Video Game / Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

"The liberation of Roma has begun!"

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the third chronological game in the Assassin's Creed series, and is the first main game to not be a numbered sequel, released in 2010 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (playable on Xbox One via backward compatibility), and PC, as well as in 2016 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One via The Ezio Collection.

The game opens in 1499 immediately after the end of Assassin's Creed II, and centers around Ezio Auditore's continuing conflict against the power-hungry and Templar-aligned Borgia family in Rome at the time of the early Italian Wars, and his efforts to restore the local Assassin Brotherhood to its former glory. And back in 2012, Desmond and the other Assassins continue their search for the Apple of Eden that Ezio left behind.

Gameplay improvements include a more robust fighting system that allows chaining instant kills together if you don't miss or take damage, riding horses inside the city, and control of larger weapons such as cannons. In addition, multiplayer has been added to the roster for the first time in the franchise's history, with the "plot" being Templars in training at Abstergo to think and work like Assassins, thereby introducing the fact that Abstergo managed to have ancestral memories visited by other people than said memories' owner's descendants in the metaplot. Brotherhood featured two story-DLC: a (formerly PS3 exclusive) one titled The Copernicus Conspiracy, and another (general-release) titled The Da Vinci Disappearance.

Ubisoft got very involved with the fandom for Brotherhood, hosting videos on a YouTube channel as well as their official website.

Ezio's Brotherhood self crossed over to another series as a Guest Fighter in Soulcalibur V. He, along with Cesare Borgia, was also a boss in a temporary crossover event with For Honor in December 2018/January 2019.

Another sequel, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, concluded Ezio's story.

The game, alongside Assassin's Creed II and Revelations, were re-relased in November 2016 for 8th generation consoles as part of the "Ezio Collection". In February 2022, this trilogy-compilation was released on the Nintendo Switch.

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This game contains examples of:

