Assassin’s Creed Games With The Best Modern-Day Parts

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The Assassin’s Creed series is known for letting players experience realistic historical settings throughout the ages. You typically play as a skilled assassin, sneaking around-often hiding in shadows or foliage-to take down dangerous individuals. Gameplay involves exploring these historical worlds, eliminating targets, and using impressive parkour skills to move quickly across rooftops.

What connects all these games is a compelling science fiction storyline unfolding in our current time. These contemporary tales often receive less focus than the historical settings, and are sometimes completely overlooked. Yet, throughout the 18-year history of Assassin’s Creed games, these present-day narratives have captivated players who are keen to learn more about the modern-day assassins and their impact on the world of Abstergo and the Animus.

Spoilers Ahead for the Assassin’s Creed series, both the modern-day and historical stories.

Assassin’s Creed

The Introduction Of Desmond Miles

No recent games in this series are complete without the original Assassin’s Creed, which first featured Desmond Miles as the main character. Desmond, who works as a bartender, is taken by Abstergo Industries and made to relive the memories of his ancestor, Altair, using a device called the Animus. They do this to find a powerful artifact known as the Apple of Eden.

What made this recent segment so successful was that Ubisoft kept everything a secret. As the initial Assassin’s Creed game, the series’ unusual science fiction elements weren’t promoted at all, and there were no leaks beforehand. Players anticipating a typical historical open-world stealth-action experience were surprised by a completely new modern storyline that immediately captivated them.

Assassin’s Creed 2

Desmond On The Run

Once Lucy frees Desmond from Abstergo, she brings him to a secret base where a hidden group of the Assassin Brotherhood is working to stay ahead of the Templars in the search for the Pieces of Eden. They connect Desmond to their own Animus device and send him back into the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, hoping he can quickly learn the skills needed to become a complete assassin.

The way Assassin’s Creed 2 tells its modern-day story feels much more exciting than the first game, which took place in a very clinical lab environment. However, the real highlight is the ending. After Ezio uncovers the Vault hidden under the Vatican, a hologram of Minerva appears. Surprisingly, Minerva seems to know that both Ezio and Desmond are hearing her message. She gives them both a crucial mission: to stop a disaster that’s about to happen. Back in the present day, the assassins sense a powerful solar flare, and they believe it’s the event Minerva warned them about. Desmond goes back into the Animus, setting the stage for…

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Desmond’s Ancestry Revealed

Having escaped an attack from the Templars, Desmond and his team move to a new, hidden base located deep under the ruins of the Villa Auditore-a fitting location, as Desmond is preparing to relive the memories of Ezio, the famous Italian assassin. He’s searching for the Apple of Eden once more, hoping it will show them a map leading to the other Pieces of Eden.

Ezio not only discovers the Apple of Eden, but he repeatedly uses it to observe both his friends and foes, eventually concealing it within a temple located under the Roman Colosseum. Desmond, Lucy, and the rest of the team journey to the temple and locate the Apple, at which point Desmond is faced with another holographic projection – this time, of Juno. Unlike Minerva, Juno is much more aggressive. After disclosing to Desmond that he’s a descendant of the First Civilization (also known as the Isu), she takes control of him, compelling him to stab Lucy. Lucy falls, and Desmond slips into a coma. The ending of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was the most shocking cliffhanger Ubisoft had ever delivered to its players, creating intense anticipation for the next game in the series.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Desmond Breaks Free

While the present-day sections of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations aren’t entirely grounded in reality, they deserve recognition because of their focus on Desmond. Following the surprising ending of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond falls into a coma. He’s then brought back to his father, William, who, encouraged by Desmond’s friends, puts him back into the Animus.

There, Desmond meets Clay Kaczmarek, who used the Animus before him. Clay guides Desmond through the Animus’ Black Room and explains that experiencing the rest of Ezio’s life could wake him from his coma. Later in the game, Ezio discovers Altair’s library. He leaves the Apple of Eden there and then communicates directly with Desmond, seemingly aware of his presence. Ezio then activates the Apple for Desmond, sending one last message detailing how to prevent the impending disaster. Finally, Desmond awakens with a concrete plan he can begin to execute.

Assassin’s Creed 3

Desmond Becomes An Assassin

Regarding Desmond’s storyline, all the events shown in the present-day sections of the first four Assassin’s Creed games built towards what happened in Assassin’s Creed 3. Desmond isn’t a prisoner of Abstergo anymore, and he’s no longer being trained as an assassin by Ezio, his ancestor. He’s now a fully trained assassin himself, and players finally got to play as him directly.

Desmond’s storyline reaches a fantastic ending in AC3, and although the game generally receives mixed reactions, its present-day sections are the strongest in the entire series. Everything players hoped for in a modern-day Assassin’s Creed – from a daring leap of faith off a skyscraper to Desmond’s confrontation with Abstergo – was included, and it hasn’t been surpassed in the 13 years since the game launched.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Advent Of The Eagle Bearer

The “RPG Trilogy” of Assassin’s Creed games doesn’t focus much on the present-day storyline, but it explores the series’ least-used idea more thoroughly than the AC games released between Black Flag and Syndicate. While Layla Hassan isn’t as captivating as Desmond with his clearer narrative, she’s a skilled, self-taught scientist and a noteworthy character within the game’s story.

The most striking aspect of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s present-day story is that players see the character they controlled in the past reappear in the modern era. Whether you chose Kassandra or Alexios, you’ll find out they are a direct descendant of the Isu, the ancient civilization that created the Pieces of Eden. Once Kassandra or Alexios learns the truth about their lineage, they conceal the Staff of Hermes – another Piece of Eden – and wait for Layla to arrive. This leads to the first-ever direct exchange between a modern-day character and the assassin whose memories they’ve experienced through the Animus, as Kassandra/Alexios gives Layla the Staff.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Return To Form

Starting with Assassin’s Creed 3, the stories linking the AC games together became very weak, and often didn’t exist at all. This improved significantly with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which finally created a clear connection between the story of Desmond, which ended in 2012, and Layla’s journey in 2020. This connection went beyond simply including Desmond’s father, William.

Layla’s difficulties managing the Staff of Hermes reach a critical point when she encounters Basim within a simulation located inside a Norwegian temple. Layla and her team had noticed an increase in the Earth’s magnetic field, a result of Desmond’s actions in 2012, and Basim explains how to resolve the issue. However, this action inadvertently frees Basim from the simulation, leaving Layla to take his place. Inside, she meets an entity known as the Reader, and, mirroring Desmond’s choice in 2012, she agrees to collaborate with him, effectively giving up her human life. This interconnected narrative is the type of storytelling fans have been requesting since Desmond’s exit in Assassin’s Creed 3, and they are hoping the shift away from the present day in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is only a brief change of pace, not a permanent direction for the series.

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2025-10-04 19:15