I've never finished any previous incarnations of Assassin's Creed. I've played the first one for a bit, and have watched others play some of the other games a bit.

Will I understand the story in III if I've never finished any other game?

Well if you've never finished previous ones ( except the first cause that game isn't very good) then what makes you want to get this one? Anyway just watch the endings to 2 and Brotherhood and you'd be fine. I didn't finish revelations but from what I hear that ending is nothing compared to those 2. Could be wrong though. Also the ending for 2 is FUCKING INSANE!

You will not understand anything. I'd advise you to just play the Ezio trilogy.

My mind was blown at the end of Assassian's Creed 2!

One thing I could be sure about is that it's almost impossible to go back to the previous games if you started with the most perfected/fluid formula from the get-go.

@bemusedchunk: I think you'll be fine. So far all AC games have had so little of the animus real world plot that I'm pretty sure they'll rehash most of it in AC3 in some dialog. All those games are 99% new plot that takes place in whatever time period you're playing in and then theres tiny crumbs of info at the end. If anything just YouTube the endings for AC2, AC Brotherhood and Revelations - they will probably all take less than 30 minutes to watch and you'll be completely caught up with the series.

I can catch you up now though:

The Desmond parts (or the modern day parts, whatever) will probably make no sense to you at all, but the majority of the game will almost certainly be about Chief Hidden Blades and his revolution storyline. It's unlikely that you'll need any knowledge of the series to enjoy and follow that part.

@Sackmanjones: I actually preferred the first Assassins Creed game.

The Desmond stuff, likely not - but it is pretty bollocks anyway. The new character comes in from scratch though.

@TheSlothKing: out of the three revelations was the weakest

@Hizang said:

@Sackmanjones: I actually preferred the first Assassins Creed game.

You preferred AC1 to AC2? I've had my reservations about you but now I know you are crazy.

@NickL: I found the tone much more enjoyable and the character of Altair much more than Ezio. Ezio was far to comical for an assassin, I liked Altair, cold, brutal and skilful.

I jumped right into Brotherhood without any trouble. There were a couple things I wasn't quite on, but they just added some enticing mystery to the background and weren't detrimental to the experience. I think the only time sequels are too confusing to enjoy without having experienced their predecessors is when the narratives are both complex and poorly constructed.

@Hizang said:

@NickL: I found the tone much more enjoyable and the character of Altair much more than Ezio. Ezio was far to comical for an assassin, I liked Altair, cold, brutal and skilful.

Altair didn't get a character until AC: Revelations. He was kind of a brat for the first mission of the game and then he turned into Gordon Freeman.

And no, you won't understand jack shit about the world outside the Animus and the very essence of Abstergo, Apple Of Eden and so forth if you at least haven't played through AC2 and possibly Brotherhood.

There are sites that will tell you all you need to know about the story.   All you need to know is that it is like the DaVinci Code and The Matrix had a baby that was an action adventure game with stealth, parkour, and surprisingly fun multiplayer.

@Hizang said:

@NickL: I found the tone much more enjoyable and the character of Altair much more than Ezio. Ezio was far to comical for an assassin, I liked Altair, cold, brutal and skilful.

You're not the only one. I strongly dislike Ezio and his whole story of just becoming an assassin because he felt like it. Altair had been training for years and was a true assassin while Ezio found his dads old digs and decided to just go for it and wow he was pretty good at it.

This was all the more painful for me as they just kept dragging Ezios story on and on. I would have much preferred if they continued Altairs story from the first game - and with that crazy cliff hanger ending it had I have no idea why they switched characters all of a sudden.

You most likely won’t be able to follow through easily, no.

@Humanity said:

@Hizang said:

@NickL: I found the tone much more enjoyable and the character of Altair much more than Ezio. Ezio was far to comical for an assassin, I liked Altair, cold, brutal and skilful.

You're not the only one. I strongly dislike Ezio and his whole story of just becoming an assassin because he felt like it. Altair had been training for years and was a true assassin while Ezio found his dads old digs and decided to just go for it and wow he was pretty good at it.

This was all the more painful for me as they just kept dragging Ezios story on and on. I would have much preferred if they continued Altairs story from the first game - and with that crazy cliff hanger ending it had I have no idea why they switched characters all of a sudden.