A-E

• 0% Approval Rating: The Borgias are not exactly well liked despite their iron grip on Rome. The army is more interested in the pay the Borgias offer and they have to rely on an allied French army to keep the city in fear of them.
• Aborted Arc: Juno's speech at the end about awakening the 6th? And Subject 16's cryptic warnings about Eve's blood? Those go absolutely nowhere.
• Action Girl: The Courtesan, The Thief, The Smuggler, The Hellequin, The Dama Rossa, Claudia, and even Caterina in a sense. Also, any female Assassins you recruit.
• Acrofatic:
  • The Blacksmith and Engineer, despite a prominent beer-gut, are just as capable free-runners as the other multiplayer characters.
  • If one of the Assassin recruits is detected (when called to kill one of the guards) during the pagan party, Juan Borgia can become this.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The Baron of Valois lived a completely uneventful life until his distant cousin became king of France, at which point he was given the enormous responsibility of leading the French forces in Italy. When Ezio assassinates him, he weakly tells Ezio that he "only wanted respect"; learning the error of his ways, his last words are "perhaps you are right... I need more time..."
  Ezio: Che tu sia parte nella morte. (May you be equal in death.) Requiescat in pace.
• Alliterative Name: Many of the Assassin Recruits: Carlotta Caci, Ciro Cavallari, Desideria Donati, Giovanni Gugliemi, Nestore Nucci, Panfilo Petaccia, Paolo Profetta, Piero Piacentini, Primo Penna, Rinaldo Rocca, Severino Sabelli, Stefano Spallone, Zita Zanovelli...
• Amazon Brigade: It's possible to make an all-female Assassin's Guild. An in-Animus cheat called Sisterhood does it for you.
• Ambiguously Gay: Leonardo da Vinci. Considering that in the DLC his assistant Salai was around, this could be Truth in Television since they were rumored lovers. This is all but outright stated in the DLC. Most prominent, a short conversation between Leonardo and Ezio in which Ezio informs Leonardo he knows that Salai is not just Leonardo's apprentice. When Leonardo is at a loss of words, Ezio puts him at ease by saying Salai is right for Leonardo. It makes this a May–December Romance, as the visibly aging Leonardo is clearly older than Salai, who looks like he's in his late teens. Of course, there is also this exchange:
  Leonardo: I work on this small portrait of a woman, I grow rather fond of it.
  Ezio: Do not let a beautiful girl distract you from constructing my designs.
  Leonardo: Have no worries, women... provide little distraction.
  Ezio: Wait... I don't get it.
  (cue awkward looks)
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Of the cruel variety. One of the first people Ezio talks to in Roma is a man mourning his wife, executed by the Borgia, who notes their neighbours, people who'd known her all her life, cheered when she was killed.
• Animal Theme Naming: Il Lupo "The Prowler" carries on the tradition.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Leonardo was coerced into building war machines for the Borgia family, with his life at stake.
• Apologetic Attacker: In addition to Ezio's traditional "Requiescat in pace," the assassin recruits sometimes quietly mutter their condolences after taking out a target, such as, "You did your duty," or "Be at ease," or (when using Italian voices) "Riposa in pace".
• Arc Number: The number 72 plays an important part in the final section of the game; it's the password that opens up the second vault in Rome where Ezio hid the Apple, the number of days left until the launch of the Templar satellite, the age at which Rodrigo Borgia died, the year construction on the Colosseum began, and is the result of a mathematical equation involving all the names of God.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Human-trafficking Silvestro "The Noble" Sabbatini, as well as the Borgia all have blue blood. There are a number of "assassinate a noble" Assassin Recruit Contracts as well. However, there is a "protect a noble" mission where it is written that some nobles oppose Templars.
• Armor Is Useless:
  • Averted and played straight. Ezio's armor increases his health as he gets stronger versions of it. However, the real aversion comes from Cesare during the final sequence, where his well-placed upper body armor deflects Ezio's Hidden Blade. The battle comes with a series of quicktime scenes where Ezio strips away the armor piece by piece to render him vulnerable... and then Ezio makes all that work pointless by dropping him off the wall.
  • Ezio also revealed to Mario during their escape from the Vatican that the Armor of Altaïr prevented Rodrigo Borgia's dagger back in AC2 from effectively wounding him.
  • Played straight with opponents in combat — while the amount of armor a guard is wearing correlates with his Health, there's no real protection from Ezio's kill streaks — and Ezio's attack/kill animations sometimes have him slashing/stabbing in locations where some enemies are wearing armor (i.e. gut stabbing an unarmored Regular, then gut stabbing an armored Brute).
  • Again played completely straight by a disarm animation when you disarm a Brute guard. Ezio headbutts the fully plate-mail-wearing guard and suffers no ill effects.
• Armor of Invincibility: The Armour of Brutus, which you get for completing all the Romulus Treasure free-running missions. Like the Armour of Altaïr in the previous game, Brutus' armour offers the highest HP bonus and is also unbreakable, but prevents you from being able to dye your clothes. The Armour of Altaïr does appear in the opening memory sequence, and can be recovered as a bonus costume after Ezio loses it, but in this case it is merely cosmetic and uses the stats of whatever armour you actually have equipped.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "By order of Pope Julius II, I arrest you, Cesare Borgia, for the crimes of murder, betrayal, and incest."
• Artificial Limbs: The Nobleman has one ending in a claw. According to "Project Legacy", his original arm was lopped off by Cesare for failure at... something.
• Ascended Extra: Cristina Vespucci, seen only briefly as Ezio's sex partner in Assassin's Creed II, appears in Brotherhood in a series of repressed memories for Ezio, showing her as a much more important person in Ezio's life than a mere "outlet".
• Astronomical Exchange Rate: Some swords cost approximately the same amount of money as buying a landmark in Rome.
• Athens and Sparta: The Centro and Vaticano Districts are the Athens to the Campagna and Antico District’s Sparta. The former districts are bustling urban areas with picturesque architecture and serve as the center of Rome’s cultural elite. The latter districts are primarily agrarian, the cityscape is more rundown, and the Campagna district in particular is home to several forts and military installations.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Ezio is even more kickass than he was pre-Master Assassin and is naturally more badass than the novice Assassins he recruits... though as Assassini, those former novices are among the game's strongest NPCs, able to hold their own against multiple enemies — and armed with Smoke Bombs, at that.
• Automaton Horses: Barring one in the finale, they can't even die! You can whistle for your horse just about anywhere they'll go, and within seconds, you've got a horse.
• A Taste of Power:
  • The game starts off with Ezio after the final battle of ACII, wielding the Sword of Altaïr, the Notched Cinquedea, and wearing the Armor of Altaïr, thus having his maximum health from AC2 when escaping from the Vault, the Vatican, and Rome. After the Siege of Monteriggioni, he loses the right-forearm Hidden Blade as well as much of his stuff — which he didn't have time to put on — leaving him with five Health squares, the same as what he'd started with in AC2. He still gets to keep the Poison Blade and Hidden Gun since they were built into his left-forearm Hidden Blade's bracer which he did put on.
  • The Armor of Altaïr can be unlocked for 20 Units through Uplay, though now it's only cosmetic (it uses the stats of whatever armour you're actually wearing), while the Sword of Altaïr is unlocked by completing all of the Assassins Guild Challenges (Assassin recruits who reach max level are given replicas called Assassin Swords).
  • Ezio can climb leap at the beginning of Brotherhood but loses the ability after being wounded, even after he recovers all of his other "free-running" abilities. Starting in Sequence 4, Memory 8, after reuniting with Leonardo he can buy a "reinforced" Climb Leap Glove which lets him climb leap again and upgrades his Fists to the Metal Cestus (increasing his Damage from 1 to 3).
  • All of the missions Leonardo gives you are A Taste of Power. Specifically, he's been forced to create War Machines that you need to destroy (and burn the blueprints for so that nobody can make more). Before wrecking the machine, Ezio inevitably decides to have fun with it first before crashing it and blowing it up. Justified with the Tank, since there were three other functional, combat-ready tanks... all conveniently in Ezio's path, and with the Chariot Machine Gun, as when Ezio blew up one of the only two known working vehicles, two Borgia soldiers promptly fled on the other one.
  • The Apple of Eden in the final stages. You basically get to walk casually around, turning enemy soldiers against each other or reducing their brains into mush with the power of the Apple. It is only available during specific memories.
• Attempted Rape: As if his implied comments weren't enough in Assassin's Creed II, Vieri de' Pazzi attempts to rape Cristina Vespucci, before Ezio comes along to beat the crap out of the little bastard, in a flashback to Ezio's pre-Assassin life.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: After defeating Rodrigo Borgia and obtaining the Apple of Eden in the previous game, Ezio returns to Monteriggioni and decides to retire from the Assassin lifestyle. However, those plans are dashed when Cesare Borgia decides to show up (against his father's orders) and attack Monteriggioni, stealing back the Apple and killing Mario. Later in the game, when the tide begins to turn against the Templars, Rodrigo calls out Cesare for unnecessarily pissing off Ezio when the Borgias could have easily taken over Italy without the Apple.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Arrow Storm kills most or all of the nearby guards, but shares a cooldown with summoning your Assassins and takes three times as long to recharge.
  • Parachuting over Rome is definitely awesome. Practical use of those things is sadly limited (such as crossing a couple wide gaps or jumping from high places that don't have a landing zone etc). That said, it's essential for For The Fans.
  • The Apple of Eden is this for many of the missions it is equipped for. When Ezio has it, he can't equip any of his other weapons and equipment, so the Apple is his only means of fighting. Using it drains his health, how much depending on how large you want the area of effect to be, which is especially ridiculous during the first mission you carry it for, which has the 100% synch requirement of not losing any health. In the other missions, you are often required to use the Apple against a large number of guards, which can lead to you using the Apple against a few of them, then awkwardly running around to avoid the rest while you wait for your health to recharge.
• Badass Boast:
  • Cesare, despite being, well, Cesare, gives us a pretty good one. It doubles as a Villainous Breakdown though due to the timing and what causes him to say this — finding out that daddy's stiffing him for money, didn't tell him about his French ally's death, won't give him the priceless artifact that's been used to support their regime... oh, and poisoned the apple he just ate.
    "...Do you not see, Father? I control all of this. If I want to live, I live. If I want to take, I take! If I want you to die, you DIE!"
  • Ezio rushes to the Rosa in Fiore, fearing the worst after an attack... to find four dead men and Claudia holding a dagger.
    Ezio: [shocked]
    Claudia: What?
    Ezio: [impressed] My sister knows how to wield a knife!
    Claudia: [smiling] And I'm ready to do it again!
    Ezio: Spoken like a true Auditore.
  • When a quest giver for a Templar Agent says that this particular target has a lot of guards, Ezio says, "The Borgia cannot protect him from me."
• Bag of Spilling: Justified, as the the sneak attack on Monteriggioni in the early morning leaves him only enough time to put on his pants, boots, a shirt, a sword and one Hidden Blade — though it's the original inherited from his father, and thanks to Leonardo da Vinci it also has both the Hidden Gun and the Poison Blade (it is not explained why those are also on Ezio's "new" left-arm Hidden Blade, so they may be the original weapons with a new bracer). He also loses the ability to do the climb leap due to injuries until you buy it back as an equipment upgrade from Leo.
• Battle Couple: Bartolomeo and his wife Pantasilea, he fights the battles and she makes the strategies.
• Battle Cry: "Insieme per la vittoria! Vittoria agli Assassini!" (Together for the victory! Victory to the Assassins!)
• Bald of Evil: The Priest that works for the Templars goes beyond a tonsure.
• Beard of Evil: The Prowler has a soul patch and goatee, contrasting with Ezio's 'stache-and-beard. Rodrigo, Cesare and the Engineer have one too.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game:
  • The Prowler (Il Lupo, "The Wolf") is a Templar hitman trained in Assassin techniques from notes taken by Cesare's master spy Baltasar de Silva ("The Barber") in "Project Legacy". He looks very similar to Ezio, save for darker colors and no "eagle beak" on the hood, and uses a Switchblade that operates akin to a Hidden Blade.
  • The Smuggler (Lia de Russo), while not sharing the Prowler's training, is also similar in look to the Assassins. She wears a hooded robe, which can be upgraded to Assassin colors, and uses an "Inverted Hidden Blade" on the outside of her forearm.
  • The entire multiplayer mode is basically this, Abstergo trying to replicate the Animus bleeding effect on a bunch of employees/Templars.
• Been There, Shaped History: Ezio's not the only one who gets in on this. One of the missions his recruits can be sent on includes killing one of Henry the 8th's wives, for having Templar loyalties.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Citizen-saving returns, only now the chums become novice Assassins.
  • Vigilantes are back too, get ready to have your ass saved for a change!
• Big Good: Ezio, who goes on to become Grand Master and undisputed leader of the Assassin Brotherhood.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Borgias, already a Truth in Television example. It is made most obvious in an incident where Lucrezia berates a servant because they were all out of her favorite blend of arsenic, only to learn that it was gone because her father had used it all.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Italian: Just like Assassin's Creed II, the Animus is still pretty buggy and many Italian words and phrases slip through.
  • French: The sequence where Ezio and Bartolomeo try to bluff their way into the French camp is utterly hilarious to any French speaker. Ubisoft Montreal even sneaks in some brilliant Self-Deprecation in there. Loose translation:
    French Guard: What is your business?
    Ezio: French gibberish
    French Guard: ... what part of France are you from?
    Ezio: Montréal! [ about 140 years before the city's foundation ]
• Biography à Clef: The dialogue and conversations between Niccolò Machiavelli and others are shown to be the inspirations and origins for his famous political treatises. Ezio mutters the word "virtu" at one point to explain how he will influence people over, leading Machiavelli to repeat it curiously. Likewise the contrast between Cesare attempting to rule by fear only to be hated and Ezio undermining his regime by friendship, help and love, is also a dramatization of the argument of The Prince:
  Niccolo Machiavelli: I intend to write a book about you one day.
  Ezio Auditore: If you do, make it short.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Cesare and the Baron de Valois have gilded pistols.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Bartolomeo returns with significantly more screen time, a lot more fighting and profanity and an equally badass wife.
• Book Ends:
  • The first words you hear from Ezio in Assassin's Creed II are "Insieme per la vittoria" as he and his gang prepares to take on Vieri. He uses those very same words at the end of Sequence 8 when he gathers up his allies to take on Cesare.
  • Ezio begins his campaign against the Borgia in Rome by fighting off a group of guards harassing a peasant in a plaza before the northern gate into the city. His fight against Cesare and the very last of his supporters also happens here, and ends with Cesare being dragged off by the Papal Guards, destroying the last vestiges of the Borgia's power in the city.
• Boring, but Practical: Poison darts. An extremely covert and efficient way of eliminating guards, but is nowhere near as cool as the other methods of killing them.
• Break the Cutie: The Cristina memories display Ezio's descent from dorky teenager to grim Heartbroken Badass.
• Break the Haughty: Lucrezia gets her ego steadily beat down throughout the entire story by at least three different people including her brother, which finally breaks her. Cesare gets it even worse; see Humiliation Conga below.
• Broken Bridge: There are barriers that wall off areas not available in the current memory sequence. Going past them desynchronizes Desmond from Ezio because Ezio didn't go there at that time.
• Brother–Sister Incest:
  • Lucrezia and Cesare make out and she mentions how lonely she is at night. Cesare then suggests a few ways to manipulate Rodrigo. As noted above, this is considered to be Truth in Television. In actuality, the historical record is scant on Lucrezia, and her level of involvement in her father and brother's schemes beyond political marriage pawn is unknown. Certainly, the incest makes for a more interesting story.
  • Caterina accuses Lucrezia of this and the other incest, "or maybe both at the same time!"
  • It's among the cited charges when Fabio Orsini, a general whose family was pressed into Borgia service, has Cesare arrested on behalf of the new Pope.
• Building of Adventure: The Colosseum is the location of two key story missions, it is the location of one of the Romulus Tombs, the final Thieves' Challenge, and the final Modern Day puzzle. Castel Sant'Angelo likewise is constantly revisited during the main story and later The Da Vinci Disappearance.
• Bus Crash:
  • After Marco Barbarigo was killed late in AC2, his brother Agostino succeeded him as Doge of Venezia and tolerated the Assassins' conflict against his cousin Silvio (a Templar). Nevertheless, according to Project Legacy he was turned by the Borgia, and he dies in September 1501 after handling poison-coated letters sent by an Assassin one too many times.
  • While some of the multiplayer characters' single-player counterparts are killed by Ezio or his apprentices, the rest — specifically "The Barber" Baltasar da Silva, "The Harlequin" Cahin, "The Hellequin" Caha, "The Mercenary" Rocco Tiepolo, and "The Prowler" Il Lupo — are killed by other Assassins (possibly including Ezio's apprentices) when "The Courtesan" Fiora Cavazza turns on Cesare Borgia.
  • Caterina Sforza isn't heard from again after she leaves Rome. Shaun later tells Desmond she died in Florence, never being able to reclaim nor return to Forli.
• Call-Back:
  • When Ezio goes to Bartolomeo and he can't find his wife, Ezio suggests that he look behind the table, where the most important lady in Bartolomeo's life (at the time) was in AC2.
  • Can be Invoked by the player during "The Apple of Eden" Memory by taking the same route Mario and Ezio took when they escaped from Il Vaticano.
• Catfight: Caterina Sforza and Lucrezia Borgia. At first, it starts with verbal insults from both sides, finally culminating with Ezio and Catarina locking Lucrezia into a cell, in which then Caterina slams her head on the jail cell bars.
