The Assassin’s Creed series has been going strong for 11 years now. Starting from 2007’s Assassin’s Creed, the franchise took off with a bang by offering a unique take on the Sandbox genre. Unlike Grand Theft Auto, the Assassin’s Creed games have great variety by offering players the opportunity to hide in the shadows and make their move, many times in large crowds. The series has mass appeal thanks to it integrating the stories into real-world history. There’s a popular agreement between players that they have learned more history from Assassin’s Creed than they have in history class in school.
School doesn’t offer the chance for one to gear up in cool assassin garb and traverse past locales to their hearts’ content, but school does give us accurate lessons which are free from nonsensical moments. The Assassin’s Creed games are rich from points that make a mockery of common sense. Most of these are part of gameplay and are supposed to be accepted in-universe. Sure you’re going to have your qualms with these points by boldly stating that we’re grasping for straws to find some nitpicking issues from the games (and you would be right about that just a bit) but that doesn’t make the nonsensical elements any less ridiculous.
So if you’re going to whine and complain about us finding faults in your favorite series, you might as well whine all you want. Or you could read through the numerous points we have compiled about Assassin’s Creed’s stories or gameplay moments that are ripe with hard to believe factors.
Here are 30 things in Assassin’s Creed that make no sense.
30 The Mechanics Of The Hidden Blade
The mechanics behind the hidden blade will leave you scratching your head. The blade is supposed to loosen from its hidden position and then be so firmly in place that it can pierce a person without retracting back in. And then with another flick, it can be held firmly back in its ‘holster.’ How either of those work is a mystery which we are not supposed to question. There’s also the ludicrousness of the earlier assassins removing an entire finger to accommodate the blade.
29 Young Ezio Was A Moron
Ezio will go down as an all-time legend in Assassin history, but boy was he a tool early in life.
He had the gift of the Eagle vision and yet never put two and two together that his father had hidden stashes right in their house.
After witnessing his uncle take down multiple hitmen with ease, Ezio still held to the belief that his father was nothing more than a banker. Ezio stood at the center of the Villa, where men were practicing in combat before his eyes, but didn’t think anything of it.
28 Entire Conflict Between Assassins And Templars
After centuries of conflicts with the Templars, there is evidently no way at all for the assassins to coexist with them. William Miles states in Assassin’s Creed III that there had been multiple attempts at reconciling both factions but all had failed. This was a lame excuse to quiet down arguments.
There had to have been at least some blended factions between the Templars and Assassins. It is a farfetched idea that only two factions could have lasted thousands of years, with no separate ideologies or any longer lasting negotiations between both sides.
27 Altair's Personality
People remember Altair for being headstrong, patient, and steadfast in the trying decades of his life. This was true after his great battle with Al Mualim, but the series’ attempt at shaping him out to be a wise man from the beginning poses a clash with Altair’s earlier personality in the first Assassin’s Creed.
In that game, Altair was an impetuous, arrogant young man. And yet, in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, in a flashback set in 1189, the 24-year-old Altair was merciful and wise beyond his years. Then how could the 26-year-old Altair in 1191 be so cold and ruthless?
26 Everyone's Accent In Unity
Assassin’s Creed Unity is the worst game in the series. Anyone who claims otherwise must love horrible storytelling, lackluster gameplay, and glitches galore. If you weren’t convinced of the game’s lunacy, how about the fact that the characters all speak in perfect English accents?
Oh, let us remind you that the game was set in France.
The most the game tries to remind us that these people are French is by throwing in random words like “Monsieur” and expecting us to play along. It just seems as if a bunch of Englishmen are pretending to be French.
25 The Leap Of Faith
Like the earlier mentioned hidden blade, a leap of faith also illustrates the cool aspects of being an assassin. Across centuries these people have thrown caution to the wind and dropped down storeys to safety. This, though, is a complete impossibility in real life.
On YouTube, you can find several videos that assess whether a leap of faith is possible. All of them conclude that in order for hay to be safe enough to be landed upon it must be stacked to a height of around the tower the Assassin is dropping from itself.
24 Letting George Washington Live
Assassin's Creed III doesn’t do too well to make us root for the Americans, however, as they don’t do much to satiate protagonist Connor’s thirst for freedom.
Connor decides to take British lives when they are in the wrong but leaves people like George Washington alive despite being betrayed by him.
Washington was responsible for burning Connor’s village and had intentions to do so again. Yet Connor lets the guy live and only holds him at contempt–as if Washington gave two hoots about that.
23 The First Civilization's Lack Of Intellect
The mystery of the First Civilization took up all of the present day storylines from Assassin’s Creed to Assassin’s Creed III. We were given several glimpses of them as they mysteriously communicated with characters from the far future such as Ezio and Desmond. For an all-wise and insanely technologically advanced race, these people were really stupid.
It is likely the First Civilization were fools who spent more time recording stuff than devising a solution that could have saved their race from extinction.
22 Constant Redesigns
Graphical upgrades are something that should be part of a continuing series. The first Assassin’s Creed looked great for its time but looks dreadful now. Till Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, the graphics were hardly something to write home about but Assassin’s Creed III was a certain step up. The downside of this, though, is that the graphical advancements have left characters barely recognizable.
Rebecca looks nothing like she did in Assassin’s Creed II as compared with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Desmond looks downright weird in Assassin’s Creed III with hollowed cheekbones and a longer face.
