life i will return in a moment this mission is the first of many linear set piece based missions in revelations yes the fan favorite mission structure seen in the assassin tombs from ac2 and the layers of romulus and leonardo's inventions from brotherhood make a triumphant comeback as main story missions in revelations ubisoft must have realized that people loved these types of missions and opted to include them as cool ways to find each massif key we'll talk more about the other ones as we get to them but this mission has us exploring the dingy catacombs underneath topkapi palace stealthily dispatching the guards and moving on to the next area this mission is really simple and effective it's just a set of rooms one after the other in which you use stealth to take down captains taking their keys and unlocking the gate to the next area once you've cleared out all the rooms ezio finds himself in a bare room with no exits although upon activating eagle sense it appears that there is a secret door behind this door is the location of the first massiaf key ezio approaches the statue and takes the key from its receptacle and returns to the shop to speak with sophia salve that took some time what did you find something that may interest you and here is my shop look at the margins strange symbols and these are titles of books books a few of these have not been seen for more than a millennial [ __ ] hit these books around the city this map should tell us where hmm you're beginning to interest me vaguely from what i can tell i need to find these three books first they may contain clues to locate the rest of these molto curiosa another was found beneath topkapa palace but there is still time to reach the others found by whom men who do not read sophia can you decipher this map help me find these books can i borrow them when you are finished we will work something out [Music] and there we have our main goal to use the help of sophia to discover the locations of each of nicola polo's books that contain clues to the locations of more massif keys ezio meets back up with yusef to discuss the new information as well as discuss next steps to take against the templars in constantinople [Music] did you find what you were looking for i believe so this is one of altair's five keys a strange artifact ah it is like nothing i have ever seen you should keep it somewhere safe at our headquarters see i will what brings you this way i am coordinating with our allies today thieves and the bazaar the mercenaries near the arsenal and the romanies in the constantin district you are spread a bit thin yourself let me speak with the romanies myself i have had so little contact with them in the past that would ease my mind if you are in a hurry you may travel by our network of tunnels the air down there is a little foul but the rats are no bigger than dogs have fun grazie now there's actually an additional couple missions in this sequence one where we help the romanees do something and another where we help our first assassin master in training take out his first target but firstly the romani mission is really pointless and basically adds nothing to the story and secondly i've already explained the master assassin missions and we don't need to go into each one individually after helping the romanies reclaim their lost money and helping his apprentice assassinate the sentinel ezio returns to his study to examine the masseyaf key the markings on this key are familiar and the material i have seen its kind before just like the apple of eden ancient technology from the first civilization [Music] wow are you hurt broken foot what is your name son of umar umar oh yes he was a fine man who lived and he died i'll i'll die we have been betrayed the enemy has overwhelmed the castle you'll live and where is he he was inside when the crusaders broke through we can do nothing for him now altair we must fall back when i close the castle gate flank the crusaders in the village and derive them into the canyon you don't stand a chance abbas no mistakes [Music] this is it the first memory of altair i still remember playing this for the first time when i was a kid and just being so excited to be playing as altair again at the time he was my favorite character because i liked his stoicism and how he was a very traditional assassin anyways this was a dream come true for me to be playing as altair in massiaf once again taking down guards climbing familiar buildings and meeting returning characters like abbas currently there's a battle between the assassins and the templars breaking out in massiaf and the assassins have been betrayed and the castle has been overrun altair fights his way up to the castle to save those inside including umualim another step and your mentor dies you will not leave this place alive traitor no you misunderstand i am no traitor but i cannot betray those i never truly love then you are doubly wretched but you have been living alive this section is just such classic assassins creed with limited time altair scales the walls of the castle stealthily taking out the guards patrolling the battlements to ensure that the target isn't alerted to his presence finally after making his way to the perfect position altair jumps down and with the snick of his blade the traitor is no more you put too much faith in the hearts of men and here the templars know the truth humans are weak base and petty no our creed is evidence to the contrary perhaps i am not wise enough to understand but i suspect the opposite that i am too wise to believe such rubbish you offered him a chance to salvage his dignity why no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness but he shunned your graces as was his right altair i have watched you grow from a boy to a man in so short a time it fills me with as much sadness as pride you fit your father's shoes as if they had been tailored to your feet i did not know him well as a father he was an assassin above all you two were born into this order do you regret it how can i regret the only life i've ever known you may find a way in time and it will be up to you to choose the path you prefer come my boy and ready your blade this battle is not yet won this whole section was just perfect the return to massiaf protecting it from the templars a stealth section an assassination a confession and finally a meaningful conversation with al-mualim before he was corrupted by the power of the apple these alter memories are a highlight of the ezio trilogy and are a perfect example of how much care this series used to be handled with they didn't need to return to multi-year but they did and they chose to pay close attention to things that longtime fans love obviously there's plenty more altar year based memories to come so this is just a taster and with that the sequence draws to a close ezio mulls over what he's seen trying to figure out why altair left these memories and what he wants to show him claudia i am now in possession of one of the massive keys and better still i have discovered a map encoded with signs and symbols which i believe will lead me to the remaining keys its full meaning is a mystery to me but i am thankful to have met a venetian woman willing to help me decipher it i must not overstate my successes the templars still hold one key hostage and if i am to recover it i may need more help than the assassins can provide if i can make a friend in the ottoman court my access to the secrets of this city will improve greatly the sequence begins with ezio speaking to yusuf at the hippodrome templars are planning to attack the ottoman royal family and it's up to the assassins to defend them and gain their trust we now have this really cool parkour section which sees ezio yusuf and the assassins sprinting across the rooftops of constantinople to top kappa palace it's simple moments like these that just feel so assassin's creed as yusuf said the templars are planning to attack the royal family at a large social gathering not only to cause panic and confusion to cover their tracks but to do it in front of the people so that they're scared upon arriving at the palace ezio procures a disguise to get inside and what do we end up dressing as none other than the minstrels that have harassed us in the streets since assassin's creed ii i must say playing this section for the first time was so fun it's chock full of references to previous games ezio and his apprentices render the minstrels unconscious by using entirely non-violent means after procuring disguises for him and his men estio slips past the guards and into the party they look ridiculous i feel ridiculous my blade is too conspicuous on this outfit are you armed you mark the targets and we will take them out you uh know how to play that thing i learned a few chords when i was young when were you ever young after entering the party is where things get fun the goal here is to defend prince suleiman as he greets guests around the party ezio uses his eagle vision to locate templars in the crowd then distracts the prince in his subjects with music whilst his assassins take out the targets what's great about this section is the ezio improvises various songs on the loot with a few chords that he knows the lyrics reference many popular characters and events from the ezio games i actually sat and listened to all of them on this playthrough and there's actually a lot that i haven't heard before after making our way around the party saving completely oblivious suleiman and playing some banging tunes everything gets a little bit out of hand and ezio has to make a drastic decision to save prince suleiman a templar is approaching suleiman so ezio breaks his loot in half and jams the snapped wood into his neck it's pretty brutal to be honest [Music] it is a relief to see you again [Music] did i say that right well enough i hear you are a governor too is there anything you do not do i do not talk to strangers [Music] are you injured who is your captain's soldier [Music] he is away on an errand clear this body and send the guests home then someone taught it to the divan tariq barlette is a captain in the janissary corps the sultan's elite soldier they guard the sultan but not his family not very well evidently etsu do you have some time to spare i would like your opinion on something i will once i change out of these rags gazelle meet me when you are ready after speaking with suleiman ezio tells him he wants to meet with him to speak further ezio meets with him the following day and he tells him that he has set up a meeting with his uncle ahmed and tariq the captain of the janna series there have been discussions as to who the next sultan should be and the janissaries are not happy that ahmet is being highly considered given the fact that they do not like him they prefer suleiman's father salim ezio and suleiman aim to find out exactly how the byzantines fit into this tense situation as they are sure to make the most of the situation when there's infighting between the ottomans suleiman instructs ezio to wait at the top of the nearby tower to eavesdrop on their meeting heed my nephew tariq your incompetence borders on treason and to think that today your janissaries were out shown by an italian loot player preposterous and inexcusable failing if ending i will conduct a full investigation i will conduct the