• Cast from Hit Points: Using the Apple of Eden will drain your health, causing Ezio to faint if you lose it all. However, your health regenerates fairly quickly during the sequence, so it's not too annoying.
• The Cavalry: When he needs their assistance for any reason (such as he's feeling overwhelmed), Ezio can summon his Assassin recruits to aid him in battle. Also, a group of mercenaries arrive out of nowhere to assist him near the end of Memory Sequence 7.
• Character Development: Ezio's repressed memory missions are like a cross-section examination of the stages of his life. The first is of him as a carefree youth palling around with his brother, the second is of him as a tormented young man out for justice, the third is a more determined and mature, but slightly scarier Assassin Ezio, and so on.
• Character Outlives Actor: Likely the fate of Rosa in Assassin's Creed II, who had been a love interest for Ezio but suffered Chuck Cunningham Syndrome after that game since her actress, Lita Tresierra, was killed in a car accident shortly before production began for this game. Despite the character never appearing in the games again the novelizations for Brotherhood and Revelations say that she eventually took over the Rosa in Fiore from Claudia and became an Italian Assassin leader.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The thief with the cloth eyepatch when Ezio and Claudia enter Mario's office during the Siege of Monteriggioni and excuses himself to "help the troops" is spotted three years later when Ezio brings Pietro to a doctor near the Colosseum for treatment, and after Ezio chases him down, he realizes that the thief and not Machiavelli was the Borgia mole all along. This is hinted at when the thief tries to close the door of the stairwell to the Sanctuary as they arrive, expressing surprise at Ezio's survival, when someone amongst the refugees reports that Borgia troops are circling the town, and then centuries later when one of Desmond's hallucinations has a male voice saying, "Soldiers, I have found an entrance!" implying that the thief "helped the troops" alright — the Borgia troops — by telling them where the people were retreating to.
  • After Ezio's arrival in Roma, he gets introduced to Bartolomeo's cousin Fabio Orsini, who rents the hideout on Tiber Island for the Assassin Order. Fabio doesn't appear in the game until the end of Sequence 8, where he arrests Cesare by order of the new Pope he's serving under.
• Chemically-Induced Insanity: Ezio is able to give drugs to make the target assault passer-bys, much like a spree killer.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Borgias. If Ezio wasn't literally backstabbing them they'd tear each other apart. In the end, that's what happens — Rodrigo tries to poison the ambitious Cesare, but when Lucrezia betrays the plot to Cesare, he uses the same poison to kill Rodrigo, only to then turn on his sister-lover Lucrezia... after which she tells Ezio where the Apple of Eden is.
• Cliffhanger: The game ends on one, thanks to Juno's meddling, setting up the Win to Exit scenario of Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Desmond is mind controlled into killing Lucy and then goes into a comatose state.
• Clock Punk: Thanks to Leonardo's inventions, there are aerial bombers and tanks in 16th century Italy, albeit the former is a hang-gilder and the latter is made of wood.
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • Caterina Sforza is still at it. Imprisonment isn't going to stop her from swearing out her enemy.
  • Bartolomeo tosses several of these at his arch enemy, although they are in translated Italian.
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Interestingly, you can see through the hidden files as well as the series progression that the Templars have been adjusting their world-domination scheme to go with the times. During Altaïr's time, they focused on playing multiple sides in wars and influencing the monarchy with physical power; Rodrigo Borgia's rise to the papacy allowed him and others to dominate the world through people's faith; in the 20th and 21st century, Abstergo set about quietly dominating the world through raw, unchecked capitalism, greed, and stimulating people's consumerism. Many, many historical names (and currently-living ones too!) are dropped in all this.
• Continuity Nod: All the glyph symbols from the last game reappear in the last Desmond sequence, with one visible on the temple door in Eagle Vision, and the rest appearing when Desmond activates the Apple.
• Continuity Snarl: In the third Cristina memory, where Ezio returns to Florence in 1478 to assassinate Francesco de' Pazzi, he's wearing the metal armor set from Assassin's Creed II and has the hidden gun. Ezio didn't acquire the full metal armor set until after Francesco's death, and didn't have the hidden gun until 1486, eight years later.
• Contract on the Hitman: The entire point of Wanted Mode in multiplayer.
• Contractual Boss Immunity:
  • Most bosses not only resist grabs but can also block or dodge counter-kill attempts. The new kick attack, however, levels the playing field.
  • Borgia Captains are all immune to attempted Poison use (i.e. a Poison Dart will automatically miss if he is unaware and you full locked on before firing).
  • As with AC2, Ezio loses his ability to use ranged weapons when chasing targets inside the Lairs of Romulus or the Templar Lairs, or to call Assassins or Arrow Storms, since any of those would make the chase moot.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Quite a few of the later weapons, thanks to the execution/Kill Streak mechanic making melee weapon Damage irrelevant in most cases — for example, you can clear out a group almost as quickly with the Common Sword as with the Sword of Altaïr. The main exception would be Cesare Borgia, simply because he as a boss is immune to executions.
• Coup de Grâce: Taken even further than II, possibly comparable to AC1 (because so far nothing outdoes the knee stomp). Some of the moves shown include sweeping an enemy off his feet for an near-point-blank crossbow shot, or following up a flooring Groin Attack with a curb stomp.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: La Volpe Addormentata (The Sleeping Fox), the Thieves' Guild disguised as an inn.
• Creator Provincialism: Ezio, trying to pose as a French soldier, manages to mangle a few lines of French. The guard, finding his accent suspicious, asks him which part of France he's from. Ezio says he's from Montreal. Obviously, Montreal, Canada, didn't yet exist back in 1500; however, there is also a small town in southern France called Montreal, and the southern French accent has a Mediterranean sound to it, making it somewhat closer to Ezio's thick Italian accent.
• Creepy Crosses: A rare Western example of this trope; crosses are found throughout the the Lairs of Romulus, which to be honest would probably be a good secret symbol to have if you were trying to hide your murderous cult in the capital city of the Papal States... more so, if some Templars are ultimately behind it; crosses are kind of their thing.
• Creepy Crows: Murders of crows are seen flying around towers under Borgia control. This is contrast to the majestic eagles that accompany Assassin Towers.
• Creepy Twins: Cahin the harlequin, and Caha the hellequin, who perform, kill, and die together.
• Crew of One: Both used and averted with Leonardo's war machines:
  • The Bomber is the only one he operate by himself with both "move" and "shoot" actions simultaneously. In-universe, the Tank requires a crew of three (gameplay-wise the tank is entirely under the player's control), Ezio ends up first driving the chariot before letting go of the reins to operate the Machine Gun with no driver^note In a surprising moment, this ends up going as badly as you'd expect, and he had to alternate between rowing a boat and operating its onboard Naval Cannon.
  • The Machine Gun one is lampshaded — Ezio mutters "You're smart, aren't you." to the horses just before he lets them have their head.
• Crow's Nest Cartography: The game adds "Borgia Towers", which have to be destroyed before Ezio can pay to open shops in the area and reveal them on the map. Also, viewpoints appear in the game where you can synchronize atop tall towers and reveal other locations on the map.
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • Averted in the Attract Mode video (the E3 reveal trailer), where all of the capabilities demonstrated by Ezio — calling Assassins, Arrow Storms, double hidden blades, multiple throwing knives, countering horse charges — are mostly-accurate representations of his in-game capabilities. (The only difference being the Assassins/Arrow Storm's shared cooldown timer.)
  • Also, his fancy martial arts in the "Story Trailer" (narrated by Cesare) are actual footage of his Hidden Blade and Short Blade + Throwing Knife kill streaks, in slow motion with the HUD off and at cinematic camera angles.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • Zigzagged by the female Assassin recruits. It's possible to come across them with them using a guard as a Human Shield, fighting when outnumbered (and in need of assistance) or restrained by a guard.
  • Played straight with many courtesans. There are Courtesan Missions where Ezio has to save one of them from an overdose of a Date Rape drug, a treacherous would-be brothel owner, or regular customer who suspects her real occupation as an Assassin Informat. There are also Assassin Recruit Contracts involving the defense of Courtesan guilds in other cities being harassed. Yet it is also subverted when Ezio believes Claudia to be in trouble with Borgia guards only to find out that she's quite capable of self-defence. There are also inversions where a timely distraction by courtesans enables Ezio to escape pursuit.
• Dashed Plot Line: Going from one memory to the next can involve jumps of several years; the game also suggests that the events of one memory sequence took place over the course of months.
• David vs. Goliath: As always with Assassins against the Templars, but even more pronounced here. When Ezio gets to Rome to enact his revenge, he only has a handful of allies and the Assassin Brotherhood of Rome is next to non-existent. He faces the Borgia armies, which are about to be equipped with Leonardo's war machines, their French allies and a number . Selected assassinations of pawns of the Borgia, targeted sabotages and patient renovations of the city's businesses even the odds in the Assassins' favor.
• Deadly Doctor: Malfatto, the Renaissance equivalent of Jack the Ripper and "Doctor" template in multiplayer. Ends up being the first story-confirmed killing by one of Ezio's recruits.
• Deadpan Snarker: Shaun could run for president of Snarkers of the Month; jokes, sarcasm and other dry wit is in his database, his emails and his in-person dialogue. Desmond is also snarkier this time around and shares some decent banter with Lucy.
• Demoted to Extra: Rodrigo Borgia, the Big Bad of ACII, barely appears at all throughout the game and takes few actions, even behind-the-scenes actions.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • In the Lair of Romulus mission in the Vatican, if you throw the boss off of an edge, you get a special cutscene where Ezio catches the guy, grabbing the Romulus Key he has, then unceremoniously dropping him as opposed to the *stab* *last words* "Requiescat in pace" thing he usually does.
  • There's also the changing behavior of NPCs in Rome, particularly civilians, as Ezio renovates Rome and progresses through the story.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: In the last of the bonus memories, Cristina Vespucci (Ezio's first love) was killed during the Bonfires of the Vanities and dies in Ezio's arms.
• Dirty Coward:
  • The Baron de Valois, who takes Bartolomeo's wife prisoner to try and force a surrender, tries to run when surprised and will kill her if Ezio is detected going after him.
  • At least a third of the Borgia Captains will immediately flee if detecting Ezio; if they escape to their tower, then the player has to leave the immediate area (of the tower's "restricted area") and wait until the next guard shift at dawn or dusk before the Borgia Captain reappears; these Captains are explicitly called "Coward" type in the in-game main map's Borgia Influence view.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • Cesare. It's Truth in Television because Cesare Borgia was actually killed by being thrown over a ledge.
  • The final Lair of Romulus allows you to do this to the Cardinal if you catch up to him or throw him at a ledge.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: The "Strong Closer" Achievement/Trophy, for taking the lead within the last ten seconds of a multiplayer match and thereby coming in first place.
• Dreamworks Face: Even though the upper half of his face is hidden by the cowl, Ezio is clearly smug about something in the cover art.
• Dressing as the Enemy: On three occasions: the first was to infiltrate Juan Borgia's party disguised as Luigi the money-chest-carrier, albeit it's found out when the real carrier's body is found... too late to prevent Ezio's entry. The second was to get Ezio and Bartolomeo's men into Octavien de Valois' camp while disguised as French troops, with Bartolomeo pretending to be captive. The third time was when when Ezio and his recruits reached the ground floor of the Colosseum during the Passion play and put on the ancient-Roman soldier costumes they had taken from Micheletto's slain accomplices, so that they could get close enough for Ezio to disable Micheletto.
• Doomed Hometown: Monteriggioni is attacked and sacked in the first memory sequence, thus forcing Ezio and his family to flee.
• Downloadable Content:
  • The Da Vinci Disappearance is set in 1506 and fills in part of the time skip between Sequences 8 (set in 1503) and 9 (set in 1507), adding eight mission memories, two new mini-games, and ten achievements/trophies. The DLC includes an extra outfit previously exclusive to Amazon.com pre-orders (of Brotherhood) and the two Templar Lair mission memories from the collector's editions. On the multiplayer side of things the DLC adds four multiplayer personas, two new match types, and one new map.
  • There's also the Copernicus Conspiracy, an exclusive for the PS3 system that has Copernicus and his fellow scientists hunted down in an effort to silence them.
• The Dragon: Cesare Borgia, who takes this role for his father Rodrigo despite also being the Big Bad. It's like this: Rodrigo is still in charge and is seen as the biggest threat but Cesare is the Captain-General of the Papal Armies and Rodrigo has been leaving more and more of his duties in Cesare's hands, due to the events of AC2 and several disturbing prodigies leaving him a broken man. Thus, Cesare is both the Big Bad's chief minion but also the one who needs to be defeated.
• Dragon Ascendant: Thoroughly subverted. After Rodrigo dies at Cesare's hand, things fall apart. Ezio crushes his troops with the recovered Apple, the Cardinals stop supporting him, and his own general has him arrested -- on the order of Rodrigo's successor, who was elected by those Cardinals -- and Cesare is dragged off by his former elites, the Papal Guards. According to the novel, Cesare's first attempt is defeated when Ezio and a thief intercept his boat, then Ezio leads a hundred Assassin apprentices and thieves in capturing Cesare's own Dragon, and by the way Ezio finds him for the last time, Cesare hasn't yet even worked his way back up to Dragon.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Cesare wants to conquer Italy, while Rodrigo wants to consolidate the family's political and military power.
• Elaborate Underground Base:
  • The Assassins' Headquarters are in the cellar of a warehouse in the Centro District of Rome, and include a large ceremonial hall, a library, an art gallery, an armory and three secret exits apart from the main one, to sewers, the river and the roof.
  • The Followers of Romulus aren't slouches either, having bases in massive sprawling catacombs and buried temples, some of which seem to go on for miles. However, they are much...sloppier. As if to imitate the wolves they dress as, they have few signs of human inhabitation. There are just some camp fires and a little furniture.
• Elite Mooks:
  • The Papal Guards, both in-universe and in gameplay. They're able to dodge/counter attempted counter kills, except with the Hidden Blade, use pistols of their own, use any of the other guard archetypes' melee weapons, and they have a lot of Health and armor of their own, which can take quite a while to deplete with regular melee attacks.
  • In general the mooks are somewhat more effective than their counterparts in the previous game. Arquebusiers are more damaging than Crossbowmen and can use the arquebus for melee attacks, while Crossbowmen deal more damage than AC2 archers, back away if closed in on, and never draw a melee weapon that could be countered. Likewise the game introduces cavalry in the form of the armored Regular guard, who is capable of getting onto an available horse (or spawning on horseback as a Horseman) and charging at the player — the only melee attack in the game immune to a Hidden Blade counter kill... oh, and they have Crossbows of their own. The three special archetypes from 2 are still here too, though Seekers (at least moreso than any other guard archetype) can toss sand at Ezio or his apprentices to stun them, in Ezio's case also ending any kill streak he was performing. Finally, many of these guard types (though mainly Regulars) are able to grab Ezio, ending any in-progress kill streak and immobilizing him so that other guards can get in a free hit.
• Enemy Civil War: Enemies are not immune to each others' attacks/collision detection, so occasionally you might see guards shoving each other around angrily. Additionally, when you use the Apple of Eden, invoking this trope is its primary effect.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • The multiplayer characters were thought to use this before the beta revealed their names, made canon in Brotherhood's Templar Agents side missions and Project Legacy's Rome set (Chapter 1, Fiora "The Courtesan" Cavazza's memories). Whether the fans will remember to use them, on the other hand...
  • Played straight with the Executioner. Guess what "Il Carnefice" means...
• Exact Words: Cesare really should learn to watch his wording.
  Cesare: You cannot kill me! No man can murder me!
  Ezio: Then I leave you to the hands of Fate.
  • When Francesco Troche asks Cesare if he's going to kill him, Cesare replies "Of course not" - seconds before the guard behind Francesco strangles him to death. Technically, Cesare didn't kill him, the guard did.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment:
  • The Heavy Sheath now allows you to carry axes and two-handed swords permanently, but polearms still need to be taken off of Seekers, and are still dropped if performing Off-Hand actions or sprinting/free-running.
  • Slightly more exploitable now, as if you equip a Heavy Weapon (instead of picking it up from a slain Brute) and use its special attack, that slot will be emptied and Ezio will be able to keep the next Medium or Heavy Weapon he takes (he can lose it again if you switch weapons at the Blacksmith or at the Hideout armory, but otherwise it's his to keep, though sometimes it appears in his Inventory, sometimes not).
  • Arquebuses and Crossbows cannot be looted or disarmed from Arquebusiers, Crossbowmen or armored Regulars, nor can a Papal Guard be looted or disarmed of his Pistol. As with AC2, one can also only loot weapons that had been drawn (requiring that the guard have detected Ezio or one of his apprentices), with the exception of Polearms carried by Seekers or Papal Guards.
• The Executioner: Il Carenfice is a particularly vicious executioner in the service of the Borgia's. Openly expressing his enthusiasm for the brutality of his work. Il Carenfice never actually reads the warrants for execution he receives (having never learned to read) and instead abuses his authority to executes whoever he wants.