Ezio did not just “decide” to become an assassin. His Father and brothers were murdered because of an allegiance they were a part of and a betrayal by a close family “friend”. Ezio initally wanted revenge and that’s when he took the responsibility to done the assassin robes. Later though he realizes it’s more than just revenge, and he even says this himself (at the end of ACII or in Brotherhood, I can’t remember). Also Ezio is no better or worse than Altair just because he’s got a less serious personality.

And if you want a continued story of Altair’s life you should play Bloodlines.

@bemusedchunk: Let me hit the highlights for you. If you don't want them, don't read them. And keep in mind, there are a lot of missing plot details that will make the game much more meaningful to you, and as far as certain character dialogue, you'll be confused who their talking about. Aside from that, enjoy.

@Hizang said:

@Sackmanjones: I actually preferred the first Assassins Creed game.

Same here. I like Altair a lot more than Ezio.

@Emilie: Sure he did it because of the Borgia initially but the point I was making is that the original had a much more coherent narrative. Altair was the top assassin of the order and he got too cocky so in order to humble him he's forced to start from scratch which works great story wise and gameplay alike. It's understood at that point why he is so good at the running and jumping around and the reason for his upgrades in armory and tricks. I just thought it kind of ridiculous that this nonchalant playboy loses a father to a rich and powerful family and is somehow completely empowered through the clothes and past of his dad to follow in his footsteps and become an amazing assassin. I haven't played 2 in a while but as I remember there is no time lapse. You just put on the robes, which incidentally I also thought started getting a little eccentric for a covert assassin, and all of a sudden you're parkouring around the city like no ones business.

Of course this could be seen as nitpicking but I just didn't like the character so maybe thats why. What also bothered me a lot was their sudden switch to faux-italian voice acting. In the original Altair spoke regular english and I was fine with that - it was somehow explained in the fiction too as I remember. Those "heyya it'sa mee a-Marioo" english voices in AC2 and onwards were a bit jarring.

@Humanity: dude it goes a little deeper than that. they switched to ezio because he was more in with the peices of eden, Altair only had the apple. sure he learned to use it well, but ezio was with both apples and the staff. And he met the first civilization, witch altair did not know of until he was like 90 or something. besides, first he was an assassin for revenge, then for both revenge and search, and finnaly for search. and they did finish ezios life in embers if u never saw it. and if they continued altairs story where would it go?

For all that was wrong with Revelations, there was an extremely important story element that comes out at the very end, but they did not need to make an entire game to get to that point

@Assassin17: It could literally have went anywhere as the possibilities were endless. At the end of the first game you see the main bad guy, teleport, freeze people and basically warp reality using the apple - and then *you* get it! Then the game ends. I think everyone really wanted to at least play with that thing for a little. Altair could have learned so much from it, the series could have literally went a whole different direction. The first AC ended on the biggest cliff hanger I've seen in any game to date. The whole Brotherhood could have happened one game early as Altair became the new leader of the assassins guild. There was literally no cohesive reason why they just shelved that entire storyline and introduced a brand new character apart from wanting a change of scenery. What they did with Altairs story in Revelations was pretty awful.

Despite having held both apple and staff Ezio was pretty much clueless to their designs throughout all major games (I never played any of the spinoff handheld titles). He was actually pretty clueless about everything. I thought WOW when in Revelations they start talking about having to gather more relics and Ezio is shocked these things and the crypts even exist. He's been doing this for so many years, how could he have not known? Especially since the moment he finds out the tiniest clue it takes him about 2 minutes to piece everything together while the templars, always one step ahead, who have been exploring these for ages have no idea whats going on.

Personally I thought the writing took a complete nosedive right after AC1 but thats just me - I realize most people like the Ezio storylines, I guess I'm just not one of them.

I think if you want to get into it, you should play through them all. They're all pretty short if you just run through the main story and important side stuff. To do just about everything without collecting stuff, it takes about 12 or so hours. I feel like the first was the shortest of them all, and it's the worst 'cause the story goes absolutely nowhere until the very, very end. I think you'll be happier going through them all though. I'm not necessarily recommending it because it's all fantastic, a lot of it is, but not all of it. You just need to play them all, regardless of some of it being boring at time's, if you just read the story on wiki, you'd still be missing out.

Edit: I take it back, you should play them all, and boring isn't the correct word, it's just different. I misused the word.

Probably not at all.