investigation tariq for reasons that should be obvious you have your father's wisdom and his impatience uncle i am relieved to see you safe likewise a word what was the purpose of this attack i wonder to make me look weak and ineffective steward of the city if you are the hand in this mess tariq you have made a grave mistake my father has chosen me as the next sultan not my brother ahmed i am not depraved enough to imagine the conspiracy you accuse me of what have i done to earn such contempt from the jungle series what has my brother done for you that i have not may i speak freely you'd better you're weaker pensive in times of war and restless in times of peace you lack passion for the traditions of the ghazi yet you speak of fraternity in the company of infidels you make a decent philosopher ahmed but you will be a poor suitable you may show yourself out due to the fact that tarik's janissaries failed to secure the palace against the byzantine attack ezio and suleiman become suspicious of him and think he may be colluding with them to bring the end to any potential competition for the role of sultan insinuating that he may be working in accordance with the templars in order to gain a seat of power suleiman asks ezio to investigate the janna series to see what tariq is up to for now this is the end of this particular line of inquiry etsy will pick the trail of tariq back up in the next memory sequence now it's time to return to sophia and on the way to meeting her we see a rather familiar face the strings of fate have drawn us together two italian lost and alone in the orient do you not feel the magnetism [Music] i feel many things miser nausea bubble is this man bothering you sofia excuse me but the lady and i are oh persona stay back [Music] run for your life who was that uncanny he was engaged to my sister many years ago and what happened his katso was engaged to six others so what brings you to these dogs i took a break from my work to retrieve a package but here they claim the captain's papers are not in order so i wait [Music] i could be here all day let me see what i can do i know a few ways to bend the rules do you now see i will meet you back at your shop ah yes of course duchy had to show up in revelations 2. this means that he's in more of ezio's games than machiavelli leonardo and even claudia revelations is a game that feels so far away from the other two in terms of its tone and atmosphere so this callback to ducheon is such a welcome one as it brings back those memories of ezio in italy that feels so far away when strolling the streets of constantinople you can actually find duchy later on and beat him up one last time for old times sake poor guy ran for his life and still got knocked out farewell duchio anyway this is a classic stealth infiltration mission where you get aboard the boat sneak around the guards and reclaim sofia's package you guys know the drill i don't need to go into the specifics of each small memory now do i after successfully retrieving her package ezio returns to sophia with the good news and to get the location of the next nicolo polo book salute oh no look at the damage did they use this to fight off pirates well so far so good ah beautiful no this is a print of a map by martin walshe mueller see here the new lands described by messier amerigo vespucci or christopher colombo history has a strange way of unfolding what do you make of this body of water here a new ocean perhaps most of the scholars i know claim the size of the globe has been underestimated incredible the more we learn about the world the less we seem to know well you honored your promise here is mine fulfilled if we are correct this should show you the location of the first book i must admit my head is swimming with the prospect of seeing these books this is knowledge the world has lost and must have again perhaps i could print a few copies to distribute myself a small run of 50 or so that should be enough ready forgive me it is a joy to see someone with a passion so personal and noble it is inspiring goodness where is this coming from gracia sofia i will return ezio heads off and finds the location of the nicolo polo book hidden near the hagia sofia which contains the location to one of the massiaf keys the next massif key is hidden underneath the galata tower in the caves that run underneath the city this mission is one of the most fun in the game in my opinion and it once again brings back that assassin tomb style gameplay that we've come to love whilst playing the ezio games this memory mainly consists of parkour opposed to the last one which was mainly consisting of stealth i like the diversity and gameplay that these missions offer because it makes each of them feel much more unique there are a lot of cool set-piece moments in this mission which i'm a massive fan of it makes the whole sequence a lot more cinematic as ezetio just manages to save himself from all sorts of dangerous situations finally after narrowly escaping death many times ezio reclaims the second masiaf ki and heads back to the assassin hideout to relive more of altair's stored memories you have fire in your hand old man it should have been destroyed destroy the only thing capable of ending the crusades and creating true peace never forgive me for this mentor but the apple corrupted you and through you it would have corrupted us for us to live you had to die okay so i just want to say yeah i know there's subtitles for this bit but basically my original gameplay for this very memory was all [ __ ] and would just basically jump about and the gameplay it was awful it was terrible so i asked james if he could give me his gameplay that he used for his assassin's creed revelations retrospective and for this memory that's what you're going to be watching now and you're probably wondering hey george why didn't you just replay the memory and then record that well i tried re-recording the memory and for some reason this one specific memory has this really weird glitch where upon a replay it will use altair's character model from a later mission where he's got a grey beard and it's just really [ __ ] jarring to me and i tried to get the gameplay again and there's just nothing i can do so you're gonna have to deal with this section having subtitles and then the rest of the game not having subtitles it's kind of a no it's probably more annoying to me than it is to you guys but i just thought i'd let you know why anyway i'm sorry for interrupting this masterpiece enjoy is it truly over is that sorcerer dead he was no sorcerer just an ordinary man in command of illusions have you prepared the pyre i have but i'll hear some of the men will not stand for such a thing let me handle it as you may have guessed this scene takes place directly after the events of assassin's creed just after altair defeats ammo alim reclaims the apple and in doing so saves the people of massiaf from their enthralment from the perspective of the people they just woke up and find their mentor dead an altair carrying his corpse outside to be burned on a pyre something that was seen by assassins at the time was a great offense this is seen when abbas tries to stop altair refusing to believe that um would betray the assassins no i must know that he cannot return but this is not our way to burn a man's body is forbidden the filer hear me out this body could be another one of almalim's phantoms i must be certain nice all your life you have made a mockery of our creed you bend the rules to suit your wings while belittling and humiliating those around you restrain him did you not hear him al-mualim is bewitched abbas distrust for altair reaches ahead and he pushes altair off of a small cliff into the crowd people in the crowd are clearly conflicted on who to believe and so they start fighting amongst themselves leading to altair having to defend himself without killing anyone he disarms whoever tries to attack him as he still cares about his brothers they are merely scared and misled during the confusion abash takes the apple and climbs to the top of a nearby tower ignorantly endangering himself and everyone in the area is the apple of eden is an artifact that is very dangerous when wielded by someone who cannot control it altair scales the tower before the apple saps him completely of all his energy and takes it from him it's safer in the hands of altair considering he has a high enough concentration of first civilization dna to control it hence why he was not enthralled by amulem during the events of the first game what was that are they dead forgive me i did not no have you anything to teach us what do you this was one of the more interesting altair memories in the game especially because it shows the aftermath of al-mualem's death and the heavy burden that altair had to carry following the events of the original assassin's creed in this memory he's barely 26 years old and is already responsible for a piece of eden and is the mentor of a divided assassin order he really had his work cut out for him put into perspective ezio didn't become mentor until he was 44 years old and even then he had lots of help from machiavelli and the other assassins that he was close friends with altair basically had to restart from scratch winning over those that had doubts about him and with that ezio once again sits in his study trying to figure out what it all means and that is the end of this sequence i've made the acquaintance of an ottoman prince named suleiman he's a clever young man with a fortitude uncommon for his age on his suggestion i will be investigating some wayward janissaries who may be in league with the templars with luck they will lead me straight to the core of the templar's leadership meanwhile the venetian sophia sartor continues to help me find the hidden masjid of keys she is a diligent woman full of passion and vigor and i enjoy her company immensely but i dare not tell her the purpose of my stay here nor of my true vocation those who do not volunteer in our struggle should not be forced to fight it so this sequence begins with ezio talking to rugman you know the the most influential character in assassin's creed lore this man this man is so [ __ ] important to the overall narrative the sequence kicks immediately off with the tailing mission ah yes the classic assassins creed mission structure follow an individual around a set route hiding as they turn around periodically for no reason as we know ezio and suleiman suspect tariq barletti a foul play they believe that he is colluding with the templars to claim the title of sultan for himself after tailing him to the location he meets with a shifty man known as manuel but the money stays with me until i can see the cargo for myself and they say that's quality understood you are a shrewd man last without cynicism is hollow the count is good target it's all here so what now you will have access to the arsenal when you are satisfied the cargo will be delivered to a location of your choosing are your men prepared to travel not the trump police i will have a map drawn up for you within a week [Music] are we here for the same reason one of my men claims he saw a shipment of weapons enter the arsenal so i got curious weapons i would like to see them for myself you're short of killing everyone i'm not sure how you will get inside you have