21 Separation Just Cause
At the end of Assassin’s Creed Origins, we witnessed the dissolution of the marriage between Bayek and Aya. The game’s opening had led us to believe these two had remained wedded but as it happened they agreed to part ways and end their union.
The reasons to do this were hardly justifiable.
They spent the entire game being "connected," and one would think after accomplishing their mission to avenge their son these two would properly get back together. But what we saw a bizarre conversation where they agreed they weren’t married anymore. What happened to love?
20 Climbing In Plain View
Don’t you just enjoy climbing skyscrapers or monoliths in broad daylight purely on a whim? This isn’t out of the ordinary at all, not when nobody finds this kind of behavior odd when you scale these monuments in front of a crowd. In the Assassin's Creed universe this is the style of thinking as the NPCs simply comment in mild surprise at watching your character climb buildings.
Guards don’t bat an eye either. In real life, it wouldn’t take a couple seconds before the authorities arrest a person who takes to mounting buildings.
19 Gandhi Controlling People
In Assassin’s Creed II, the developers decided to expand the series’ lore to reflect that every major historical event in the world had happened due to Templar and Assassin influence. This was cool to consider and a majority of these have been integrated near perfectly into the story. A few are a real stretch, though.
In the Glyph code cracking sequences from Assassin’s Creed II, a few examples such as Gandhi wielding an Apple of Eden to control the populace for his cause was laughable indeed. Gandhi’s cause being nothing more than a shtick is too out there to be taken seriously.
18 Hardly About Them Anymore
In the more recent installments, the ‘Assassin’ aspect has been majorly downgraded. In Assassin’s Creed Origins, while the game was supposed to relay the brotherhood’s beginnings, most of the game was spent combating in gladiatorial style or open combat situations. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey promises a definite turn toward aggressive combat seeing that nothing that we’ve seen so far in it is even reminiscent of a stealthy gameplay style. Then there are all the Naval missions which might confuse you if you're playing as an assassin or a sailor.
17 Bad Payoff And Non-Intimidating Villain
For all five years from 2007’s Assassin’s Creed to 2012’s Assassin’s Creed III, we were subjected to Desmond Miles’ story. It wasn’t the most engaging of storylines but we endured to see what the ultimate mystery behind Desmond’s uniqueness was that we would find in the vault.
The final result was hardly satisfying. It all led to Desmond activating a switch that would protect the world from the second solar flare but would unleash Juno to the world. The alternative of Desmond letting the world burn and for the whole cycle of conflicts to begin again was clearly the worse choice.
16 Altair's Accent
Before the whole whitewashing controversy was a thing, in 2007’s Assassin’s Creed we had an example of developers overlooking authenticity for easier relative appeal. Audiences generally respond to a familiar protagonist and exotic settings and to this end Ubisoft had Altair in the background of the Third Crusade, only to be equipped with a distinctly American accent.
It was basically Desmond Miles in the past as the characters looked identical.
Everyone else around Altair spoke with the accent that was appropriate for the time, but the main character was the only one to hold true to an American spirit.
15 Two People Sharing The Same Body
There is obviously some suspension of disbelief required when playing the Assassin’s Creed games. But there are times when Assassin’s Creed threatens to take a full-on sci-fi turn. In Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Desmond encounters Subject 16, who is an exact copy of the real person in the Animus.
This itself is strange to comprehend as a person’s entire conscience is now somehow possible to be uploaded onto a machine, but the game takes it up a notch by having Clay suggest to Desmond that they could both share the same body.
14 They Aren't Much Help
Despite the assassins being the title characters, their ideologies aren’t exactly clear-cut. In games such as Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Assassin’s Creed III, these imperfections are addressed. When fully considering the Assassins’ way of thinking, one would realize it isn’t really that great either. Basically, their ideology is to eliminate anyone who doesn’t align with their views.
The assassins take it upon themselves to act as the Judge, Jury, and Executioners. The Templars have a point in stating that the assassins don’t really do much other than eliminate people.
13 And Now We Have Reincarnation
The First Civilization's practices were far and beyond anything from human comprehension and their technology is basically magic. As the previously mentioned recordings, the Civilization apparently also had access to advanced technology that effectively allowed reincarnation.
Juno’s husband was referred to in Assassin’s Creed III but his first appearance in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag took things to implausible lengths by introducing the Sage concept. The character randomly is reborn and works to bring back Juno across centuries. For those who don’t know, Desmond had a son who was a Sage!
12 No Victories Matter
So you thwarted the Templar’s grand plans. Feels great, right? Some real sense of accomplishment to bookend the lengthy storyline of the concerned game.
Well, don’t get too excited because all of that is going to be negated come the next game.
Altair, Ezio, Connor, The Fryes, all undergo a long story where they end up as the victors but in the present day, the Assassins are on the verge of collapse. What is the point of all these victories if it is easily erased by the time we reconnect with the story?
11 Blending In
The blending aspect of Assassin’s Creed has been heavily downplayed as the series has progressed. This is mainly due to the aforementioned smaller focus on the ‘Assassin’ part of the series but it is also factual that blending in never made much sense in the first place.
Upon becoming notorious to the guards, the player needs to escape to a refuge or hide in plain sight. It isn’t logical that guards would all of a sudden forget what a person looks like just because said person sat on a bench with someone next to them.