Digital Life

Now that I've played through the story, I have a much better idea of what Ubisoft was trying to do, obviously. Note that there may be some minor spoilers scattered about so beware. I'll try not to spoil anything major anyway.

First, I think this story is a lot about contrast. In ACI, you saw Altair basically creating the Order. In ACII, it was at the height of its power under Ezio, who is basically THE master assassin. He perfected many of the techniques Altair created and built the Brotherhood.

Then you have III. The Order is waning as the Templars only gain in power. They've been all but wiped out in the colonies. So now you've got Achilles, who turned his back on the Order (I assume something to do with the death of his family, personally; it's never explained), training Connor. Throughout the game you notice Connor doesn't really have any allies. He creates his own small group of assassins and allies himself with the Revolutionaries out of necessity, but he has no real resources, no allies of the Order itself and on top of that, I don't think he's really been trained beyond his fighting skills.

It's most obvious to me in two places: the first, when he spares one of his targets out of mercy. It comes back to bite him hard later, of course. It's the first time in the games I've ever seen an assassin spare a target like that (note I haven't finished Brotherhood or Revelations); Ezio spared Rodrigo Borgia because it was the only choice he could make, not because he wanted to. That shows me that Connor is soft and hasn't fully accepted his role, or more likely he didn't fully understand what it meant when he first went to Achilles.

The second and even more crucial point is when he voluntarily, seriously considers breaking one of the tenets of the Creed. This is what makes me think that Achilles did not train him as an Assassin, big A as in the Order. Fortunately he's talked out of it, but still.

Anyway, I think that shift really threw me at first. I understand Connor's character better, but I still don't count him as a master assassin like his predecessors. Will he become one in the future (of the past)? Maybe, maybe not. I guess it depends on if this game is a stand alone or not; given the present day end, I think it would be extremely difficult to continue using the frame story.

I still have a lot of problems with the game overall but now that I kind of "get" it, I can appreciate it more.