been warned twice no merchants near the arsenal wall take this away hypocrites if your men did not buy my produce i would not sell it here you are worse than the bees on deans you traitor hold your tongue parasite even in times of peace the poor are always under siege if we inspire them to vent their anger perhaps that will help our cause the goal of this next section is to rile up the crowd so they do the work for us ezio needs to get into the arsenal to see these weapons that balaya logos has bought from tariq and needs a way in the poor are constantly subject to abuse from the janissaries meaning they will jump at the chance to rise as one and riot in the streets against their oppressors you could argue this is very uncharacteristic for ezio to manipulate these civilians and put them in harm's way but i believe standing up and fighting for yourself is much better than kneeling and being downtrodden the people of constantinople are on the edge of revolt anyways hco just helped them do it quicker ezio also fights for the people keeping them safe from soldiers trying to kill them so it's not an entirely awful thing to do on ezio's part eventually the people break through the door to the arsenal and storm inside ezio uses this confusion to enter the arsenal and run to where the weapons are waiting for palaeologos to eavesdrop on the transaction living like a cypher finally everything is falling into place and when the paleo logos line is restored do not forget who helped you bring it back of course not my friend i want a dream of betraying a man of your influence but you must be patient no aroma wasn't built in a day i'm satisfied take me to my ship if a single one is damaged the money stays with me [Music] after confirming the location of the shipment of weapons ezio escapes the arsenal and back into the streets of constantinople this means it's the perfect time to go and visit sophia again to see if she has made any more progress with the next book locations salute i am closing in on two more books one near topkapa and the other in the bayesia district base it first top couple will be a dead end ah see what do you make of this oh hezio incredible early coptic bindings still in good shape amazing this must be a third century transcription of the original sofia what happened here oh that happens once or twice a year people break in thinking they will find money i do not keep much here but this time they made off with a portrait of some value it is a shame you keep working i will find your painting that's you the thief could be anywhere by now if the thief came for money or took a painting he should be close by eager to get rid of it well if you happen to find it within the next few hours meet me by the aqueduct i will be running errands this may be a hot take but i actually love the sofia memories in this game there's such a nice break from the sneaking stabbing and politics the assassin's storyline and serve as a nice reward near the end of each memory sequence i actually think sofia is a great character given how little time she actually gets on screen anyways ezio intends to get sophia's stolen painting back and heads to the bazaar to find the culprit using eagle sense he finds the thief and beats him up afterwards he tells ezio that he's already sold it to a nearby merchant ezio then finds the merchant and steals the painting back from him and promptly returns to sofia to give it back to her it is a good likeness don't you think i prefer the original this was a gift from my father for my 28th birthday i had to sit for mr albrecht duder for a full week can you imagine me sitting still for seven days doing nothing i cannot so i found you another book location and it is not far from here actually grazie ezio what is this all about you are not a scholar that much is clear do you work for the church not the church no but i am a teacher of a kind i will explain one day sofia when i can i love this scene with sophia and her curiosity towards who ezio is and what his motives are i don't know why i love ezio's chuckle when she asks him if he's with the church as the assassins are very much the opposition to the tyranny of the church niccolo polo hid the next book near the valens aquido ezio once again finds it using eagle sense and heads straight to the location of the next massive key what did you find another key door of some kind rigged up with hard stone promising the first key was found behind a similar form timu less and how did they open that door they did it the earthquake all we have are a few barrels of gunpowder this should do and if it does not we get more yep the next mission is mainly a large chase set piece which has ezio sprinting parkouring and climbing after the boat the mission is basically a race against time because both ezio and the byzantines know where the massiaf key is it's just a matter of who gets there first this was always one of my favorite massive key missions in the game it's just so cool i absolutely adore these parkour set pieces and wish they never chose to get rid of it this one in particular is really fun as you jump around these ruins swing across large gaps and avoid gunfire from the men in the boat below it's just so cinematic and replaying it was an absolute joy not to mention the amazing soundtrack in the background that you guys can hear now this piece of music is absolutely beautiful and perfectly encompasses the feel of these massive key missions after chasing the boat through the perilous ruins ezio jumps onto the boat kills the men aboard and makes his way to the secret door leading to the next massiaf key after collecting the key he heads back to the assassin den to relive the next memory left for him by altair the templars have retaken their archive on cyprus abbas said no reinforcements it was a massacre oh my god [Music] maria when we left myself 10 years ago this order was strong but all that progress has been undone abbas must answer for this answer to whom the assassins obey only his command now resist your desire for revenge speak truth and they receive executed our youngest son maria he deserves to die perhaps but if you cannot win back the order by honorable means its foundation will crumble 30 years ago i let passion overtake my reason and it caused a rift that is never fully healed this particular section takes place a long time after the last one altair is 63 in this memory this mission actually takes place during the events of the secret crusade novel written by oliver bowden an absolutely brilliant read by the way and i recommend it a lot it goes all the way through altair's life from his childhood all the way to his death there's even a prologue and epilogue that takes place from ezio's perspective on the boat to constantinople as he had just acquired the book from leandros and was reading it through it's probably the best assassin's creed novel out there anyway at this point in time altair and maria have been gone for over 10 years fighting the mongols with darim they have found out that not only is malik dead but abbas ordered the killing of their youngest son maria convinces altair to speak to abbas and make him hear reason instead of outright killing him although he didn't quite know the consequences of this tolerance let them speak we seek the truth about our son's death why was seth killed is it the truth you want or an excuse for revenge if the truth gives us an excuse we will act on it surrender the apple altair and i will tell you why your son was put to death ah the truth is out already abbas wants the apple for himself not to open your minds but to control them you have held that artifact for 30 years out i hear reveling in its power and hoarding its secrets it has corrupted you [Applause] very well abbas take it what before i executed your son i told him you ordered it yourself he died believing you had betrayed him no he is possessed kill him take the apple now this is a scene that's also depicted in the book i must say it's brilliant in both the game and the book altair becomes so enraged at this point when the assassin taunts him that he uses the apple to make him kill himself in the book he actually makes the guy claw his own face off until his nails snap and his fingers bleed that would obviously be far too violent to show in game the whole section is so tragic altair loses basically everything here his youngest son is gone maria is killed and he has to flee massive after survive leaving maria behind he and darium run through the streets of massiaf killing assassins that have been poisoned by abasa's lies finally darim and altair reached the gate to massiaf and mount their horses riding away from a place they once called home i will have the apple out there and i will have your head for all the dishonor he brought upon my family you cannot run forever not from us and not from your lies this memory really shows altair's life at his lowest point driven from his home loss of his wife and son as well as his best friend malik it looks bleak for the old assassin although life always has a way of bouncing back which we'll come to see in the future ezio once again ponders what he's seen most likely relating to the pain altair feels of losing his family and with that the sequence draws to a close excellent news claudia i now have a name manuel paleologos nephew of the deposed byzantine emperor constantine i have few doubts that he is the man leading the templars my task now is to interrogate a traitorous janissary named tariq barletti and find the location of the templars army until then sophia and i will continue our search for the one key that remains hidden with every passing moment i know my chances grow slimmer and yet i cannot help but linger some days to stay an extra hour with her to hear her voice and watch her face animate with joy as she speaks of the things that move her her books her city her memories i cannot help but think what the shame it will be when i find the final key [Music] [Music] that's not a legal move it is a european variation aroco it's interesting but not exactly fair when you play by different rules than your opponent you may think differently when you are sultan shall i take it back suleiman i know it has been hard on you watching your father and me quarrel overbears its throne grandfather has chosen you and his word is khan what is there to argue about your father and i were close ones but his cruelty and ambition have made i have heard the rumors well i have a meeting with the vizier soon shall we continue another time whenever you like [Music] that is a sad sound the last byzantine emperor was constantine paleologus if his heir is arming a militia of some kind this conflict will escalate tarik knows where the rifles are headed if i find him first i can follow the weapons straight to the bits and things he will be with his janissaries in their barracks so if you want to get close you will have to be one yourself not a problem gazelle [Music] get the information you need then kill him are you sure you told me tarik and your father were close friends suleiman this is true but such naked treason against my grandfather deserves death in daisy [Music] manuel paleologos the heir to the byzantine empire is arming a militia with the help of tariq barletti ezio wants to get close to tarik so that he can interrogate him on the