Rob V

^^ Ok, I'll be the first to admit, I don't know what the hell is going on with the AC games. I know they're reliving the pasts of several assassins via some cyber connect thing in a lab. But, I have no idea why the assassins find connections to the past or see technology from aliens / future. I don't know that I care to connect all these dots and I don't know if it's even been explained while playing the games. If I gotta watch a YT video to understand a game, maybe I'm not the target customer. The assassin premise is excellent but the underlying reasons for the "time machine" are lost on me.

Noonan

You're not alone. I don't know anyone who plays the games and cares about the present day aspect. I completely tune out whenever those parts happen.

I recently re-started Blag Flag and almost turned it off when you first go to present day and have to slowly walk through an office. Unless they eventually do a game that's completely in modern time, no one will ever care.

davidh777

Yeah, I do the modern parts just to get through them, but I haven’t really cared since the original game. I’m sure the AC designer nerds have mapped all this out and are high-fiving each other for their cleverness, which is great for them.

I got through the training segment and made it to the familiar open-world part, then put the game aside for Spider-Man, but it’ll be the next thing after that,

ytrez

Long story short (as I understand it): The First Civilization was an ancient advanced race of humanoids. They created the human race to be their slaves and were so advanced that they appeared as gods to humans. They used devices (pieces of Eden, which are the objects of many of your quests while playing the games) to control mankind. Eventually, the humans rise up against the First Civilization and a war breaks out. Adam and Eve steal a piece of Eden (the apple sought after in the Ezio game) and then the Great Catastrophe occurs, essentially wiping out the First Civilization.

The games generally consist of Templars trying to obtain pieces of Eden so they can use them to mind control mankind while the Assassins try to foil their plans.

That being said, everything that happens between the actual Assassin gameplay is generally trash in every game, especially the Desmond stuff in the early games. And what makes it worse is that the developers employ the worst storytelling around the First Civilization stuff to be mysterious but it just ends up being confusing and non-sensical.

RocShemp

You summed it up perfectly, ytrez. Yes, there are a few other plot threads (like one character who was seemingly immortal and appears in both the Past and Present Day segments) but they all add little to nothing to the overall story, which itself is a snooze.

The only time the present day storyline showed any potential was in Brotherhood, because Desmond got to visit places he originally visited in the Animus as Ezio. Sadly, they made Desmond unkillable and the segments rather pointless. I am surprised they never took a page from Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and made it so the player visits vastly different versions (one pristine during the past, the other modern day ruins) of the same locations, with certain areas only accessible as Ezio (or whichever Assassin in each game) or Desmond (or whatever cipher they replaced him with this time) respectively. You then use the Bleeding Effect to level up Desmond with abilities the player learned as Ezio and, conversely, have Sail also use abilities that the player gained as Desmond. Sure, it would borrow heavily from Metroidvainia games, but it'd make the Present Day stuff not feel like a waste of time, at least in terms of gameplay.