F-N

• False Flag Operation: It seems that the point of the Followers of Romulus is this. A Templar cardinal comes up with the idea of a cult of violent pagans in wolfskins running around to vilify any non-Church-related religious activity and thus send more people into the arms of the Church, with the added side-benefit of having a group of violent crazy men with knives to do his secret bidding.
• Fake Difficulty: All missions have an extra, optional "victory" condition, to achieve what is known as 'full synchronization' (i.e. what Ezio canonically accomplished). This is done to pad out the game, but in some places can be seem lazily done.
  • The mission "Crepi Il Lupo" requires the player to defeat no less than thirteen enemies without taking a single hit, a feat made even more difficult by the fact that the mission begins with the enemies spawned in a tight circle around the player, some readied to attack. Oddly enough, the easiest way to clear this "full sync" condition is to do exactly what the execution/kill streak gameplay was supposed to avert, staying in Defensive Stance the whole time and just countering all attacks.
  • The worst of these are the Bomber and Tank missions, both of which have a 'full synch' objective where the war machines cannot sustain any damage. With the Bomber, at least, altitude — and therefore flight control — can easily be regained; the Tank is a nightmare to maneuver, and the further along you are, the more accurate the enemy cannons become.
• Fake Longevity: Some missions take place in isolated areas inaccessible outside of the mission and feature a time limit that you have to beat to achieve 100% sync ratio. They also feature collectibles such as flags and chests placed outside of the ideal route such that the time limit is impossible to beat if you deviate to collect them, thereby forcing you to play the mission twice to achieve 100% Completion.
• Fan Disservice: Juan "The Banker" Borgia. For what it's worth, though, he is surrounded by a good deal of Fanservice, so it almost evens out.
• Fetch Quest:
  • Returns in the form of Shop Quests. Some stuff can only be unlocked for purchase by giving Tiber Island shopkeepers certain items. Fortunately, they are optional for story purposes.
  • The electricity run between Sequences 1 and 2 also counts, although the locations are fixed in place.
  • The item collecting can be ground, but there appears to be only two Shrunken Heads in the whole game (one in northwestern Antico district just under a cliff face facing a ship, and the other one in a Lair of Romulus), so if either of those are sold it may be impossible to complete the Shop Quest that unlocks the Seusenhofer Chest Guard and Seusenhofer Pauldrons, thereby making 100% Synchronization impossible for that save file. Additional Shrunken Heads can be obtained — if you invest 100,000 florins in one type of shop. Which, given how the investment mechanic works, would take so long as to induce additional Fake Longevity.
• Finishing Stomp: Used in one of the assassination animations.
• Fluorescent Footprints: Available during Eagle Vision to aid Ezio in tracking targets that escape his other vision.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • When destroying the machine gun, Ezio says that the world is better without it. However, its invention will still come to pass.
  • While playing Ezio's repressed memories regarding Cristina Vespucci, it's pretty obvious Ezio and Cristina don't get married and settle down.
  • One implication of the premise of the game, "DNA memory", is that whatever is happening to the protagonist whose memories are being relived, he definitely survived to get laid at least one more time after that, otherwise it wouldn't have been passed on as genetic memory.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the beginning Cesare has one of his soldiers give him the gun "his friend made" right before executing Mario, foreshadowing the fact that he's been forcing Leonardo to work for him.
  • A subtle one of the ending location: at the end of the Colosseum Romulus Tomb you dive into a temple-like place that looks different to the rest of the area, it's only at the very end of the game that you find out it has importance to the present-day storyline.
  • Perhaps as a more subtle one, when Desmond asks Shaun about Monteriggioni (in his first "2012" conversation after setting up the Animus in the Sanctuary), it sounds more Italian-accented than usual...
  • Yet another subtle one: the Apple's hideout glows when seen in Eagle Vision before Ezio knows it is there.
  • Another piece of ending-related foreshadowing (though easily missed) comes from Shaun's in-Animus description of a church on the Campigdolio; apparently, there's a rumour it's built upon the ruins of the Temple of Juno and may be of significance. It is, but not during the Ezio segments of the game.
  • The appearance of Juno at the end of the game is possibly foreshadowed by Lucy's e-mail password. It also would appear to foreshadow Juno forcing Desmond to stab Lucy.
  • The Da Vinci Disappearance DLC sequence has you looking for five Plot Coupons in order to get to a certain location and unearth a secret intended for someone in 2012. The main plot of Assassin's Creed: Revelations plays out almost the same way.
  • On your second playthrough, you might see a few hints that Lucy is still working for Abstergo. First, on her desk you can see her blinking password pen. The same one from the first game that allows her access to Abstergo's systems. Second, when Desmond asks Rebecca how Lucy was able to get her the plans for the Animus, she responds cryptically, "She has her ways." Third, Desmond has a conversation with Lucy where he asks her how she can still get into Abstergo's network. Lucy gives an in-story Hand Wave that some old passwords still work. They're subtle enough that The Reveal is still a Player Punch.
  • Another subtle one: When Desmond and the group find the Apple of Eden in the temple, the two symbols projected from the Apple are the Phrygian Cap (which symbolizes freedom and links to a certain revolution) and the Masonic Eye (which is well-known to appear on a certain money bill). Shawn commented that those two come from a certain place before being cut short: The United States of America.
• French Jerk:
  • Octavien de Valois is exceedingly condescending towards the Italians and seems to believe that he'll eventually conquer all of Italy... or so Cesare lets him think. His guards aren't much better either.
  • Also Gaspar de la Croix, aka the Engineer in multiplayer, one of the Templar Agents who's holed up with an arquebus firing at any haplessly inadvertent trespassers.
• Gainax Ending:
  • The Truth segments end this time with a bizarre platforming sequence, after which it's revealed that Subject Sixteen has apparently uploaded his consciousness into the Animus and gives a cryptic warning and urgent instructions before disappearing again.
  • Sure, it makes sense as a cliffhanger, but still... damn, Juno. What the heck where you talking about?
• Game-Breaking Injury: At the attack on the villa near the beginning of the game, Ezio suffers a gunshot wound to the left upper chest/shoulder which cripples his mobility so severely he even limps in the loading screen. Although his fighting animation doesn't change, but this could be justified gameplay-wise by the Animus still being in tutorial mode at this point (it's likely the real Ezio had a much harder time of it — though strangely, synchronization isn't affected at all). Your armor (and thus maximum life bar) will also be reduced if you take too many hits, necessitating going to the blacksmith to repair it.
  