location of the templar army suleiman asks ezio to kill him a rash decision however ezio agrees nonetheless and continues their plan to be honest this memory sequence is short and sweet the sequences will get much more short from here on out and you'll see why to get close to taric a man always surrounded by his janissary guards ezio must procure a set of beautifully ornate janissary armor so that he can make it into the camp without being seen allowing him to walk straight to barletti himself this next section is very similar to the golden mask mission in assassin's creed 2 during the venice ghana valley where you are in disguise but still recognizable to the guards if you linger in their line of sight for too long it's actually pretty cool though the janissaries don't question who you are but the normal ottoman guards do so you must be wary of them tarik can be found near the back of the encampment mingling with his men and watching them train there's a nice pathway straight to the scaffolding overlooking the courtyard the perfect place to deal the killing blow ezio gets into position leaps and with the snick of his blade tariq barletti is down what a bitter irony is this result of slayman's investigation you collude with the sultan's enemies what did you expect would come of such treachery i blame myself not for treason but hubris i was preparing an ambush preparing to strike the byzantine templars where they felt safest what proof do you have of this see here this will lead you to the b sentence in cappadocia destroy them if you can you have done well tariq forgive me protect my homeland assassin redeem the honor we have lost in this fight i feel so bad for tarik during this confession he was working undercover in a sense making manuel palia logos and his men believe he was trying to form an alliance with them even going so far as to supply them with counterfeit weapons so that they would trust him he was planning on mounting an attack on the byzantines before they could attack constantinople just as his plan was falling into place suleiman's investigation led us to this point an innocent man being killed to flying too close to the sun you can tell how ashamed betsy was of this misjudgement as a good man is dead at his hand because of the rast decision of another during his confession he tells ezio the location of the byzantine templars their holed up in the underworld city of cappadocia after escaping the janna series ezio returns to sulaiman to relay the bad news tarek was not traitor suleiman he too was tracking the bits and teams what [Music] so did you i'm sorry god forgive me should not have been so quick to judge he was loyal to your grandfather to the end and through his efforts we have the means to save your city tariq you should not have been so secretive what a terrible way to do a good thing their weapons were taken to cappadocia can you get me there yes of course i will arrange the ship to take you suleiman suleiman i have been set up and made to lock a traitor do you remember tariq the man you quarreled with he's been murdered it is no secret that he and i were at odds now the genesis will accuse me of this crime this is terrible [Music] when work gets back to my father he will banish me from the city ah forgive me nephew i was not aware that you had a guest this is marcelo one of my european advisors in cafe buona sera my nephew and i have a private matter to discuss as i said there will be a ship waiting for you when you wish to leave grazie emil brinship we will track down the perpetrator of this crime uncle have patience [Music] with tarik dead and are met occupied with damage control ezio returns to the bookshop to visit sofia once more to see if she has closed in on the location of more polo books enjoying the poem who are these men he condemned to her political opponents men who wronged him alighieri squeal cuts deeply now see it is a subtle way to seek revenge ezio i plan to make a trip to andre and opal in a few weeks to visit a new printing press there that should be fine it is a five or six day ride from here and i will need an escort prego i'm sorry you are a busy man sophia i would love to accompany you but my time is running short that is true for all of us well i can try to solve this last coat now but i need to run an errand before sundown can you wait a day what do you need it is silly but a bouquet of fresh flowers white tulips specifically i can get you the flowers there's a problem are you sure it would be a nice change of pace ben meet me in the park east of aya sofia and we will trade flowers for information [Music] this is probably one of the more infamous missions in assassin's creed revelations and i know the ac community has memed it a bit because it's so seemingly inconsequential but i really like it as is common with all of these sofia missions it's a change of pace and it shows a side to ezio that we really didn't see in brotherhood in brotherhood ezio was very brooding serious and ambitious whereas in revelations he's a lot more laid-back wise and comfortable with who he is seeing him and sophie interact and get to know each other better is really wholesome so i always value these missions sophia has asked ezio to get some white tulips for her and so being the absolute chad he is ezio just wanders out into the city with the intention of finding the flowers speaking to the flower merchant proves useless as he has no flowers in stock but insists that ezio waits an hour or two as he knows a place he can get some not wanting to wait that long ezio tails demand to the location of the tulips cuts a few for himself and then promptly returns to sophia what is this a gift sit [Music] i wanted to thank you for letting me play a small role in your adventure a small role is enough for this adventure believe me you are a mystery auditor i do not mean to be it is fine [Music] why thank you any luck with the final code ah the code see i solved it many hours ago you will get it soon enough [Music] this scene is where ezio and sophia's friendship blossoms into more of a romance as it is evident they both like each other my boy ezio has still got that auditory charm even in his 50s the absolute silver fox anyway sofia's found the location of the next polo book and so he heads off to find it this is the final book that ezio must find so we're nearing the end of our adventure or so the game wants you to think at this point the last polo book leads ezio to the maidens tower which is another really fun mission this is actually a very tomb raider feeling mission for some reason azir scales the most covered walls of these ruins using the counterweights to drain the water revealing more parkour routes it's just such a cool mission and one of my favorite reclaimed the massiaf key missions in the entire game this one in particular really felt like one of those old assassin tombs in assassin's creed 2. feels like so long ago since we talked about those in detail right upon reclaiming the massiaf key as usual ezio returns to the assassin hq to study the disc reliving another short portion of altair's life they say he screams in his sleep calling out for his father abbas what a miserable man it is not our place to judge it certainly is if our master has gone mad i would like to know [Music] good evening water of course sit many thanks [Music] what brings you here old man [Music] pity abbas do not mock him he has lived as an orphan for most of his life shaped by his family's legacy he is desperate for power because he is powerless he is our mentor and unlike he never betrayed us nonsense al tayer was no traitor he was driven out unjustly is it is it you i heard the rumors but i did not believe them i wonder if i might speak to abbas myself it's been a long time impossible abbas uses rogue federine to keep us from the castle fewer than half the fighters here are true assassins so where do i begin with us i absolutely adore this scene so much it's brilliant in the game and in the secret crusade novel how originally these young assassins think he's just an old man sitting down for a rest and slowly realized that he is altair back after the tragedy that befell maria nearly 30 years ago there's actually a really cool moment in the book where this 90 year old altair gets held up on his way to massiaf by two bandits and he single-handedly takes them out in direct combat with nothing other than his hidden blade it's such a well-written fight because it shows altair's age and how taking on two guys which would have been no problem for him in his youth now proves to be dangerous due to his age but he still wins because well he's altair anyway that was quite the tangent altair begins making his way through the streets of massaf towards the castle where bass resides as he gets close to the castle some of the assassins refer to him as mentor assisting him on his journey to the castle however someone loyal to a bass and drunk on power so they attempt to kill altair but are ultimately defeated in the process finally altair makes it to the castle and the assassins seem reluctant to stand against him with one of them even cheering our mentor has returned altair then walks through the door of massiaf's castle to confront abbas after all these years tell your men to stand down no i am defending massa would you not do the same you corrupted everything we stand for and lost everything we gained all of it sacrificed on the altar of your own spite and you you have wasted your life staring into that apple dreaming of your own glory that is true of us i learned many things from the apple of life and death of the past and the future let me show you [Music] i can never forgive you are tired the lies you told about my family my father the humiliation i suffered they were not lies abbas i was 10 years old when your father came to see me he was in tears begging to be forgiven for betraying my family then he cut his own throat i watched his life away at my feet i will never forget that image but he was not a coward of us he reclaimed his honor i hope there is another life after this one then i will see him and know the truth of his final days and when it is your time we will find you and then there will be no doubts [Music] the confession scene between altair and abbas is one of the best moments in the entire ac franchise if you've read the secret crusade book you'd recall the moment where altair is a boy and a bass father comes into his room and slices his own throat in front of him altair and abbas used to be best friends and trained together there's even a joke they have where altair used to cover one of his eyes and do an impression of amwale and yet when altair told abbas what his father had done to himself he couldn't believe it and accused altair of trying to bring shame upon his family this is what ultimately started their rivalry and led them on this path i also want to say how cool it was to see altair use the hidden gun for the first time it was such a great payoff moment as clearly abass just wasn't expecting it whatsoever returning to ezio this actually isn't quite the end of the memory sequence just yet we have a boat to catch ezio meets with yusuf in the streets of constantinople to discuss the chain that has been raised by the janissaries to stop boats getting to and from the city auditory world around the city