The main story of Assassin's Creed takes place in September 2012; Desmond Miles, a bartender, is kidnapped by the company Abstergo Industries for use as a test subject in the "Animus", a device that can stimulate the recall of ancestral memories buried in the user's DNA. Abstergo intends to put Desmond in the device to recall the role of his ancestor, Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad ("The Flying One, Son of None", "The Bird, Son of None", or "Bird of Prey, Son of None"), in the "Assassin Brotherhood" during 1191 as part of the Third Crusade in the Holy Land. Desmond at first has trouble adjusting to the device, but eventually is able to relive Altaïr's exploits over the next several days. Much of the core game is then presented from Altaïr's point-of-view as seen by Desmond, though at times interrupted by glitches resulting from the Animus.
At the start of the memories, Altaïr is shown attempting to retrieve a "Piece of Eden", a strange artifact, from Solomon's Temple with the help of other assassins, but is stopped by Robert de Sablé, a member of the Knights Templar and sworn enemies of the assassins. While retrieving the treasure, Altaïr breaks all three tenets of the Assassin's Creed within the opening minutes of gameplay to attempt to kill de Sablé, but fails. Upon returning to Masyaf, Al Mualim ("The Teacher"), leader of the Assassins, demotes Altaïr to an initiate, making him a novice again and giving him another chance to rise through the ranks of the Brotherhood. To this end, Al Mualim assigns Altaïr the task of assassinating nine key figures across the Holy Land in Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus, to attempt to bring peace between the Crusaders and Saracen forces.
Altaïr methodically completes each task, learning that each target is connected to Robert and the Templars and share their mysterious goals. As he completes each of the assassinations, he finds out that the Templars are trying to trick the Muslim and Christian forces to work together and face a common enemy, the assassins, as to bring peace and unity to the world. Altaïr's final target, de Sablé, reveals in his dying words that Al Mualim is himself a member of the Knights Templar, and used Altaïr to kill the other members so he could keep the treasure for himself. Altaïr quickly returns to Masyaf to accost his master. Al Mualim reveals the truth; the Piece of Eden which he had received from one of the men in the Temple after Altaïr's transgression, creates illusions, and he denounces religion and other seemingly supernatural events (e.g. the parting of the Red Sea, Jesus turning water into wine and the Greek gods being involved in the Trojan War) as illusions caused by it. He then states his intention to use the artifact to compel mankind into a brainwashed state and so bring an end to conflict. Altaïr is eventually able to see through deceptions created by the artifact to kill Al Mualim. When Altaïr recovers the artifact, the Piece of Eden activates, showing a holographic view of the world with numerous locations of other Pieces of Eden marked across the globe.
Cryptic messages on the wall of Desmond's bedroom at the end of the game
When the process is complete, Desmond learns that Abstergo is a modern-day version of the Knights Templar, and are already seeking other artifacts at locations identified in Altaïr's memory. He further learns that the equivalent modern-day assassins had tried to rescue him before the memory was complete but had failed. Though Desmond is to be silenced with his role complete, a researcher named Lucy Stillman (voiced by Kristen Bell) manages to save him, revealing herself to be part of the assassins to Desmond. Though Desmond remains trapped in the Abstergo laboratory, his experience in the Animus has created a "bleeding effect" of Altaïr's life in his own, allowing him to see strange messages painted on the walls of his room. The messages all deal with various forms of the end of the world from different cultures, including several references to the date December 21, 2012, a date that Abstergo plans to launch a satellite that will "permanently end the war".
[edit] The Assassins
The character of Al Mualim and his clan are based on an Islamic sect known as the Order of the Hashshashin from which the term assassin originates, the idea for it coming from Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare by Robert M. Citino along with Bartol's novel Alamut.[10][11] The order follows a creed of certain rules, also following the famous rule of Hashshashin founder Hassan-i Sabbah "Nothing is true; everything is permitted".
[edit] Gameplay
The player must climb tall towers to map the city and the location of investigation targets.
Assassin's Creed is an action-adventure video game in which the player primarily assumes the role of Altaïr as experienced by Desmond. The primary goal of the game is to carry out a series of assassinations ordered by Al Mualim, the leader of the Assassins. To achieve this goal, the player must travel from the Brotherhood's headquarters in Masyaf, across the terrain of the Holy Land known as the Kingdom to one of three cities, Jerusalem, Acre, or Damascus, to find the Brotherhood agent in that city. There, the agent, in addition to providing a safe house, gives the player minimal knowledge about the target, and requires them to perform additional intelligence gathering missions before attempting the assassination. These missions include eavesdropping, interrogation, pickpocketing and completing tasks for informers and fellow assassins. Additionally, the player may take part in any number of side objectives, including climbing tall towers to map out the city, and saving citizens who are being threatened or harassed by the city guards. There are also various side quests that do not advance the plot such as hunting down and killing Templars and flag collecting. After completing each set of assassinations, the player is returned back to the Brotherhood and rewarded with a better weapon and then given another set of targets, with the player free to select the order of their targets.
Sitting on a bench allows the player to blend in and avoid being spotted by guards.
The player is made aware of how noticeable Altaïr is to enemy guards as well as the current state of alert in the local area via an alertness level meter. To perform many of the assassinations and other tasks, the player must consider the use of commands distinguished by its type of profile. Low profile commands allow Altaïr to blend into nearby crowds, pass by other citizens, or other non-threatening tasks that can be used to hide and reduce the alertness level; the player can also use Altaïr's retractable blade to attempt low profile assassinations. High profile commands are more noticeable, and include running, scaling the sides of buildings to climb to higher vantage points, and attacking foes; performing these actions at certain times may raise the local area's awareness level. Once the area is at high alert, the crowds run and scatter while guards attempt to chase and bring down Altaïr; to reduce the alert level, the player must control Altaïr as to break the guards' line of sight and then find a hiding space such as a haystack or rooftop garden, or blend in with the citizens sitting on benches or wandering scholars. Should the player be unable to escape the guards, they can fight back using swordplay maneuvers.
During gameplay, intentional glitches that include nucleotides (which compose DNA) and computer messages flash on the screen.
The player's health is described as the level of synchronization between Desmond and Altaïr's memories; should Altaïr suffer injury, it is represented as deviation from the actual events of the memory, rather than physical damage. If all synchronization is lost, the current memory that Desmond is experiencing will be restarted at the last checkpoint. When the synchronization bar is full, the player has the additional option to use "eagle vision" which allows the computer-rendered memory to highlight all visible characters in colors corresponding to whether they are friend or foe or even the target of their assassination. Due to Altaïr's memories being rendered by the computer of the Animus project, the player may experience "glitches" in the rendering of the historical world, which may help the player to identify targets, or can be used to alter the viewpoint during in-game scripted scenes should the player react fast enough when they appear.
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