  For the remainder of the Sequence Ezio is unable to sprint, free-run, catch ledges or climb leap, and when he first arrives in Rome he's initially unable to even jog. Although he regains those abilities (and his unwounded posture), he's unable to climb leap until midway through the story when he can buy a reinforced brace for the right hand — suggesting that the gunshot wound also affected his right arm or hand, albeit only in that respect.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Due to the ending sequence, Desmond goes into a comatose state. He is plugged back into Animus on a idea that it will help. For the rest of the post-game, the "leave Animus" option is missing from the Animus Desktop.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The storyline only brings up renovating shop after freeing Caterina from the Castel Sant'Angelo, even though by that point it's entirely possible to have renovated every shop available up until that point.
  • While the game explains that the optional objectives in each mission are an In-Universe example of Gameplay and Story Integration and Ezio did the mission in that specific way, in practice it's just an excuse for the developers to force in specific playstyles.
    • Many parkour dungeons require you to beat them in an extremely unforgiving time limit, yet the existence of collectibles menu means Ezio also collected everything hidden within them during the ridiculously short time he spent in them. In certain dungeons it's simply impossible to do both on the same run.
    • The fact that some of Leonardo's missions require you to not take damage while controlling one of his "war machines" yet end with Ezio destroying them just makes Ezio seem either like a huge idiot, a pointless show-off to the soon-dead guards watching, or both.
• Gender Is No Object: For the Assassin Brotherhood, anyway. Ezio treats women exactly the same way he treats men; it's not quite clear when the Assassins started their equal-opportunity recruitment drive but Altaïr may have gotten the idea from his wife, whom he first met (and fought) wearing a suit of armor.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss:
  • Several of the Borgia Captains that you must assassinate to liberate a zone of Rome run off the moment they see you, and if they get away you need to wait to try again.
  • In two separate Lairs of Romulus, you have to chase after the "bosses" until near the end of the Lair — which makes the Church official an incredible free-runner considering his occupation (and attire). (He is one of the only NPCs known to use the lift under any circumstances, albeit in a scripted sequence).
  • The Papal Guard who's the boss of the (seemingly collector's edition-exclusive) "Liquid Gold" memory will flee once Ezio manages to break the platform he's on (forming a ramp for Ezio to ascend), forcing a protracted "chase" mainly in the form of free-running maneuvering until Ezio can finally corner him in a cave.
• Gotta Catch Them All: You can unlock and buy maps for the Borgia Flags on the overworld and Feathers, in addition to the treasure chests. Unfortunately, the Flags and chests in the Lairs of Romulus do not have maps, so you have to run around in Eagle Vision and hope you spot them.
• Graceful Loser: After having been beaten and spared by Ezio in the previous game, Rodrigo told Cesare to leave the assassin in peace and refused to help him after he put himself at the top of Ezio's shit list. He's still an evil bastard, but he clearly respects Ezio.
• Grand Theft Prototype: All of the missions to destroy Leonardo's war machines will eventually involve Ezio taking the things and briefly using them against the Borgia.
• Guide Dang It!: For a series that's been significantly improving since its first installment, there's still a surprising amount of cases like this.
  • You're supposed to use the horse on Timed Missions. The Apple of Eden is a Charged Attack. While there are now maps for the Feathers and Borgia Flags, some of them are in places where how to access the things is not immediately obvious, and the maps only unlock when you either acquire 25 Borgia flags or clear the story. There are no flag maps for the Secret Locations. Some of the Guild Challenges are not so obvious to complete as they first appear, such as the jump from horse to beam one^note You need to manually tap the button at the right time and Ezio must flip onto the top of the beam rather than just catch hold and hang on, or the guards killed while on horseback one^note You must kill a guard while he is on horseback and spawned on horseback; guards who started on foot but get onto an available horse do not count.
  • In order to access one of the Lairs of Romulus, you need to repair certain aqueducts in Rome. There is no indication in-game that repairing the aqueducts has any other effect on the over world or that repairing the aqueducts is the solution to entering the Lair, or even which aqueduct it is.
  • Most Trading Items exist only for the purpose of being sold to merchants, but some are required to complete Shop Quests. There is no indication as to which items are for Shop Quests outside going to each individual shop that offers them. There is also no indication as to when all of the Shop Quests are actually viewable. Many players don't realize that there are more Shop Quests that unlock later in the game, since the game makes it seem like the first group of quests are the only ones available. This results in players accidentally selling shop quest items only to realize later they lost access to an item only available for those quests. The Fast Poison one is among the worst because it uses Tomatoes. Most players will get almost all of the Tomatoes very early in the game, but the Fast Poison shop quest is one of the last to unlock.
  • A minor version; the database includes entries for Florence landmarks, but doesn't give any indication on how to get them (since most of the time Ezio's flashbacks go to Florence, you don't really have the time to take in the sights). The only time to do so is during the second mission.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Of sorts, since she doesn't do anything else in the game to redeem herself: Lucrezia Borgia. Cesare threatens and bullies Lucrezia into telling him where the Apple is hidden. Ezio comes in seconds after Cesare leaves, and Lucrezia turns from her family roots of Templars and tells him where the Apple is hidden, in St. Peter's Basilica, asking Ezio to get there before her brother does.
  • In Project Legacy, Fiora Cavazza aka "The Courtesan" sided with the Assassins after being attacked by Malfatto.
• Highly-Visible Ninja:
  • In multiplayer you can take this route by running about and climbing walls. However, the game rewards you with more points per kill for killing your target without blowing your cover. Doing this sort of stuff, which NPCs do not do, is a quick way to give yourself away. Furthermore, performing High Profile actions within line of sight to your target will quickly result in the game automatically tipping your target off even if s/he was not actively looking out for you.
  • Ezio has the same issues as he did in AC2 (although the Assassin emblem is no longer on his starting Hidden Blade vambraces and a stylized arrowhead — albeit within the arch of the Assassin emblem — against feathers or leaves is used for his front buckle), and while for "immersion's sake" one could use the Florentine Noble Attire (a Uplay Reward that makes Ezio look like he did in AC2 before first donning the robes), it has no half-cape to conceal his main weapons in Low Profile and the Crossbow is still openly worn on his back.
  • However, as with the previous game, when a guard is actively looking for Ezio, or Ezio is in a restricted area, the guards spot him instantly and will draw weapons in seconds and attack if he doesn't hide or move away quickly.
  • This can be taken to ludicrous proportions with a couple unlockable outfits. Completing all the VR training with at least a bronze medal unlocks Raiden's outfit from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Beating the game will give you the ability to play as Desmond even while in the Animus. Needless to say, neither of these fit well with the attire of those around you, but as they are both purely cosmetic changes, no one will notice you any more than wearing Ezio's default robes.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • When Machiavelli questions how Ezio got the Thieves to help them again, Ezio only responds "virtù," which Machiavelli contemplates. The joke comes from the fact that this is a central concept in Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, which he will write in 1517.
  • Later on, after Ezio becomes the head of the Assassins, Machiavelli says that he might write a book about him one day. Ezio then tells him "don't make it too long." The Prince, Machiavelli's most well-known work, is only 100 pages long in most versions.
  • Machiavelli also scoffs at the idea of turning public opinion against the Borgia and inciting the Romans to fight against them, noting that relying on the people is like building on sand. In The Prince, he uses the same phrase, but considers it wholly untrue - a Prince should in his opinion care more about the opinion of his people rather than his nobles and he will surely fall if he does not manage to become either beloved or feared. Either Ezio's actions in the game inspired the book or Machiavelli engaged in some stealth mentoring and fully expected Ezio to act the way he did.
• Historical Relationship Overhaul: Similarly to their depiction in other media, the rumors of Lucrezia and Cesare's incestuous relationship are played up despite the lack of credibility the accusations had in Real Life. The game takes it further though by upgrading them to full on Villainous Incest with at least one scene showing the two kissing, and implying that Lucrezia's son Giovanni is possibly Cesare's rather than Perotto's; the implication isn't helped in the slightest by Lucrezia's genuine romantic interest in her brother, although the feeling ultimately isn't mutual on Cesare's part. She later turns on Cesare's in part because of this.
• Humiliation Conga:
  • Sequences 5 through 9 are one long spree of failures for Cesare Borgia: first Ezio kills Cesare's money-man who was his main source of funds, then he deprives Cesare of his French allies and (optionally) his Leonardo da Vinci-designed war machines, kills Cesare's lieutenants and wrests control of Rome away from Cesare, all right under his nose. Cesare then gets a stern talking-to — and attempted poisoning — from his daddy who'd withheld both financial support and the Apple of Eden from him and didn't even tell him about the death of his French general, though Rodrigo's attempted solution fatally backfires (while this was going on, Ezio had also prevented Cesare's hitman from killing a love rival). Cesare's own sister Lucrezia betrays the location of the Apple of Eden to Ezio, who reaches it first despite Cesare's head start, and then escapes the Vaticano District. Several surviving Cardinals put their support behind "Della Rovere" (actually Giuliano della Rovere) for the Papacy after telling Cesare that his family's money is "tainted." After several skirmishes in Roman streets are all lost by Cesare's men, in the final battle for Rome the Assassins openly take to the streets and literally force him outside one of the city gates. Even then Cesare still believes that his army is returning to retake Rome, led by his hitman... but instead, a general previously forced into his service now arrests Cesare at the new Pope's order — complete with a charge of incest — and Cesare is dragged away by Papal Guards whom he might have previously commanded. It would be a year or more before he escaped, breaking several bones in the process, and Ezio would finally catch up to him while Cesare was making a last desperate grab at a comeback — not commanding, but commanded by a relative. Oh, and so much for being "the best fighter who ever lived."
  • Revealed in Project Legacy to have been intentionally planned by Ezio, when he turned down a shot at Cesare's life, claiming that the death of one man would not bring down the Borgia — instead resorting to things like poisoning French duelists (to "force" Cesare to applaud their Italian opponents and thus potentially degrade relations with his French allies), or swapping prisoners scheduled for execution with hapless Borgia guards.
    • In general, Ezio's main antagonists enjoys their fruits of success in the short term after causing him great personal and emotional pain, but later come to pay dearly for it, and this is particularly evident with the excruciating humiliation he deals to Cesare over the course of several years. All of Ezio's other victims have a quick death, but for those who really piss him off, he determines to make their lives a living hell by the end.
• 100% Completion:
  • Achieving "Full Synchronization" requires missions to be completed with set standards (avoiding detection, avoiding damage, set time limit), the completion of which allows access to Ezio's Repressed Memories... though the last one is actually unlocked at only 75% overall Synchronization.
  • "Hundred percenting" the renovation of Rome unlocks the Auditore Cape, while removing all of the 101 Borgia flags unlocks the Borgia Cape, though both have the same effect of artificially keeping Ezio's Notoriety at zero. Collecting the ten Feathers this time only results in an Achievement/Trophy.
• Hypocrite: While rescuing Caterina in the Castello, you must take Lucrezia Borgia up to where she's being held, by force. The entire time you do this she's ranting about how the Assassins have ruined many people's lives and ensured the end of the Pazzi family's bloodline... despite the fact that the Borgia destroy businesses, have let Rome fall into ruin and squalor, have hopelessly corrupted the Cardinals, and have Ezio as the only surviving male member of the Auditore family by the end of the game's intro, this last one for apparently giggles.
• I Found You Like This: After the siege on Monteriggioni, Ezio takes a bullet in the side and proceeds to ride towards Rome. He collapses on the road and awakens in a small house on the outskirts of Rome being tended by an anonymous woman. It causes him to Level Drain. The end of Sequence 8 reveals that Machiavelli found and rescued him by taking him to the woman, hoping that he would be able to finish the job of ending the Borgia line.
• I Have Your Wife: The Baron de Valois does this against Bartolomeo, though Pantasilea is abducted off-screen.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: In the third Cristina memory, Ezio tells Cristina's fiancé, Manfredo, to stop gambling and be a good husband on pain of being hunted down and killed. She does NOT appreciate it — because she wanted Ezio.
• Impossible Item Drop:
  • Guards now carry more stuff on their person for looting, as opposed to just cash in AC2. Thieves, especially the Cento Occhi Random Encounters, are notorious for this.
  • Borgia Captains are particularly lucrative sources, particularly for ranged weapon ammo, and tend to have 900+ florins in coins.