as you're leaving us is nothing i do a secret not to worry brother the captain of your ship is a friend but neither of you are going anywhere just yet the janissaries have raised the chain across the mouth of the halach and ordered a full blockade until you are caught there is the chain for me we will celebrate later uh here i have something for you careful this has 50 times the kick of our usual bombs you may remember this next mission is actually the e3 demo for assassin's creed revelations so i have a lot of fond memories of this one in particular it's ezio's job to use the bomb yusuf gave him to blow the chain from the tower that is attached to however in doing so this alerts the ottoman soldiers to his location this is where ezio must improvise he mounts the greek fire cannon and uses it to burn the ships in the blockade this bit's so cool and is actually the only time you get to use any form of cannon or mounted gun in the game the greek fire quickly spreads to each of the ships coating the harbor in a thick black smoke which dies the sky orange with the roaring flames this set piece is probably my favorite in the ezio games running through the burning shipwrecks avoiding the guards as they clamber towards you and finally leaping on the ship leading to cappadocia it's just absolutely perfect of course it's not a subtle approach see sorry for the delay [Music] do you regret anything desmond like what running away leaving your parents behind finding a [ __ ] job and pretending to be productive what's it like spending your whole life avoiding hard decisions come on sure you're an assassin but it wasn't your choice do you have a point i want to know if you regret anything sure i wish i'd been more patient with my parents i wish i'd listened and lucy maybe things could have been different if i i'm not sure thank you for what for making sense it's been a while since we've heard from desmond and clay on animus island so it's nice to have another scene with both of them this one in particular shows the toll that everything is taking on desmond's psyche his life is catching up to him the life that he tried so hard to escape when he ran away from the farm at 16 years old much like ezio desmond is going through a very transformative period in his life where he truly realizes what he must do i actually really loved these small scenes between desmond and clay i just wish there were more of them there's also a small piece of dialogue after this cut scene in which william shawn and rebecca discuss desmond's high concentration of firsts of dna a very important aspect of desmond's character at this point you can really see the writers trying to slowly introduce more aspects of the isu and how desmond fits into their grand plan what the story of assassin's creed could have been if it was kept in good hands i have left constantinople and set sail for the interior of anatolia to a region called cappadocia where manuel is training his soldiers if i am lucky i will not be alone for there may be ottoman spies in the area waiting to strike but as ever i put stock only in myself and hold the memory of dear sophia close to my heart claudia you would love to hear the racing thoughts of your brother now i have come to admire sophia with more affection than i thought possible after the death of christina something withered in me but that feeling that capacity for love has returned i adore sophia but dare not drag her into this life of mine not without fear of hurting her or driving her away no evidence of an army here and no signs of tarik's men ezio arrived in kaputochia with the intent of finding manuel palia logos and finally putting an end to his plans to attack constantinople tariq died trying to find him so it's up to ezio to finish his work to honor the memory of the late janissary captain you also get cool new robes whilst in cappadocia designed to make ezio look a lot less conspicuous in a place that has no assassin influence at all there are no sign of any of the ottoman spies anywhere and so it's ezio's duty to find them so he can work with them to find the templars cappadocia's design and revelation is absolutely superb too with buildings etched into the cave walls and every available space being used for habitation i particularly like the huge ray of sunlight penetrating through the cave it really adds to a sense of foreboding in this ancient city ezio makes his way inside and sets off to find the ottoman spies ezio explores around cappadocia and manages to find what's left of the spies most of them were either captured or killed all that remains of this woman and a few others who managed to escape the templars with their lives the woman dilara later gets discovered and captured by the byzantines so ezia easily sneaks into the prison and frees her she's enraged that her comrades have been killed and runs off to find shakulu the man that has been put in charge of the preparations in cappadocia ezio follows her to find chicolu torturing and beating the remaining survivors of the ottoman spies you do not cooperate very well i'm here to rescue my men not make friends there that armor is too thick for bullets i will have to get in close we have to help him etsu climbs around the various beams and broken pillars scattered around the arena dispatching the guards overlooking shakulu he reaches the stone cross directly above shakulu and leaps down to deliver the killing blood men who make a fetish out of deserve no pity this moment was great something we'd never seen in ac before shakula grabs ezio and shoves him off after which your boss battle ensues i say boss battle it's really not that hard to take chicoulu down what's even stranger is he doesn't even get a confession scene ezio just breaks his neck with his foot to make sure that he's dead and calls it a day anyway the plan is to blow up the garrison that the byzantines have stationed in kappadochia so using the gunpowder that tarik gave to paleologos ezio infiltrates the small fortress and throws a bomb into the gunpowder barrels a bomb that flushes out manuel palia logos with shikulu dead the weapons and gun power are destroyed and paleo logo sat in the open all that's left is the easy part ezio chases manuel through the smog-covered streets of kappadochia until there's nowhere left for the wretched old man to run you you take advantage of our poor and displaced people using us to feather your own vain quest but we fight for dignity assassin we fight to restore peace to this troubled land templars are always quick to talk of peace but very slow to concede power because power begets peace flakka it cannot happen in reverse these people would drown without a fel hand to lift him up and keep them in line there he is the monster i came to kill come [Music] i should have been constantine's successor he had so many plans your dream dies with you manuel your empire is gone huh but i am not the only one with this vision assassin the dream of our order is universal but the mind pistons these are only labels costumes and facades beneath these trappings our templars are part of the same family enough prattling i am here for the masjid of key see if you get within 100 leagues of that library before one of us finishes you off poor manuel last of the paleology i should not have put him in charge of our massif expedition he was an arrogant man impossible to keep in line disappoint me i met why are the templars because i am tired of all of these pointless blood feuds that fit father against son brother against brother to achieve true peace mankind must think and move as one body with one mastermind the secrets in the grand temple will give us just that and altair will lead us there delusions attire secrets are not for you i am not interested in arguing hco i am here for the mercy of keys keys are there more than this one so i have heard perhaps i should ask someone who knows better sophia is that her name she knows nothing leave her be we shall see i will kill you you toucher i know you'll try [Music] ezio is driven out of cappadocia by the byzantines and it's revealed that prince ahmed is now the leader of the templars his plan to stop ezio from returning to constantinople so that he can take sofia sato and learn the locations of the massif keys of course this doesn't go fully according to plan as ezio easily dispatches the guards and runs through the streets of cappadocia once more to escape the smoke that is now choking the inhabitants of the city ezio makes it out and returns to his boat to inspect the massif key that he took from paleo logos leading to yet another altar here memory nikola polo our time together was brief i know but i have faith this codex will answer the many questions you have yet to ask altair this gift is invaluable grazie so where will you go next back to constantinopoli for a time we will establish a guild there before returning to venezia your son marco will be eager to hear his father's wild stories he is a little young for such tales but one day soon see father a vanguard of mongols is broken through the village is overrun nicolo your cargo and provisions are waiting for you by the village gates we will escort you there thank you mentor ready to catapult and watch for my signal stay close this memory takes place with altair as an established mentor of the assassins once more the mongols are attacking massiaf and so altair uses the apple of eden to escort the polos away from the village this is such a great payoff moment not only being able to play his all-time year but using the apple to its full potential it uses basically the same mechanic as brotherhood holds square or x to charge the apple's power however this time instead of the apple either outright killing people or controlling the minds of your enemies it's able to summon apparitions of assassins that dispatch the enemies for you after fighting through the horde of mongols altair nicolopolo and mafeopolo reach the gates of massiaf and they part ways with altair asking them to hide the massiaf keys as best they can father are you hurt [Music] give me a moment [Music] the end of an era [Music] when i was very young i was foolish enough to believe that our creed would bring an end to all these conflicts if only i possess the humility to say to myself i have seen enough for one life i have done my part then again there is no greater glory than fighting to find the truth we are ready a last favor niccolo take these with you and gut them well hide them if you must artifacts of a kind they are keys each one imbued with a message a message for whom i wish i knew forgive the haste of my handwriting claudia much has transpired and later love it good i am on a sheep bound for costantinopoli in pursuit of a man whose treachery has eluded me until now prince ahmed suleiman's uncle is the man leading templars here he is the mastermind behind the mastiff expedition and he will stop at nothing to retrieve the keys all of which are now in assassin hands so what holds me back why do i not take the keys to masjiff myself and be done with these fools because i have been careless because the templars know about sophia and they're looking for her oh claudia if anything should happen to her i could not live with myself i have dragged her into a war she knows nothing about and it will be my burden to bear if she comes to any harm