Stede Bonnet is a bit of a ninny, but exuberant and cheerful enough to be endearing.
Both Frye Twins in different ways. Evie's studious personality and enthusiasm for research makes her come off as quite the dork, while Jacob's child-like enthusiasm for forming a gang makes him quite endearing. Together, these aspects are doubled when interacting with one-another, as he becomes far more of a man-child and she becomes far more nerdy.
Aluminum Christmas Trees: No, Caha's title of "hellequin" isn't a play on the word "harlequin", substituting the "harl" with "hell". A hellequin was a real French performer that preceded the harlequin.
Annoying Video Game Helper: In the platforming sequences, the camera will often helpfully pan over to demonstrate your intended jump, but throws off your directional controls since they are relative to the camera, not the character.
Arc Fatigue: While he's a popular character and the games aren't necessarily hated, Ezio's story took place over three games of the main series (supposedly so there were games coming out while the development of Assassin's Creed III was underway). By comparison, every other main character has only headlined one (the Kenway family, Arno, Shay, the Frye siblings, Bayek, the Eagle Bearer and Eivor) or two.note Altaïr in the first game and Revelations (though he also headlined minor games) and Aveline in Liberation and DLC for Black Flag.
The whole series got hit with this as time went on- Unity and (to a lesser extent)Syndicate were both panned for largely just being a case of "Seventh/Eighth verse, same as the first" with many critics arguing that they were just treading water and carrying on arcs that weren't appreciated by part of the fanbase (namely, the Modern Arc). It's telling that the vast majority of the fanbase openly rejoiced when it was announced that the series was taking a break for 2016.
The Modern Day plot has this pretty damn bad. Putting aside the contingent of fans that have always wished the series would jettison it entirely, even fans that were once open to it have wondered what point it serves now beyond a framing device. It arguably lost any sense of direction after Desmond's death and has been spinning its wheels ever since. Whereas the plots and character arcs of each past setting can be resolved by the end of each game, the modern day plot just keeps going on and on without any sense of payoff or forthcoming resolution, likely because the creators don't feel confident the series could continue with new installments without it.
Archive Panic: The series' convoluted ongoing Myth Arc and its regular annual new releases has led new fans to be Locked Out of the Loop with the massive troves of backstory and Info Dump needed to get up to speed, not including portable consoles releases, or, for that matter, the novelizations, with at least one of which (Assassin's Creed : Forsaken) having attained canonical status, or the graphic novels. The main games are also very long, which means that if you want to start on the series as a newbie you have a busy month and a half ahead of you.
Black Flag averts this- outside of knowing the basics of the Myth Arc (Assassins vs Templars, Animus, Juno), you can go into the game and have a relatively easy time keeping up- as long as you don't play the Aveline DLC on Playstation.
Plot-wise, the genetic memory and Advanced Ancient Humans are the original base breakers and remain so. Some fans are happy to accept the AC story in its entirety, finding it interesting and engaging; others are fine with the "genetic memory" thing as a framing device, but think the Isu plotline is lame; the rest wonder why the story can't just be a "normal" Templars vs Assassins conflict in various cool historical settings without all this extra sci-fi stuff. Then there are the fans who liked the sci-fi stuff at first, but soured on it as that storyline seemed to run out of steam.
The series adopting RPG mechanics and the story becoming less grounded in reality. While certain elements (Eagle Vision, Pieces of Eden, and the Animus) have been present since the first game, recent installments have more or less abandoned realism for more fantastical stories with RPG gameplay, featuring mythological characters and monsters, making some feel the series is not only way past Historical Fiction, or even Science Fiction, but has in effect entered the realm of Fantasy.
Character Perception Evolution: Desmond in general. When his games were being released he was often seen as the weak-link of the series, particularly the Ezio trilogy, and seen as a bland main character. In the years since 3 and his death, while Desmond remains controversial opinions have softened over the years, particularly as soon after Desmond's death, the Modern Day plot went fully into Arc Fatigue and the closest thing he's had to a successor, Layla Hassan, has been even more controversial than Desmond. Nolan North revealing what the plan for Desmond would have been had the series not been extended past the character also had some fans wistful about seeing Desmond get to headline a modern game.
The Chris Carter Effect: The series' modern day and overall meta-narrative with its Kudzu Plot, Trapped by Mountain Lions irresolution, retcon, and introduction of new plots and schemes has made a number of fans give up on the modern day and even the series lore, with many believing that the games should be enjoyed entirely for the sandbox setting and not for the modern day arc story.
Continuity Lockout: The franchise will regularly make references to not just other games but also the novels and comics as well. This can be rather confusing for any newcomers since they won't recognize the significance of specific characters and events or really find out what happened to them if they haven't read or played any Assassin's Creed installment.