  • One upside to chasing down Pickpockets and Borgia Couriers this time is that they inevitably have a trade item when you tackle, grab or loot them (Borgia Couriers in particular are the exclusive source of Aconite), and Bandit corpses inevitably have trade items.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Most of the weapons that the multiplayer characters use make some amount of sense. But the Engineer? He uses a Compass, the sharp kind people used for maps, but it's still a compass. The Dama Rossa, meanwhile, stabs her victims with an oversized hairpin. The Thief may qualify as well, as she uses one half of a scissor... though it is a rather pointy, tapered scissor blade at that.
  • Ezio can kill people with a broom. The achievement for killing someone with it is called "Spring Cleaning". It's hilarious.
  • There's another improbable weapon achievement for killing a guard by dropping the counter-weight of a winch lift on him as you ride it upwards. It's easy enough to do by purposely bumping into a guard near one of the lifts and having him follow/harass you as you go over to the lift; he'll end up right behind you as you ascend and be crushed under the counter-weight. Strangely, doing this doesn't provoke the other guards into chasing you.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Obtained by completing the Thief, Courtesan and Mercenary Guild Challenges. They don't have maxed out stats like the Sword of Altaïr or Dagger of Brutus, but they are the next best things.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Both the Sword of Altaïr (unlocked by completing all of the Assassin Guild Challenges) and the Dagger of Brutus (acquired along with the Armor of Brutus by completing all six Lairs of Romulus) have maxed out stats. The Dagger of Brutus also has a hidden effect that makes guards more likely to flee, and it has unique kill animations compared to the other Short Blades.
• In Medias Res: The very first cutscene after Desmond's introductory recap is Ezio confronting Cesare near the end of the game. Then the first playable bit rewinds to escaping from the Vault and Vatican immediately after 2.
• Interface Spoiler: Some of the 100% Sync parameters shown at the beginning of missions can spoil what will happen during it. For instance, one of the earliest missions has the parameter "Catch the courier in one minute" without any other indication that the mission will contain a chase sequence.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: Invoked when Ezio goes after Cesare without the Brotherhood. He says he built it to last with or without him and they are needed in Rome.
• It's Probably Nothing:
  • When Ezio is roused from slumber with Caterina due to cannon-firing noises, he thinks this since the men of Monteriggioni had been planning on cannon practice that morning. Then a cannonball goes through his room, knocking over the Armor of Altaïr in the process. It can't be destroyed, not even by cannons because it's made from super-metal, and Desmond later sees Ezio wearing it after the attack.
  • In the last Desmond segment, as he progresses he sees repeated messages from Juno, who gets increasingly cryptic and hostile towards humanity, including all but outright stating Desmond is just being manipulated... and he says nothing to the others. This allows Juno to take control of Desmond and make him kill Lucy.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Ezio attempts this with Maria and Claudia by sending them to Florence. Needless to say he is somewhat annoyed when they turn up in Rome anyway, and especially when they decide to "fill the gap" (after his failure to save the madame of a Roman brothel) by taking over it themselves. He gets over it though when he is shown his sister Took a Level in Badass.
• Just Following Orders: Cristina, in one of the flashback memory missions, tells Ezio to not kill the guards moving his family's bodies because they're just doing their jobs. Ezio doesn't really buy this ("They follow orders without questioning—!") but he relents to appease her.
• Kick the Dog: To remind the player that the mooks they're sneaking by might not be Just Following Orders, one of the later sequences has a cutscene of Cesare having his soldiers stab an innocent woman for no reason other than asking them to save her son, before spitting on her corpse.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook:
  • In addition to retaining (from earlier games) some mooks' ability to resist grabs or block frontal assassination, Papal Guards can block/dodge counters without taking damage, in some cases even hitting Ezio in the process (albeit without Ezio taking damage). They are not, however, immune to executions and inclusion in a kill streak.
  • Unlike the first Assassin's Creed's bosses, Cesare Borgia shares that immunity, since he's essentially a reskin of them but with execution/kill streak immunity.
• La Résistance:
  • The Assassins under Ezio's rule becomes this against the Borgia-ruled Rome. As Ezio himself says, "The liberation of Roma has begun".
  • Subject 16's last Cluster puzzle also implies that resistance against Templar control is growing stronger and stronger on a biological level, particularly among the younger generations, which is why they desperately need the Apple. Previously though, it's implied that the communists — or at least the true believers — were resisting by default due to opposing capitalism, revealed to be the Templars' means of control.
  • The "Templar Agent" mission against Gaspar de la Croix involves an attempted resistance, formed apparently independent of the Assassins.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The intro movie effectively spoils the ending of the first game, namely the betrayal of Al Mualim. You would expect the game to spoil ACII, what with it being a direct sequel in the same setting, but not the first one where Desmond's experiences in the Animus are unrelated.
• Laughably Evil: Cesare at times for his maniacal villainy.
• Lightning Bruiser: Papal Guards take and deal great amounts of damage while being surprisingly quick, can wield any of the other guard archetypes' melee weapons, and have a pistol attack of their own.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition:
  • The American collector's edition has the usual DVD bonuses... and a jack-in-the-box!
  • There's a European Codex Edition, which features a real-life version of Altaïr's Codex as a hardcover book with a large Assassin logo.
  • The Russian Collector's Edition is similar to the Codex Edition (albeit on a shoestring budget — lower quality for the Codex itself, and all the extra discs come in paper slips), BUT it also comes with six metal figurines of the multiplayer characters — The Courtesan, The Executioner, The Prowler, The Doctor, The Noble and The Priest. The lesser-grade Limited Edition has half the digital bonuses and two seemingly random figurines from the whole set.
• Loophole Abuse: Invoked by Ezio when Cesare claims that no man can kill him. Probably was unnecessary but Ezio was likely being cautious given how Cesare's previous statement that "chains cannot hold me" turned out to be rather prophetic.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • The "High Roller" achievement/trophy requires you to win 10 000 in "Hazard", a Betting Minigame played by the thieves to pass time. You have no control over the dice whatsoever, and thus winning, losing, or having to rethrow them is completely luck-based.
  • Many missions in Roma simply add the scripted characters among the randomly wandering guards/civilians, who can add an unplanned variable to the mix.
  • A Downplayed example related to the assassin recruits - some optional mission objectives require you to kill your target with them, but if the recruit is high enough level to use throwing knives and don't spawn close to the target, they'll toss one of the knives at them... which the game doesn't count as a recruit kill. This can force you to restart the mission if you're going for 100% synchronization, although they rarely do this twice in a row.
• Lured into a Trap: One of the last thief missions has a thief telling Ezio one of the Thousand Eyes has infiltrated their group, but he knows where the guy is. He takes Ezio out to a remote bit of the south-west part of the city, where it turns out to be an ambush.
• Made of Iron:
  • The Cardinal in the Lair of Romulus memory set in St. Peter's Basilica is surprisingly resilient given his lack of apparent armor. He's also an incredible free-runner.
  • The Borgia Captains and Papal Guards, although they're heavily armored — just for being the only non-boss enemies in the game to require multiple Pistol shots to kill when in Open Conflict.
• Magnetic Hero:
  • Ezio's goal is to rebuild the Assassin Brotherhood by training new recruits from those already... displeased with the current state of affairs, eventually building an army to strike at the Borgia.
  • It's revealed in Project Legacy that some of them were already-inducted apprentices who were transferred over to his tutelage after the death of Perotto Calderon, an Assassin who turned against his Brothers.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Several of the multiplayer characters wear masks when going about their missions.
• Meaningful Name: Cesare is the Italian variant of "Caesar," and he's planning on taking over Rome and the rest of Italy (and eventually Spain too) by force. Even his father thinks that's pretty hasty of him. Interestingly, a sidequest has you looking for keys to unlock a vault containing the Armor and Dagger of Brutus, the most infamous of Caesar's killers.
• Mêlée à Trois: Assassins vs. guards vs. bandits.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Mario, Ezio's uncle and mentor, is killed in the first memory sequence. This is part of what motivates Ezio to step up as a mentor himself.
• Mind Screw:
  • The end of The Truth segments features none other than Subject Sixteen himself, having uploaded his consciousness into the Animus and talking cryptically.
  • At this point, required at the end of every Assassin's Creed game. Good luck figuring out what happens at the end and why Desmond was forced to stab Lucy.
  • Also whether we're actually playing as Desmond, or as someone in the future viewing Desmond's memories through a future Animus. Teased by being able to load Desmond's image the way you can the other outfits, if you achieve 100% synchronization on Sequence 8. The DLC mission The Da Vinci Disappearance confirms that we are still playing as Desmond after the credits are rolling. There had been some speculation as to whether or not Desmond was still in the Animus during the Playable Epilogue.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: At its core, Brotherhood is basically the same game as its predecessor (and even picks up exactly where that game left off). It also features better graphics, a new setting, an improved combat system, and a few new gameplay mechanics in the Brotherhood system and property buying, essentially making it the Vice City to Assassin's Creed II's Grand Theft Auto III.
• Model Museum: Completing the Leonardo missions adds models of the inventions from each one to the Assassin HQ, where they can be viewed at your leisure.
• Monster Clown: The creepy-ass Harlequin in multiplayer.
• Mook–Face Turn: Lucrezia Borgia, albeit due to a bit of er... forceful persuasion.
• More Dakka: Borgia arquebusiers, cannons, and Leonardo's various inventions, including a prototype machine gun, though its slow (by modern standards) fire rate makes it essentially a large, chariot-mounted repeater.
• Motive Rant: The last Truth puzzle ends with one of these, a post-mortem recording from the head of Abstergo to their successor. It short, it is about how Abstergo's goal is not making money but using capitalism as a means of control and control isn't the point either but creating a peaceful world through control. The recording urges the successor not to listen to other big whigs at the company because they have become too obsessed with money for its own sake.
• Mugging the Monster: Ezio will be randomly attacked by thugs who are convinced the man in the fine cape and hood is an easy mark, though this is useful in that they have trade items on their bodies. They invariably learn their mistake to their thorough dismay when said hooded man mows them down like wheat. And that's if they're lucky; if they're unlucky, he just waves his hand, keeps walking, and a half-dozen Assassins leap out of the bushes — or they get "randomly" filled with arrows.
• Necessary Drawback:
  • Sending more than one Assassin on a mission increases the chance of the mission's success but evenly splits the experience point reward among them. If a mission fails then you may lose at least one of the Assassins you've sent out on it. Fortunately, unlike the finite Assassin's Creed II secondary missions you'll always have an available "rescue/recruit citizen" mission whenever you have an unfilled Assassin recruit slot. Finally, for obvious reasons any mission-deployed Assassins are not available to help you in person (either for assassinating targets or to fight in Open Conflict), and Assassins of any rank can be killed when they're around in person.
  • Arrow Storms will kill multiple guards (apparently as many as you have available Assassins) without the Assassin recruits having to appear (so no chance of them dying), but calling one requires that all three Assassin Signals be full (hence six available recruits), depletes all three signals at once, and it may be difficult to call for one while in Open Conflict or having to stay on the move.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In The Da Vinci Disappearance, after Ezio defeats several of his followers, the Hermeticist leader throws one last follower down to stop him. This not only kills the hapless follower but breaks off part of the stone platform that he's standing on, creating a path for Ezio to climb directly up to him. Ezio had no other way of reaching him before that.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Thoroughly averted. When destroying the War Machines, you need to not only destroy the prototype but also the blueprints, as well as any other prototypes of the same design that may be fighting back.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up:
  • Even though Ezio's sister Claudia should be in her late 30s, she still looks and acts the same as her 15-year-old self from the beginning of Assassin's Creed II. The acting could be justified by the fact that she was kept locked up in Monteriggioni for the entire length of AC2.
  • Ezio also suffers from this. He's pushing fifty by the time of the final memory, and yet he stills looks like he's in his late twenties. Revelations finally averts it, but in a way that makes things seem even more strange — it begins only four years after the last mission in Brotherhood, but Ezio looks like he's aged about 15-20 years.
• No Man of Woman Born: Cesare tries pulling this on Ezio. Absent the usual loophole, Ezio just drops him off the wall of the castle at Viana.
• No-Sell: The Truth Cluster 10 implies that the Templar's usual control methods simply do not work on the younger generations of people, with an internal Abstergo report claiming subtle but crucial biological changes in young adults. This explains why they commissioned the Animus Project, so they could find at least one Apple of Eden to put in their satellite.
• Not Worth Killing: Remember when Ezio spared Rodrigo Borgia? That turns out to have been a mistake in hindsight, although in the end Rodrigo is not the real threat. In fact, Ezio's "mercy" caused him to focus on power consolidation to the consternation of his son, splintering their family. So, it was actually a good thing, oddly enough.