citizens of the empire and travelers from foreign lands take heat by order of the janissaries new restrictions apply to all who travel to and from the city note that a reward of ten thousand actually will be given without question to anyone who brings in information that leads to the immediate arrest of this suicide it's your auditorium ezio returns to constantinople and the guards are on high alert ahmet has also put out a bounty on ezio's head so that he needs to keep his head low if he wants to keep sophia from harm as we know prince ahmed threatened to harm sofia if etc didn't give up the massiaf keys so he heads to the bookstore to look for her [Music] [Music] you have earned your rest brother requiesca pache [Music] brothers sisters the whole city rises against us while yusuf's murderer waits and watches from the arsenal laughing fight with me and show him what it means to cross the assassins this is a death that actually hits quite hard yusuf is always the nice guy that comes to the aid of ezio whenever he needs it he was the first assassin that we were introduced to as soon as we reached constantinople so seeing his death is a very sad moment ezio is also clearly not best pleased his enraged speech during this scene always gives me goosebumps at this point ezio is clearly sick of losing those he holds dear and is out to kill amer and retrieve the massiaf keys ezio rallies the assassins and storms into the arsenal throughout the duration of this memory you're given infinite assassin signals meaning you can just walk right through without any fear of being touched by the guards after making his way through the arsenal ezio finally reaches ahmet where is she such fury where is she if you think you are in a position to negotiate kill me and be done with it i am sorry yet had to come to this two men who should be friends quarreling over the keys to a library we both strive for the same end ezio only our methods differ do you not see that peace stability a world where men live without fear people desire the truth yes but even when they have it they refuse to look how do we fight this kind of ignorance liberty can be messiamet but it is priceless of course and when things fall apart and the lights of civilization team ezio auditory can stand above the darkness and say proudly i stayed true to my creed i will open that library and i will find the grand temple and with the power that is hidden there i will destroy the superstitions that keep men divided not in this life ahmed bring the seals to galata tower when you are ready do this and sophia will be spared my brother's army will be here soon ezio after that everything changes [Music] how long have you been here long enough i'd ahmed as soon as he returned [Music] but i never expected to hear all this and what do you think he is a sincere man but this templar fantasy of his is dangerous it flies in the face of reality the world is a tapestry of many colors and patterns a just leader would celebrate this not seek to unravel it he fears the disorder that comes from difference that is why we make laws to live by a canon that applies to all in equal measure [Music] whole soldier this man is not our enemy what their challenge it would be to have a son like you you are not dead yet old friend that's you spare my uncle if you can or your father no the dialogue in this scene between ezio and ahmet alezio and suleiman is absolutely brilliant i love how it discusses some of the key contradictions between the assassins and templars and the varying methods each faction uses to reach their goal of peace ahmet is not a true templar per se but he does seek the supposed power of altair's library to bring peace to his people a noble goal but kidnapping a woman and killing ezio's friends is not a way to achieve that ezio is to meet ahmet at the galata tower in order to exchange the masiaf keys for sophia but of course ezio doesn't actually intend to allow ahmet to keep them it's just right now his utmost concern is keeping sofia safe and so ezio heads to the galata tower to speak to his recruits before meeting with ahmet mentor now should be a time for remembrance and mourning i know but our enemies do not permit us that luxury yusuf thought highly of you assassin and i find no reason to second-guess this judgment do you have it in your heart to lead these men and women and to maintain the dignity of our order as yusuf did with such passion it would be an honor bene am glad our enemy is close take positions around the tower and wait for my command ezio and his assassins make their way to the meeting with ahmet the two leaders speak for a while and tensions are high it seems trusted little between the two ezio has the upper hand until ahmet reveals that sophia is being held on top of the galata tower and it's obvious she isn't safe ezio throws the massiaf keys to ahmet and immediately begins climbing the galata tower to reach her once he reaches the top it's revealed the woman isn't sofia at all just a decoy ahmet must have known that ezio would have made sure sophia was safe and then pursued him to reclaim the keys so he put this decoy sofia here as a way to slow ezio down the real sofia is actually being hanged from a nearby tree this was obviously another last ditch attempt from ahmet to keep ezio from pursuing him as he would be occupied with making sure sofia is okay [Music] are you hurt not not hurt but very confused i did not mean to drag you into this i'm sorry you're not responsible for the actions of other men all this will be over soon but i need to recover what they have taken i do not understand what is happening ezio who are these men run i met didn't foresee was that ezio would easily save sophia and the two would ride after him immediately making chase in an attempt to reclaim the massif keys here we have the last carriage set piece in the game in the last carriage set piece of the ezio trilogy it's without a doubt the best of them as we ride through the fields surrounding constantinople with the setting sun painting the sky orange ezio falls from the carriage but manages to activate his parachute in time causing him to fly into the air attached to the moving carriage via a rope tied to the parachute this is a great finale chase and really reminds me of the glider section from ac2 as you can swoop down and assassinate guards that are chasing sofia the logistics and physics of this set piece really don't make sense but my god is it cool after successfully defending sophia and catching up to a met ezio manages to jump to his carriage causing hermet to crash into a nearby wall sending both of the men flying off the cliff even though they're free-falling ezio and a met still grapple in the air struggling to overcome the other after a few moments of falling and fighting ezio releases his parachute once more but hermet clings onto him as they both float down to the ground below [Music] so what now it's you how does this end i am wondering that myself [Music] oh soldiers selim is not your master you serve the sultan you carry out his command alone where is he where is the sultan he stands before your brother father stop please [Music] so you are the assassin it's your auditory i am salim suriman's father he speaks quite highly of you he is a remarkable boy with a magnificent mind but it not for his endorsement i would have you killed where you stand leave this place do not return [Music] you did the right thing lets you this is not your fight but where does one end and the next begin there we have it ezio's final adventure is nearly over with ahmet and all the major templars in constantinople defeated it's time for sophia and ezio to head to massiaf to finally lay his father's legacy to rest but not before catching up with desmond and clay on animus island one last time here it comes what is that what's going on this is the end desmond scheduled for deletion what are you doing what is the man but the some of his memories we are the stories we live the tales we tell ourselves don't do this i'm saving you idiot go this scene is so good even though it's short it's one of those scenes in revelations that really made its mark on me with the beautifully composed soundtrack swelling in the background subject 16 makes his one last hurrah saving desmond from having his consciousness deleted by the animus and imprinting his knowledge into desmond by grabbing him and sending him into the sink nexus it was such an impactful scene in 2011 subject 16 was a character whose story was drip-fed to us over the course of the entire franchise all the way from finding the bloodstained symbols in desmond's room in abstergo in the original assassin's creed finding his puzzles in the animus in assassin's creed 2 finding his recorded messages in assassin's creed brotherhood and finally meeting him in this game his final moments confirmed to us that subject 16 wasn't the ominous man we thought he was all this time just a guy who got caught up in the secret war between assassins and templars trying to do the right thing same as desmond anyway with that it's time we finish this and see what awaits ezio and sofia in altair's library i write these lines with a steady hand and a light heart we are a knock right now sophia and i with the five massive keys in our possession and all the time in the world sophia is a seasoned traveler and a fine companion to have so far from home tomorrow we will make our way to masjaff and once there into altair's library to fulfill our father's forgotten dream forgive the shortness of this letter dear sister for it is late and we are tired perhaps with luck the next words you hear from me will be in person con afeto ezio here we go lads we made it to the final sequence i'll be interested to see how many of you made it this far in the video as right now as i'm writing the script i know it's going to be hours long the dialogue between sofia and ezio as they walk up the slopes towards massif castle is brilliant ezio can finally open up to her and discuss the nature of the assassins they talk about the maxim the origins of the assassins in their history it's a really nice moment from a law and character perspective lastly ezio talks about the whole reason he started this journey in the first place how this life chose him and how for the last 30 years he has surfed the memory of giovanni federico and petruccio fighting for those who have suffered the pain of injustice one line that really stuck out to me was i do not regret those years but it is time to live for myself and to let them go to let go of all of this this moment is ezio's realization that although he has done his duty as an assassin to protect the free will of the people he also must do what altair did not and know when to say he has seen enough for one life and to live for himself it's just a very emotional piece of dialogue because we've had a whole trilogy of games with this character and this is the moment in which it's truly realized that this is his final adventure with us and it's time for us to say goodbye to ezio auditore in response to ezio's wishes to let go of his past sofia replies then let go you will not fall far which i think is just a beautifully written piece of dialogue no more needs to be said he's letting go of the only life he has known for the last 30 years and she will catch him when he does