Assassin's Creed: Lineage is a 2009 Short Film miniseries directed by Yves Simoneau and produced by Ubisoft. It is set in the continuity of the Assassin's Creed video game franchise.
The story is an immediate prequel to Assassin's Creed II. It centers around Giovanni Auditore, the father of the game's main protagonist, Ezio. Giovanni is an Assassin living in Florence in the 1470s, during the Italian Renaissance. At this dawn of a new era, a conspiracy is being plotted by one corrupt family to overthrow the powerful Medici and Italy as a whole. Giovanni must face this threat and bring justice.
Of note, the series stars some of the game's voice actors (and character models) themselves as their game characters, like Romano Orzari as Giovanni, Alex Ivanovici as Lorenzo de' Medici and Manuel Tadros as Rodrigo Borgia. In addition, Devon Bostick of Diary of a Wimpy Kid fame plays a young Ezio Auditore and Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs plays Ezio's sister Claudia.
Assassin's Creed: Lineage provides examples of:
- Action Dad: Giovanni is an Assassin and every bit as deadly as his son will become, but players didn't get to see him in action in the game. The miniseries shows him in action, and sure enough, he delivers.
- Bookcase Passage: The Auditores' home has a secret passage behind a fireplace.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Uberto Alberti and Lorenzo de' Medici have someone tortured to reveal more about the conspiracy.
- The Conspiracy: The short depicts the uncovering of Rodrigo Borgia's conspiracy against the Medici by Giovanni, which would lead to tragic events for the Auditore family in Assassin's Creed II and send Ezio on a decades-long quest for vengeance.
- Doomed by Canon: Anyone who has played Assassin's Creed II before watching the miniseries knows that Giovanni and Federico will be framed and executed.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- Since the miniseries takes place chronologically before the events of II, you know that Giovanni and Federico will be executed under false pretenses on Rodrigo's orders.
- Ezio will survive and grow up to become an Assassin.
- Happily Married: Giovanni and Maria Auditore married out of love, and their marriage has been strong throughout.
- Hero of Another Story: Giovanni is this in Assassin's Creed II, and the miniseries expands on his story.
- Historical Domain Character: As in the game, there's Lorenzo de' Medici, Rodrigo Borgia (not Pope yet), Marco Barbarigo of Venice, and Father Antonio Maffei da Volterra. For characters not appearing in the game, there's Pope Sixtus IV and Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan and father of Caterina, the Countess of Forlì who would become an important ally to (and brief lover of) Ezio in the game.
- Iconic Outfit: Giovanni wears his white/red Assassin outfit when he's in the field. His son would inherit it in the game.
- Le Parkour: Giovanni practiced freerunning on rooftops just like his son would.
- Prequel: The story introduces the situation that led to the events of Assassin's Creed II, ends right before the game begins, and also expands on some minor things that happened before the game and had consequences on it:
- The series shows how Giovanni tried to stop Rodrigo Borgia's conspiracy, which led to him being framed and executed, along with his sons Federico and Petruccio, by Rodrigo's Florentine pawns in the game.
- In the game, Giovanni tells Ezio that he knows he (Ezio) has a love affair with Cristina Vespucci. Lineage shows that Giovanni briefly spied on them the night before.
- Ezio inherits Giovanni's Hidden Blade in the game, but it is broken. The series shows how it got broken — during a fight against Rodrigo Borgia's mooks at the Duomo, the Cathedral of Florence.
- Translation Convention: The Italian characters speak accented English. And unlike the mainline games, they are not subjected to the Animus automatically translating foreign dialogue.
- We Can Rule Together: Downplayed. After seeing Giovanni in action, Rodrigo offers to let him join his faction of the Templars, "the side that will survive this war". Giovanni declines.
- Wrecked Weapon: Giovanni's Hidden Blade gets broken during the fight against Rodrigo Borgia's mooks inside a church. Ezio would later have it repaired in the game, with the help of Leonardo da Vinci, who did so using a deciphered page of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's codex.
- You Are Too Late: Giovanni is unable to stop the assassination of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan.