O-Z

• Obstructive Bureaucrat: According to the Heralds, all incidents of petty theft must be reported to the Vatican Office of Complaints, not the Guard. But according to another message from the Heralds, the Vatican Office of complaints has been closed indefinitely due to the death of its only employee.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Stealth-killing from a bench causes Ezio to gently prop up the target on the bench he was sitting on, as in the previous game. To fully sync with the memory of Juan Borgia's death, Ezio has to kill him in this way without being detected, though in the cutscene the body is supine instead of seated.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Your horse when summoned. The Assassin recruits do this as well if there's no obvious hiding spot for them to have emerged from.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: The mid-40's Ezio going up against mid-20's Cesare; by the time of the final battle they're 47-48 and 31 respectively.
• Older Is Better: Brutus' Armor and Dagger are, despite being supposedly over 1500 years old during Ezio's time, better than any other armor available during that time. The Sword of Altaïr and Armor of Altaïr are also better than Renaissance equipment despite being centuries old as well — although their superiority is explained by Altaïr using the Apple to design them. The armor and dagger of Brutus are also justified, as his letters reveal he'd been in contact with Those Who Came Before, specifically Juno in the temple where Ezio leaves his apple.
• Older Than They Look: Ezio's mother and sister appear and largely act the same as they did at the beginning of Assassin's Creed II, even though in their first appearance in Brotherhood — 23 years later, at the beginning of the new century — Maria should be about 67 and Claudia about 38.
• Ominous Latin Chanting:
  • A soundtrack leitmotif for Cesare Borgia.
  • Some of the other missions taking place inside churches have background Latin chanting.
  • "Countdown", one of the tracks that plays when you're stalking an assassination target, has the choir whisper the lyrics for extra Creepy Awesome goodness.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • The advertised "offensive" combat gameplay has been explained as essentially meaning that after a counter kill (or a "special" melee kill), as long as Ezio is able to successfully hit opponents in melee without taking damage or missing attacks, he'll be able to chain one-hit regular kills ("executions") together in a "kill streak," intended to encourage players to attack more aggressively than in the extremely counter-oriented AC2 — not least because this is one of the few ways to quickly kill enemies with a lot of Health (specifically Borgia Captains, Brutes, Papal Guards, and certain targets) during Open Conflict. However, the execution animations can be interrupted (sometimes before the fatal blow and therefore negating the kill) by an untimely enemy attack, grab or sand toss, any of which will abruptly end the kill streak.
  • While equipped Throwing Knives are only a one-hit kill against the weakest enemies, when using the special attack to throw two or three Throwing Knives at once, each "charged" Throwing Knife will result in a one-hit kill. Throwing a Heavy Weapon or a Polearm (out of Open Conflict only) results in a one-hit kill, and the Crossbow and Pistol cause one-hit kills against almost all enemies.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Everyone in Wanted mode.
• One-Man Army:
  • Ezio can easily fell a platoon of soldiers if the player has good enough reflexes to counter and dodge when the situation calls for it. On top of his kill streaks, Ezio has a sub-weapon for his main weapons (gun for the one-handed sword/blunt weapon and throwing knives for the Short Blade) which he can utilize by holding and then releasing the Attack button during a kill streak with those weapons, acting as his special attack for those weapons (if he runs out of ammo he instead will toss sand, which is also his special attack when using his Fists, and if wielding a Polearm during Open Conflict he'll perform a spinning slash that cuts the throats of most enemies in close range).
  • When a recruit reaches level 10 and is promoted to the rank of Assassino, he or she becomes perfectly capable of taking down almost any NPC group single-handedly without losing even one Health square in the process... on top of that, he or she has as many Health squares as the final boss, and those Health squares deplete almost as slowly as his do. Short of falling off of a high-enough rooftop or into water, even a lone Assassino is de facto invincible against almost all enemies.
  • Fully realized in the final Sequence, as Ezio goes off alone to hunt down Cesare without informing the Brotherhood, disabling your ability to call Assassins in the process.
  • Lampshaded at the beginning:
    Mario: What can I say? We sent a single man against an entire army. I was concerned.
• One-Woman Wail: Present in a lot of the soundtrack, most notably in the title sequence.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Ezio gets shot through the shoulder during the attack on Monteriggioni. With a hole through his chest you could shoot pool through, he fights his way out of the city and rides to the outskirts of Rome from Tuscany. Then he goes to a doctor, gets a potion and is immediately perfectly healthy, with only a few muttered comments about his age.
• Only Shop in Town: A variation. There's multiple shops with different shopkeepers (albeit ones that look exactly the same), but as you pretty much singlehandedly renovate the entirety of Rome, you own — or at least have a share in — most of the shops.
• Only Smart People May Pass: Subject 16's puzzles, especially the last few. The password to the Temple of Juno requires piecing together information about dates, the Name of God, and the Tetragrammaton.
• Orcus on His Throne: Rodrigo Borgia is largely absent from the game; when Ezio first goes back to check on him upon exiting the Vault all he finds are the papal robes. Rather than being the Big Bad that Machiavelli believes him to be, Rodrigo is instead trying to build up the forces of the Papacy and the Borgia family, while Cesare is being an idiot and stirring up the hornet's nest known as the Assassins. Rodrigo wants the long view, while Cesare desperately wants to be powerful NOW.
• Overlord Jr.: Cesare Borgia, though he has pretensions of intending to being the Overlord, even if only unofficially.
• Permadeath: Assassin recruits that die, whether due to mission failure or in combat, are gone for good. Fortunately, unlike the finite secondary missions in AC2, the game will dynamically generate recruiting missions whenever an Assassin recruit slot is unfilled.
• Pet the Dog: Lucrezia in Project Legacy, as she's the only one shows any love towards Giovanni, her son through an Assassin, but cannot let him know about his true lineage. In return, when he leaves the Vatican, she's the only one in the household he misses — and while he doesn't go to see her "one last time," he figures that it would just make her (more) sad, whereas he dislikes or hates the rest of his male relatives.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Ezio's carrying a poisoned actor playing a newly-crucified Jesus out of the Colosseum. Heavily lampshaded, as the dazed actor asks Ezio who he is, and Ezio sarcastically answers "Your Saviour".
• Player Punch: Used to set up the Cliffhanger ending. When Desmond is dominated by Juno after picking up the Apple of Eden, the game stops before the crucial moment and tells you to "press any button". So not only does Desmond kill Lucy, so do you.
• Plot Armor: Desmond is unable to damage himself during the platforming sessions even at heights that would mean instant kill for Ezio, specifically because he doesn't have a health meter and has no way of restoring it even if he did.
• Point of No Return: Sequence Eight. To make things worse, it's not immediately obvious until the second Memory starts with no way to decline. Furthermore, after the fracas in the Colosseum you cannot return to 2012!Monteriggioni or replay either of Desmond's platforming portions... though it beats every story Memory being a point of no return (for the previous Memories) in AC2.
• Politically Correct History: The game's depiction of Rome circa the early 1500s features anachronistic elements from different periods as well as baroque architecture brought forward in time for Rule of Cool. One major element missing from the game which was absolutely accurate to the time and place of the game was the famous Jewish quarter of the city filled with refugees from Spain, Portugal and Provence who had settled there and were becoming a thriving community in a brief period of tolerance, under the philanthropic policies of Pope Alexander VI and the Borgias (which are not talked about since the Borgias got the Historical Villain Upgrade, of course). Of course this is consistent overall with the AC franchise which as a rule rarely tackle anti-semitism in its major games.
• Poor Communication Kills: Ezio is never fully informed of Lanz's history beyond the fact that he lost his child, his wife is suicidal, and that he is a Templar agent who murders people. Thus Ezio hunts Lanz down and kills him.
• Praetorian Guard:
  • The Papal Guards, of course. There are however several enemy leaders, i.e. Overseers for the War Machines, a trio accompanying the Baron de Valois, and the boss in the "Liquid Gold" mission (a capable free-runner at that), plus a few scattered around Centro District, who wear the Papal Guard armor and have their abilities despite not being on bodyguard duty.
  • Subtly reinforced when they arrest Cesare Borgia, previously their former commander, at the order of the new Pope.
• Primal Stance: The Followers of Romulus.
• Prochronic Product: The DLC "The DaVinci Disappearance" makes Leonardo da Vinci this. Ezio must save his old friend from the Templars who have forced him to create four weapons of war for them; a bomber glider, a machine gun, a one man gun boat, and a tank. While Leonardo's notes do indeed contain plans and drawings for some fantastical devices that see their creation today, he never actually got around to making any of them^note (A few modern day engineers have dubbed them unworkable, if only because Leonardo didn't yet understand the necessary science behind them. Needless to say all four are destroyed by the hero, and thus have to wait until their proper dates of creation to see use again.
• Put on a Bus: Several key characters from the second game are neither mentioned nor appear at all.
• A Quest Giver Is You: You can send your recruits to complete contracts around the world to increase the Assassins' control. Their rate of success depend on how many you send out, their level, and their specialty.
• Rain of Arrows: Ezio can call an Arrow Storm down if he has at least six Assassin recruits at the ready. It kills virtually all the guards near you (up to a number equal to your available Assassins), effectively functioning as a Smart Bomb and extremely useful for later missions where the full sync condition requires that multiple enemies die without Ezio taking any damage. Unless those missions disable the use of your guild. The ones where it would be most helpful are universally the ones in which your assassins are unavailable. It's also a great way to take out Borgia Captains, even those who are aware of Ezio and therefore either in Open Conflict (thus taking more than one hit from Ezio's weapons to kill) or fleeing.
• Recollection Sidequest: A series of sidequests set during various eras of Assassin's Creed II has Ezio recover his suppressed memories of Cristina, his former fiancee.
• Red Herring: Several things seem to suggest that Mario (somehow) survived. Nope.
• Red Herring Mole: La Volpe is suspicious of Machiavelli to begin with, and several unfortunate incidents indeed indicate that Machiavelli is likely to be feeding information to the Borgia. However, it turns out he's not the traitor Volpe had been making him out to be, and unbeknownst to Niccolo, he was vindicated mere seconds before he would have been killed.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: Sequence 9.
• Redundant Rescue: Claudia wiping out the Templars attacking the Rosa in Fiore, before Ezio arrives.
• Repressed Memories: Ezio has repressed memories of Cristina Vespucci, which can be unlocked by obtaining a general level of synch up to 75 per cent. These were made to show what happened to their tragic love story during the time frame of Assassin's Creed II, as the latter game didn't expand upon said love story.
• Right Through His Pants: Inverted. Ezio is naked from the bath, but Caterina Sforza seems to have her undergarments on the entire time until the two of them wake up in the morning.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Desmond mostly acts stable but there are signs that his continued use of the Animus is taking its toll on him, such as increasing hallucinations — of the aftermath of the Siege of Monteriggioni, Ezio's return to the Sanctuary at some point in his life (which according to the Ubisoft community manager may or may not have actually happened), as well as Ezio making his way to Juno's Temple to put the Apple — and inadvertent references to when "he" had done things that Ezio had done. Being physically in the same place one of his ancestors lived probably isn't helping. More subtly, when Desmond first speaks to Shaun after the Animus is set up in the Sanctuary, asking him about Monteriggioni, Desmond pronounces it with a slightly more Italian accent...
  • Through reading Lucy and Rebecca's emails you learn that Desmond has been screaming in his sleep. Maybe he's dreaming about the conceptions of his other ancestors...
  • In Project Legacy, Assassin trainee Giovanni Borgia, has not only voices in his head thanks to being "saved" by the Shroud of Eden which he refers to as "Consus" (possibly referring to "consciousness"), but also sometimes experiences his father Perotto Calderon's and his implied ancestor Marcus Junius Brutus' memories. The implications of the former are kind of squicky...
• Self-Deprecation: The depiction of the French soldiers in this game is less than flattering. Ubisoft, the company that publishes the game, is based in France. In addition, the game itself was developed by a Quebecois studio, Ubisoft Montreal.
• Sequence Breaking: Unlike the Assassin's Tombs in AC2, the Lairs of Romulus have a persistent plotline and are intended to be played in a certain order, but there's nothing actually stopping you from playing them out of order once you've unlocked them all.
• Sherlock Scan: Senator Troche assumes that this is how Ezio knew that he had been whoring. The truth is much simpler: Ezio owns the Senator's favorite brothel.
• Shout-Out:
  • Metal Gear has made at least two major shout-outs to Assassin's Creed (such as Big Boss' ability to perform the Leap of Faith in Peace Walker and Altaïr's robe MGS4), it's only fair for this game to return the favor. Firstly: Raiden's MGS4 outfit becomes a possible costume for Ezio — albeit with Ezio wearing it — if you happen to complete all the Virtual Training missions, which themselves could be construed as a shout-out to the many VR Mission modes for MGS games. Secondly, when you first meet back up with Leonardo, his voice appears to be coming from inside a modern cardboard box.
  • The mission where Ezio saves Caterina is called "Castello Crasher".
  • When Ezio and Bartolomeo's mercenaries disguised as French troops arrive at the French camp, he attempts to converse with the guard manning the outermost gate in French. The guard, finding the accent off, asks, "Which part of France are you from?" Ezio responds, "Montreal." Ubisoft Montreal is the company's primary studio for all Assassin's Creed development.
  • And there is the matter of speaking to a Frenchman on a wall trying to gain access to a castle.
  • On its own, having to impersonate a guard named Luigi doesn't mean too much, considering where you are after all, but Ezio also having an Uncle Mario makes it more suspicious. In addition, the achievement for completing that memory sequence is named "Principessa in Another Castello".
  • In the Japanese version, the above is somewhat more explicit: "Thank you EZIO! But princess is in another castle"
  • They aren't even trying to hide it by the time you get the "Plumber" Achievement◊.
  • In the "Femme Fatale" memory, when you first grab Lucrezia, she says something like "So your job is rescuing princesses from castles now?"
  • The sequence where you stab Lucy is similar to the scene prior to Aerith's death, in that each time a button is pressed, or in this case the stick is tilted, causes our hero (Cloud/Desmond) to take another unwilling step towards their own ally (Aerith/Lucy), and yet it is the only way to progress, you can't just put the controller down.
  • The trophy for completing Subject 16's Maze is called ".. .- — .- .-.. .. ...- ." Which is morse code for "I AM ALIVE" which could be interpreted in two different ways one being a possible reference to subject 16 and the other being a Shout Out to the game I Am Alive which is also being developed by Ubisoft.
  • One of the first few achievements is "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!"
  • The achievement for destroying all the Borgia Towers is "Tower Offense"
  • The title for one of the Assassination Contracts "Brutes and Brutality" seems to be a Shout-Out to the episode naming conventions for Blackadder the Third, which in turn is a Shout-Out to Jane Austen.
  • One memory in The Da Vinci Disappearance, involving an artwork heist, is titled "The Ezio Auditore Affair".
  • The Da Vinci Disappearance includes a mission where Ezio looks for secrets hidden in Da Vinci's artwork.
  • The Armour of Brutus has an eagle on the right shoulder.
• Sibling Team: The Harlequin and the Hellequin are brother and sister, Cahin and Caha. They are not seen in Brotherhood, as they were killed by other Assassins — possibly Ezio's apprentices — at some point during Ezio's time in Rome.
  • The Thief's profile implied that she (Faustina Collari) and her brother were one, though his fate is unknown.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Ezio does this in the E3 reveal trailer against two horsemen.
• Sinister Shades: The Doctor multiplayer character has these over a White Mask of Doom. The Engineer also has these.
• Sinister Surveillance: We are told that Abstergo is using cell towers to keep tabs on people and that satellite surveillance was phased out for being inferior at this. This is the given reason why Desmond's not supposed to be out of the Sanctuary for more than ten minutes at a time, though fortunately if a player does let the timer expire Desmond is simply returned into the Sanctuary.
• Smug Snake: Ye gods, Cesare. He wants to be an amazing Magnificent Bastard but in reality he's a cowardly, hysterical, spoiled brat. This is very much highlighted when he has to meet his father because the invasion money's dried up and he NEEDSMORENOWDAMMIT, and then when he tries to take (back) Rome without the Apple of Eden. He also completely underwhelms during the final boss fight, bragging that he's "the best fighter who ever lived" and still having delusions (four years later) of being able to retake Rome, then to resume his failed conquest of Italy, and even to go on to conquer Spain, when he can't even best an Auditore.
  