so finally after all this time the two approached the door to altair's library with all five massiaf keys in hand you had better come out i plan to ezio walks through the entrance to altair's library and begins lighting the torches lining the walls of the corridor to light his way we are greeted by some old music from assassin's creed one the massiaf theme it was so great hearing this music used in revelations for the first time because it was such a subtle way of referencing what had come before it and how ezio was currently in the very same castle that altair had once called home for most of his life as he walks through the dim corridor the room opens up into a large stone room lined with empty bookshelves with a chair in the center and sat in that chair is altair himself holding the final massiaf key containing his last memories no books no wisdom just you fratello [Music] like we escaped [Music] you have seen to my books yes some we sent with the polos the rest will go with me to alexandria good very good father i do not understand why did you build a library if you did not intend to keep your books you should go when the mongols return massive must be empty i see this is not a library at all it is a vault it must stay hidden far from eager hands at least until it has passed on the secret it contains what's secret go son go be with your family and live well all that is good in me began with you father the final memory of altair begins with him speaking with darim his eldest son and only remaining family member he says his goodbyes to darim and closes the door to his library once and for all you may notice that the beginning of this memory is similar to the end of ezio's last memory however instead of lighting the torches you put them out i don't know why i always liked this mirroring of ezio and altair's actions as you walk through this corridor once more you get nice pieces of dialogue from important characters in altair's life most notably al-mualim quoting the bible for in much wisdom is much grief and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow this quote proves very true in altair's case he spent most of his life pondering over the apple and trying to understand the secrets of the first civilization but never fully uncovering the truth his wisdom led him to obsession with the apple and even though he didn't use it for evil it still consumed his life in many ways especially after maria and his youngest son seth died granted altair was able to lock the apple away in massive castle as he's doing right now and he also was able to write the codex and develop new assassin weapons and techniques but at the cost of his entire life because he dedicated his life to protecting the apple studying it and making sure that its knowledge was documented for the assassins of future generations after making his way to the back of the library altair finally locks the apple away and in turn completes his duty as an assassin [Music] [Music] [Music] ezio now knows that the purpose of voltaire's library was simply to lock the apple away from people that had no business with it waiting for it to be found by the right person although ezio has no intentions of getting involved this time around as his time as an assassin is over now comes my personal favorite moment from any assassin's creed game ezio's final speech this moment is just absolutely amazing from the music the acting and writing and just the feeling of complete finality of it all this character ezio auditore that we've gotten to know over the course of three games is saying his final words on screen and i just think this moment holds so much emotion and weight i could sit here and talk about it forever but i'd rather just let it play for you guys it's one of those scenes that speaks more words than i could ever analyze i also just want to say this cut scene leads on to a particularly long one that i'm also going to let play out as it's quite important in setting up the sequel to revelations assassin's creed 3. it shows the direction of the story and for the first time we actually get to fully learn what happened to the first civilization and what they tried to do to escape the cataclysm so yeah we made it to the end the final cut scenes i'll see you on the flip side another artifact [Music] no you will stay here i have seen enough for one life desmond he's talking to me i heard your name once before desmond a long time ago and now it lingers in my mind like an image from an old dream i do not know where you are or by what means you can hear me but i know you are listening i have lived my life as best i could not knowing his purpose but drawn forward like a moth to a distant moon and here at last i discover a strange truth but i am only a conduit for a message that eludes my understanding who are we who have been so blessed to share our stories like this to speak across centuries maybe you will answer all the questions i have asked maybe you will be the one to make all this suffering worth something in the end now listen [Music] do you hear me cypher can you see me ah there you are good a strange place this nexus of time i am not used to the calculations that has always been minerva's domain i see you still have many questions who were we what became of us what do we desire of you you will have your answers only listen and i will tell you how both before the end and after we sought to they were placed underground to avoid the war which raged above and also as a precaution should we fail in our efforts each knowledge was transmitted to a single place [Music] [Music] it was our duty blind the nervous and junos to sort and sound all that was connected we chose those solutions which held the most promise and devoted ourselves to testing their merits six we tried in succession each more encouraging than the last but none worked and then [Music] [Music] so well so [Music] the earth shook for days the fires burned for weeks and when the ash had settled less than ten thousand of your kind still lived and far fewer of ours but we carried on together to rebuild to renew listen you must go there to the place where we labored labored and lost take my words pass them from your head into your hands that is how you will open the way but be warned much still remains in flux and i do not know how things will end either in my time or yours [Music] wait look his vitals are stabilizing something's happening he's he's moving desmond can you hear me son i know what we need to do thanks for joining me for my retrospective on assassin's creed revelations if you've joined me these last three years for each of my ezio trilogy retrospectives then i thank you for joining me on this dive into the games that made me appreciate storytelling on a whole new level assassin's creed revelations has become a much more important game to me as i've gotten older because not only is it the story of acknowledging what's come before but it's also the story of letting go of familiarity and knowing when to accept change in my opinion revelations is the perfect ending to ezio and altair's stories and was the very last game in the assassin's creed franchise that it was at the top of its game it tells the story of a wise and weary ezio on a journey to finally honor his father's legacy and discover what resides within altair's library but on the way he discovers love camaraderie pain and anger but most of all true wisdom the wisdom to live for himself and no one else i want to say i am going to be going back and doing a video on the original assassin's creed for a 15 years later video this year as well as a 10-year retrospective on assassin's creed 3 hopefully although you guys know how bad i am being on time with these retrospectives subscribe to the channel if you want more content like this in the future and don't mind wildly inconsistent upload and thanks again for joining me for this deep dive into the narrative and gameplay of assassin's creed revelations thanks for watching everyone take care so yeah we're not actually quite done yet there's still a little bit more of ezio's story that i want to tell i'm going to take this opportunity in the epilogue of the video to do so in my assassin's creed brotherhood retrospective i highlighted how it was a shame that we never see or hear from machiavelli and leonardo again after the events of assassin's creed brotherhood and that their stories were actually wrapped up in the book assassin's creed revelations written by oliver bowden you actually get to witness leonardo's final moments with ezio as well as ezio's death and i'd like to go back and read sections from the revelations book just to tell this final bit of his story so join me as we take a little detour to florence in 1518 to the villa auditore as ezio is gently nursing a glass of wine as he writes about his life [Music] early one evening near the beginning of the following spring ezio sat alone by the fire in his dining hall a glass of his own read by him he had a pen and paper and was trying to make a start for the umpteenth time on chapter 16 but he found recollection far less interesting than action and after a while as always he impatiently pushed the manuscript away reaching for his glass he was overcome by a fit of painful coughing knocking it over it fell with a terrible clatter spilling wine all over the olive wood surface of his table but it did not break he stood to retrieve it as it rolled toward the edge of the table and righted it as sophia came in attracted by the noise are you all right amore it's nothing i'm sorry about the mess hand me a cloth forget the cloth you need to rest ezio groped for a chair as sophia stood by his side easing him down sit she commanded gently as he did so she picked up the unlabeled bottle wrapped a small towel around his neck and checked the level of wine left in it best cure for a cold said at seo sheepishly as nicolo arrived yet he's right behind me she replied adding dryly i'd better bring you another bottle this one i see is nearly empty a writer needs his fuel machiavelli had entered the room with the lack of ceremony he was entitled to as an old friend and a frequent guest he took the cloth from sofia here let me he wiped the glass then the table top ezio watched him a slightly sour look on his face i invited you here to drink not clean up after me machiavelli finished the job before he replied with a smile i can do both a tidy room and a good glass of wine are all a man needs to feel content ezio laughed mockingly rubbish you sound like a character from one of your plays you've never seen one of his plays put in sofia shaking her head ezio was embarrassed well i can imagine can you then why not put that imagination to work why don't you buckle down and get on with this he indicated the neglected manuscript we've been over this nicolo i don't write i'm a father a husband a winemaker i'm quite happy with that fair enough sophie had freshed a fresh bottle of red and placed it by them the tomb clean glasses and clean napkins i'll leave you two to discuss literature together she said once i've helped andrea get the children to bed i've got some writing of my own to do what's that ask machiavelli never you mind she said i'll just wait to see what you think of the wine he's been fretting about it through several bottles she'll get her book finished well before