  Simply put, his problem was that he was very deluded about the real source of his power up until his forced return to Rome, thanks to the Assassins having ripped the real power out from under him.
• The Smurfette Principle:
  • Initially, the Courtesan was the only female PC in multiplayer. Then the Smuggler, Thief and the Hellequin were introduced, subverting this.
  • Upheld in single-player, as Claudia is the only explicitly-canon female Assassin in the game, but Project Legacy both subverts it and plays it straight with Tessa Varzi: the second canonical female Assassin during the events of Brotherhood but the only one shown in Project Legacy or amongst Ezio's canonical apprentices.
  • You will most likely start implementing this rule yourself when you begin recruiting apprentices. Since male apprentices seems to be far more common than female ones.
    • Or you can avert it entirely by selectively recruiting only female Assassin Recruits, either by ignoring the men or saving them, but not speaking to them to recruit them. You can even take it farther and send the male recruit you automatically get when you first gain the ability to recruit assassins to his death on a mission he couldn't possibly hope to accomplish on his own in order to forge an Amazon Brigade.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Set up and subsequently subverted when Ezio has Bartolomeo pretend to surrender to his own men who are disguised as French troops. A guard at the main gate asks their business in French and Ezio is able to hold a conversation in it. The guard then asks where in France he's from (possibly due to a curious accent?), Ezio is able to provide an acceptable answer. Apparently, his womanizing days paid major dividends almost a quarter-century later.
  • Every game of (Advanced) Wanted requires this. The newbies who run on rooftops openly aren't even trying — despite the Compass not showing the target's elevation — but to spot more skilled players demands that you know what NPCs will and will not do. Then again that might not save you...
• The Squadette: You can recruit females into your guild, and a cheat allows you to have all of your recruits appear to be female when replaying Memories.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: You don't meet La Volpe. La Volpe meets you.
• Stealth Pun:
  • The heralds have several of these. "Reminder! Do not drink the waters of the Chevre south of the Campo Marzio. The recent outbreak of syphilis has been linked to this ill-advised practice."
  • Shaun's "Oh my God!"
  • When Desmond and crew are at the Colosseum looking for the Apple, Shaun's advice to Desmond is "If you see any gladiators, leg it!" In this case, a "legate" (pronounced the same way) is a member of the Roman army.
• Stock Sound Effects:
  • Ezio's taunts from Assassin's Creed II, in which he has a higher voice, are mixed in with his new taunts.
  • The generic citizen voices are used in every location. While it's understandable since the majority of the game takes place in Rome, it gets rather silly when people call you the "Curse and shame of Roma" while you're in Florence.
• Stopped Numbering Sequels: There's a reason why this is "Brotherhood" and not "Assassin's Creed 3". It's largely Assassin's Creed 2-and-a-half, a direct continuation of where Assassin's Creed II left off without being a major paradigm shift like 2 was over 1. It's far more than a Gaiden Game, though.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Mario is killed by Cesare early on.
• Super Drowning Skills:
  • "Guards are lousy swimmers! And their armour is really heavy. So they stay out of the water."
  • Sadly, this applies to NPCs equally — including your Assassin apprentices. Oddly enough, for some reason Ezio's armor isn't as heavy as the guards, even when he appears to be wearing more (and heavier robes at that). Then again, density is what determines buoyancy, not weight.
• Sword and Gun: Ezio can now use both a longsword or bludgeon and the Hidden Gun together in combat; a variant option is his ability to use a short blade in conjunction with throwing knives. The Papal Guards and Cesare in the final boss fight will also pack a pistol and sword.
• Tank Goodness: One part of the story requires Ezio to retrieve a tank built from Leonardo's plans, as well as burn the stolen plans to prevent the Borgias from building more. Fortunately he did that in the opposite order, since it wasn't the only working tank. Though you wouldn't think this good if you're going for full synchronization...
• Tap on the Head: After Ezio rescues Caterina Sforza from the clutches of the Borgia's, Caterina orders Lucrezia into a cell. Lucrezia screams for her guards, but Caterina slams her head into the cell bars, knocking her out.
• Technical Pacifist:
  • There's an unarmed finisher that involves Ezio stepping on his opponents foot (causing them to hop on one leg), before stomping on the knee they're balancing on, snapping it at a near 90 degree angle.
  • Most of Ezio's new unarmed finishers seem to be attempting to outdo Altaïr. Of note is the one where Ezio approaches a guard from behind, punches him in the kidneys, then turns around and breaks the guard's neck over his shoulder. It has to be seen to be believed.
• Tempting Fate: One of the first things Ezio does upon returning to Monteriggioni is catch Mario's favorite horse. When he brings it to the stables he's told "Enjoy your good health. Do not spend as much time in battle as your uncle Mario." He replies with "My battles have already been won." Apparently the Borgia didn't get that memo...
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • One of the move involves stabbing a guard in the underside of the head, then firing the Hidden Gun at point-blank. Consider how powerful the Hidden Gun is even from afar... If the graphics were any more realistic, Rome would be filled with scattered brains.
  • There are tons of way to dispatch enemies from range. You can use your hidden gun, throwing knives, crossbow, poison dart, or even call in your Assassin recruits. While these methods are practical, they have the disadvantage of not being as awesome as throwing an axe/2-handed sword into your enemy's head.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works:
  • Ezio's "charged-up" special attack for Heavy Weapons (axes and two-handed swords) is overhanding that sucker right into whoever is unlucky enough to be targeted or in front of him. He then has to go over and pick it back up — though if you're actually equipped with one (by using the Heavy Sheath), this attack empties your Medium/Heavy Weapon slot, which can actually be exploited to be able to semi-permanently keep an enemy's Medium/Heavy Weapon; it's the only way to be able to keep the Scimitar, for one.
  • Alternately he can throw a Polearm, though those can not be kept like Heavy Weapons can. This is one of the only ways to "elevate" a Polearm, by throwing it at a rooftop guard while Ezio is not in Open Conflict, though finding a well-placed "free-run" to a roof or using a merchandise or ladder will work as well.
• Tick Tock Tune: "Countdown", which often plays when there is a time requirement to 100% complete a memory.
• Too Dumb to Live: In the DLC, the returning Duccio de Luca publicly insults Ezio's sister as the "whore of Rome" and picks a fight with Ezio thirty years after their last meeting, all because he's got a few unarmed henchmen on hand. This works out for him about as well as you'd expect. Worse yet, the games assume that Ezio was wearing the Assassin Robes at the time.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Ezio has learned even more killing moves, along with the kill streak techniques/strategy to put them all together, making him able to take out practically any melee group in the game.
  • The Hidden Gun is also far more useful than it used to be due to his having had over a decade to practice with it, and somehow modifying it (before going to infiltrate the Vatican at the end of 1499 in AC2, since he himself didn't probably have time to do so between his return to Monteriggioni and the next morning's siege) to be able to fire using his left wrist alone.
  • Also, Claudia has gone from villa bookkeeper, to head of the Courtesans as brothel madam of the Rosa in Fiore ("Blooming Rose"), and confirmed Assassin after slaying four attacking guards while Ezio is away. Afterwards, she is officially inducted into the Assassins, performing a Leap of Faith and fighting alongside Ezio during the mop-up skirmishes.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed. Despite retaining his original charm and charisma, Ezio is noticeably more gruff and frustrated in his interactions with some of his fellow Assassin leaders, particularly Machiavelli due to their differing views on the people. His relationship with Claudia also becomes strained due to a combination of distance and his own overprotective nature towards her, though some of this is mended when she proves herself worthy of becoming an Assassin in her own right. Mario’s death at the beginning took its toll, and as displayed here and noted by Ezio in the next game, something “withered” him after the loss of Cristina.
• Trash the Set: Ezio's town gets sacked by invading Roman troops not long into the game.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Several events that occurred at the time of Assassin's Creed II are accessible in Brotherhood; since most of these events would be traumatic for Ezio, the apparent explanation is that Ezio sealed them away within his own memory, and Desmond is only able to access them due to his greater level of sync in this game.
• Tyke Bomb: Il Lupo (The Prowler) from Multiplayer.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Stealing the Bomber culminates in the game's only flight-action sequence.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: When stealing the Machine Gun.
• Unflinching Walk:
  • Ezio calmly walking away from the first "signal" that Borgia power is waning (burning the first tower). Whenever he destroys a Borgia Tower after the first, he does an Unflinching Leap of Faith.
  • Ezio pulls one off following the explosion that occurs after crashing da Vinci's ornithopter, and when he destroyed his first Borgia Tower, Iacopo de Grassi's.
  Ezio: Addio, amico mio.^note "Goodbye, my friend."
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: During the Banker chapter, residents of Trasteverde can be seen casually walking around paying no attention to the revellers wearing nothing but leaves and masks having an orgy.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Lucrezia keeps the key to Caterina's cell here. When Ezio manages to capture her, Caterina retrieves and remarks on it ("Classy.")
• Videogame Caring Potential:
  • Destroying the Borgia oppression leads to the revitalization of Rome, and eventually the Renaissance. As you progress through the game, the background chatter of NPCs will include statements like "Things are really getting better," and "There will be a special throne in Hell for Cesare Borgia when this is all over."
  • In liberated zones you will also have Vigilantes appear, usually near certain guard locations, who will jeer at the guards and grab any guards that try to fight near them, just like in AC1.
  • And of course, who could forget about your recruits... especially since once a recruit hits max EXP, you're notified to return to the Hideout to attend AND officiate their graduation/promotion. They grow up so fast...! *sniffle*
  • If you think that's nice, pay attention to how the couples act before and after your liberation has progressed... from tears and consoling hugs, to watching constellations from rocky outcroppings and proposing... The open fields even have families or friends having picnics.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Some of Ezio's kill animations are much more brutal this time around, especially with the introduction of kill-streaks.
• Villainous Breakdown: Cesare's mood starts to fall rapidly when he learns that his friends and allies were killed (in one case without him even being told), that the money for his warmaking has dried up, and the man he'd thought he'd killed years ago had stolen Rome out from under his nose. In the entire scene after that, he loses his shit completely.
• Villainous Incest: Cesare Borgia has this with his sister Lucrezia, which may or may not have been Truth in Television.
• Villain Song: For the Harlequin in the Gamestop commercial, sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle".
  The Harlequin went into town, a deadly man in tights,
  Went medieval on some dudes and laughed until they died!
  The Harlequin tears it up, the Harlequin is sneaky,
  Fills his victims up with fear because he looks so freaky!
  The Harlequin jumped off a roof and landed in a crowd,
  Before they had a chance to laugh, he took those suckers out!
• Warp Whistle: In the form of tunnel entrances around Rome that Ezio must renovate to use.
• Was It All a Lie?: Lucrezia to Cesare during his brutal interrogation for the Apple's location.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Hermeticists are looking for a magic number that will grant them the power they need to banish ignorance from the world forever. A very noble goal, indeed; too bad they're so fanatic about it they think it's okay to go around stabbing people in their way. Their leader is shocked that Ezio is fighting them.
• Wham Line: The short conversation between two men at the end. One claims to be an expert on the Animus and that placing Desmond in the Animus would stop him from going into shock. Then the realization kicks in that these men must be Bill Miles and some other Assassin, whom Lucy would have told where to go to retrieve the apple from Juno's Vault.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Teodor Viscardi, "The Officer" in multiplayer, is an agent of Cesare's whose fate hasn't never revealed, as he isn't a target in either Project Legacy or Brotherhood. His sole appearance is a quick cameo in one Legacy memory.
  • The same deals with Faustina Collari, the Thief. She is not mentioned to be in service to the Borgia, in either medium. Oddly enough, however, she is the one with the most backstory, concerning her lost brother.
  • Likewise with Paola, Antonio, and Teodora from Assassin's Creed II. The end of that game implies they traveled to Rome with the rest of the Assassins to make trouble in the city to divert the guard's attention from Ezio infiltrating the Vatican, they are not seen or mentioned at all in Brotherhood. The most likely explanation is they simply returned to Florence and Venice respectively after causing the distraction in Rome, but the game never comments one way or the other.
  • Rebecca mentions in an e-mail that there was an unmarked white-van just the right size for surveillance gear outside Monteriggioni, implying the Templars may be aware of the group's location and spying on them. Despite this, this possibility is never brought up after it's initial mention in the e-mail.
• Wife-Basher Basher: Ezio in the Blacksmith's Templar Agent mission. Though, he goes a little farther than just beating him...
• The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): Tommaso di Viterbo, the closest Borgia Captain northeast of the Thieves Guild, claims to know how Assassins operate when addressing troops, but is no harder to kill for all his bluster. Many players time their assassinations perfectly to milk the speech he gives to provide the most dramatic irony possible.
• The World Is Just Awesome: The Aesop at the end of "The Copernicus Conspiracy" DLC, Copernicus talks Ezio into believing this and by the time of "Embers", he has completely embraced this feeling:
  Copernicus: "Is the world not marvelous?"
  Ezio: "Some of it."
  Copernicus: "You should not be so emotional. You will find it all makes more sense that way."
  Ezio: "Perhaps."
  Copernicus: "Cesare thinks himself the center of it all, but he circles the periphery with the rest of us. Did you know that the sun is most likely the midpoint of the universe, not the Earth? I see the movements of the moon and stars, and yet I can only observe. So much is unknown to me. This age of reason is but the beginning of an end I will never see. Someday we will be able to influence this world, to exploit the power of the human will to harness light and perhaps even travel into the heavens. But I am getting ahead of myself, first we must see the sun spinning at the center."
  Ezio: "I believe what you say is possible."
  Copernicus: "You should not accept my word. Not until I have proof. Soon. Buona Notte (Good night), Ezio, and thank you."
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Unlike previous Assassin's Creed games, this one (mostly) takes place in a single large city rather than bouncing around between different cities.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • When holding Lucrezia hostage during a mission (as she has the key to Caterina Sforza's cell), Ezio has no problem tackling her to the ground if she tries to escape, putting the left Hidden Blade to her throat to keep her in place (though she inevitably breaks out after several seconds), and even threatening to "take" her tongue if she screams... although he doesn't follow through.
  • Lia de Russo, the multiplayer Smuggler, is the target of a Templar Agent mission, and full synchronization requires that Ezio finish her with his Hidden Blade. Oddly enough, she's not sure why Ezio is hunting her.
  • Micheletto Corella, in the course of "instructing" his lord Cesare's son Giovanni, claims to have kicked many women in "a better place that hurts more, even for a woman."
• Wrestler in All of Us: In addition to Ezio still using a chokeslam, Il Carnefice/The Executioner can kill his target from behind by using a standing version of an Inverted Death Valley Driver/Burning Hammer, and the Blacksmith uses a backbreaker.
• Wretched Hive: Rome under Borgia rule. It's up to Ezio to clean it up.
• Yandere: Cesare and Lucrezia, for each other.
• You ALL Look Familiar:
  • Purposely invoked in multiplayer for the purpose of Paranoia Fuel. To maintain this, if a player equips their character with visible customizations, all of that character's NPC counterparts will match the player's look. Somewhat mitigated in Alliance, Chest Capture and Manhunt modes as the pursuers and targets are clearly defined — thus narrowing down who is your target but also who your pursuer could be, unless a Disguise is used — but in full force during Wanted and Advanced Wanted.
  • Further invoked for any ability which affects characters' appearances, i.e. Disguise ("reskins" the player character into a different character for at least ten seconds), Morph (up to four or six NPCs near the player character suddenly "transform" to match the player character's appearance), or Blender (changes a NPC in a crowd into the same skin as that of the player for as long as the player character stays in that crowd, and as long as there isn't an actual NPC that already has the same skin).
• You and What Army?: In the E3 trailer, Cesare laughs at Ezio for trying to face him and his troops alone. Cue Ezio's recruits coming to his aid.
• You Killed My Father: Part of Ezio's conflict with the younger Cesare, is because Cesare killed Uncle Mario.
• Zerg Rush: This is the strategy the Cult of Romulus uses against you. Although they are burly men in wolf pelts, they have little armor and only wield daggers and rocks. There are usually lots of them and they will attack more readily than the regular guards. They're practically Kill Streak fodder.

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