you do yours said machiavelli never mind that said ezio taste this last year's harvest a disaster if you ask for my judgment you shall have it he sit the wine ezio had poured him rolled it around his mouth savouring it and swallowed it's delicious he smiled sangiovese say again or have you changed sophia's face broke into a grin as she rubbed ezio's shoulder you see she said a blend said ezio pleased but mainly my old son giovese i didn't really think it was all that bad my grapes are the best of course they are machiavelli took another deep draft ezio smiled though sophia noticed that his hand went to his chest surreptitiously to massage it come on celezio there's still some light left in the sky i'll show you they went outside and walked down the avenue leading to the vineyards trebiano for white ezio said waving his hand at a row of vines you must have some with dinner we're getting tono al cartocchio serena's specialty i love the way she cooks tuna machiavelli replied he looked around you've done well ezio leonardo would have been proud to see what you have cultivated here only because i'm using the tools he gave me said ezio laughing he'd be jealous i sell twice as much wine as he ever does from his vineyards in porta verchinilla still he should never have sent that rascal salahi back from amwaz to run the place then he paused what do you mean he would have been proud makia face grew grave i've had a letter it's to both of us actually but it takes forever for the post to get out here to fiesta look at co he's not too well he'd like to see us ezio squared his shoulders when do we start he said they reached the claw lucey the manor house near the chateau and was which king francis had given leonardo as part of the package of his patronage in late april the loire flowed an easy pace the banks of its brown waters crowded with trees and new leaf they rode through the gates of the manor down an avenue lined with cypress trees to be met by a man's servant leaving their horses in the care of an osler they followed the man's servant into the house in a large airy room its open windows overlooking the park to the rear lay leonardo on a chess lounge dressed in a yellow brocade gown and half covered by a bare-skinned rug his long white hair and beard were straggly and he had gone bald on top but his eyes still shone brightly and he half rose to greet them my dear friends i'm so glad you've come etienne bring us wine and cakes you're not supposed to have cakes let alone wine look here who pays your wages never mind don't answer that the same man that pays mine i know just do as you're told the man's servant bowed and left soon to return with a tray which he placed ceremoniously on a nearby polish table before taking his leave again but as he did so he bowed once more and said to leonardo's guests you must forgive the disorder it's our way machiavelli and ezio shared a smile the polished table and the gleaming tray were an island in a rough sea of chaos leonardo's habits hadn't changed how are things old friend astio taking a seat near the artist i can't complain but i'm interested in moving on leonardo said trying to make his voice sound stronger than it was what do you mean said ezio concerned that his friend was using some kind of euphemism i'm not talking about dying said leonardo irritably i'm talking about england their new kings very interested in building up his navy i'd like to get over there and sell in my submarine the venetians never did pay me you know they never built it that's beside the point don't you have enough to occupy your mind here asked machiavelli leonardo gave him an outraged look if you can call creating a mechanical lion occupying my mind he snapped that was my liege lord's last commission i ask you a mechanical lion that walks along and roars and as a finale his breast opens and reveals a basket of lilies he snorted good enough in itself i suppose but to demand such a gore of me me the inventor of flying machines and tanks and parachutes ezio added softly did it come in handy very handy good leonardo waved a hand toward the tray help yourselves but not me his voice fell a little etienne's right the most like and stomach these days is warm milk they were silent then machiavelli said do you still paint leonardo grew sad i'd like to but somehow i've lost the force can't seem to finish things anymore but i've left salie the gioconda in my will it might help him out in his old age i think francis would love to buy it mind you i wouldn't give you tuppence for it myself not my best work not by far i prefer the thing i did of dear little salahi as john the baptist his voice trailed off and he looked into the middle distance at nothing that dear boy such a pity i had to let him go i miss him so much but he was wretched here he's better off looking after the vineyards i attend vines myself these days said ezio softly i know good for you much more sensible for a man of your age than running around hacking off the heads of templars leonardo paused i'm afraid they will always be with us whatever we do perhaps it's better to bow to the inevitable never say that cried ezio sometimes we have no choice leonardo replied sadly there was silence again then machiavelli said what's this talk of wills leonardo leonardo looked at him oh niccolo what's the point of pretense i'm dying that's why i asked you to come we three have been through so much i wanted to say goodbye i thought you have plans to visit king henry of england he's a bullish young puppy and i'd like to leonardo replied but i won't i can't this room is the last place i'll ever see and the trees outside full of birds you know especially now it's spring again he lay silent for so long without moving that the two friends looked at each other in alarm but then leonardo stirred did i nod off he asked i shouldn't i don't have time for sleep be getting enough of that soon enough then he was silent again he was asleep once more we'll come back tomorrow said ezio gently he and machiavelli rose and made for the door come back tomorrow leonardo's voice stopped them in their tracks we'll talk some more they turned to him as he raised himself on one elbow the bare skin fell from his knees and machiavelli stooped to replace it thank you niccolo leonardo looked at them i'll tell you a secret all my life while i thought i was learning how to live i've simply been learning how to die they were there with him a week later when he breathed his last in the small hours it made the second but he no longer knew them he was already gone rumors are already going around said machiavelli as they rode sadly homewood the king francis cradled his head in his arms as he died ezio spat some people even kings will do anything for publicity he said the next day was fine and fresh they had stayed in florence for lunch and sophia was bent on making just a few more purchases before the journey home ezio walking down the street a few paces behind his wife and children suddenly winced as a fit of coughing took him he leaned against the wall for support in a moment sophia was by his side you should have stayed at home he smiled at her i am home sit down here she indicated a nearby bench wait for us we'll be right over there only take a minute or two he nodded watching her rejoin the children and wander off a little farther down the street he made himself comfortable letting the pain subside he watched the people walking to and fro going about their daily business he felt pleased and enjoyed watching them he breathed in the smells of the market as it broke up around him he listened to the sound the traders made i love it here he said to himself home home at last his reverie was interrupted by the peevish voice of a young italian who plumped himself down on the bench near him the young man was talking apparently to himself he didn't look at ezio al diavalo i hate this damn city i wish i were in rome i hear the women there uh um like ripe sanjivse on the vine you know not like here firenze he spat on the ground ezio looked at him i don't think florence is your problem he remarked pained at what the young man had said i beg your pardon ezio was about to reply but the pain seized him again and he winced and started to gasp the young man turned to him steady old man he grabbed ezio's wrist as ezio caught his breath looking down at the hand that held him ezio thought the grip was uncommonly strong and there was something strange almost familiar about the man's expression but he was probably imagining it all he shook his head to clear it the young man looked at ezio closely and smiled ezio returned the look get some rest eh the young man said he rose to his feet and walked away ezio nodded in belated agreements watching him go then he leaned back seeking sophia in the thinning crowd and he saw her at a stall buying vegetables and there beside her were flavia and marcelo baiting each other playing together he closed his eyes and took some deep breaths his breathing calmed the young man was right he should get some rest sophia was packing the vegetables she brought into a basket when something cold crept into her heart she looked up then around back to where ezio sat there was something about the way he was sitting confused not wanting to admit what she feared to herself she put a hand to her mouth and hurried across to him leaving the children playing where they were as she got closer she slowed her pace looking at him she sat down by his side taking his hand and then she leaned forward pressing her forehead against his hair one or two people looked in their direction then one or two more with concern but otherwise life in the street went on [Music] much later that day back home and having sent machiavelli away sophia took herself into the den the children were in bed she didn't think what had happened had sunk in for them yet in the den the fire had gone out she lit a candle she walked to the desk and picked up the neatly stacked sheaf of papers tied with a ribbon that lay on it she began to read [Music] when i was a young man i had liberty but i did not see it i had time but i did not know it and i had love but i did not feel it many decades would pass before i understood the meaning of all three and now in the twilight of my life this understanding has passed into contentment love liberty and time once so disposable are the fuels that drive me forward and love most especially for you our children our brothers and sisters and for the vast and wonderful world that gave us life and keeps us guessing endless affection near sophia forever yours it's you auditory [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: LongEaredFox

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Keywords: gamer, gaming, games, video essays, analysis, review, retrospective, Assassin's Creed Revelations, Assassin's Creed Revelations 10 Years Later, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood 10 Years Later, Assassin's Creed II 10 Years Later, AC Revelations, Assassin's Creed Retrospective, Assassin's Creed 10 Years Later, Assassin's Creed Revelations Retrospective, Assassin's Creed Revelations Best Weapons & Armour, Assassin's Creed Revelations 100% Sync, Assassin's Creed, Ezio, Altair, Desmond, Isu, RPG

Id: NRma6hnHEFE

Length: 177min 17sec (10637 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022