Subject 16/Clay Kaczmarek is a major one despite technically being a Post Humous Character because of his vivid personality and... unique state of existence.
Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane even more so. Introduced in ACII as part of Lucy's assassin cell, they have gone on to garner a massive fanbase. In fact, Shaun is now the longest running character in the entire franchise - Assassin's Creed, Rogue and Origins being the only core games he does not appear in.
Escapist Character: Most of the Assassins avert this (Connor especially) on account of having really serious and dark stories, which only highlights how difficult and tragic their lot in life is. But Ezio Auditore is pretty much the exception: he's rich, wealthy, charismatic, popular with ladies, incredibly skilled as a warrior and politician, and gets to be best friends with Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli; not in the sense that they meet so and so historical figure and got their autograph, but is best buds with them, knowing their flaws and defects, in a way no one in real-life can really know the past. He also has the happiest ending of most Assassins, retiring after restoring his brotherhood to former glory, finally settling down and marrying a very Nice Girl (who is also nearly two decades younger than he is) and getting time to spend with his kids and live in reflected glory of his life's work. No other Assassin in the franchise, neither Altair, nor Edward, nor Connor among others had it so good. Is it any wonder why he's the most popular protagonist?
Fandom Rivalry: With Prince of Persia, as several PoP fans consider Assassin's Creed to be Ubisoft's Spiritual Successor to their franchise. While AC fans are confused by this and often dismiss the accusation, citing how outside of a few gameplay and story elements the franchises have little in common, some PoP fans believe that Assassin's Creed being Ubisoft's Cash-Cow Franchise is the reason why they haven't made new Prince of Persia games since 2010.
Faffing About Creed, thanks to Yahtzee. Also, Ass-Creed, probably not also courtesy Yahtzee, but his use of it in the review of the sequel has greatly popularized it.
Assassin's Creed III is cited as the point where this became a problem, as many felt that the game's main missions were basically scripted events, even the Assassination missions which should be stealthy and open-ended. It was also seen as being overstuffed with side activities and additional features. However, this was an ongoing trend since the well-liked Assassin's Creed II, along with its follow-ups Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations, had moved away from the stealthy original and was filled with additional features and content. What made them acceptable was that the games were Mission-Pack Sequel and as such the additional features were condoned, and seen as part of the appeal of the touristy cities with exotic architecture. The fact that the New World setting of AC-3 lacked the tall buildings and fancy architecture only brought these problems forward.
III was criticized for the hero using first name basis with all of America's Founding Fathers and participating in several key events of the American Revolution which to many beggared disbelief. Yet this was always part of the Franchise's appeal: Altair in AC-1 conversed on even terms with the very Christian King Richard the Lionheart and later fought Genghis Khan; Ezio counted Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli among his best friends, and interacted with a "who's who" of the Renaissance, and Black Flag also had the hero interact with every famous English pirate of that time. In the case of III the American Founding Fathers and the events of the Revolution were perhaps too prominent, known to every schoolboy, with the setting seen by foreign gamers as Eagleland. The other historical figures and settings, while somewhat well known aren't held in nearly the same reverence nor are their memories part of current political discourse. Not to mention that the Assassins already had a well-established presence in the Middle East, Italy and the Caribbean whereas in America they were completely decimated by the Templars before Connor brought it back from extinction.
Assassin's Creed: Unity is an inversion; an example of a Franchise, as a result of the divisive reaction to III, returning to the Franchise's roots — greater focus on stealth, less focus on side activities, more assassination missions — and getting thoroughly trashed for essentially repeating its original sins. Assassin's Creed was criticized in its time for repetitive side activities, lack of additional interaction with the open world and endless collectibles. Unity returned with repetitive Side Story quests and endless collectibles that dotted out the map to the extent that people became nostalgic for the much-reviled flags of I. Where III was criticized for Connor being too central to the Revolution, Unity was criticized for the hero being too marginal to the events, with the game being highly criticized for its shallow representation of history. The game which followed, Syndicatereceived praise for making more diverse side missions, a fairer look at the historical events and having additional features missing in Unity.
Origins was considered a breath of fresh air at the time thanks to the stealth mechanics being complemented by redesigned combat and RPG mechanics. Odyssey and Valhalla then doubled down on the combat complexity, RPG mechanics and massive number of side quests to the point that stealth sometimes felt like an afterthought and some thought the games were In Name Only, especially Odyssey. This led to MirageRevisiting the Roots.
Harsher in Hindsight: Many people want more games like Assassin's Creed Rogue that depict the Templars as the heroes. While parts of the franchise try to depict the conflict as morally gray, Templars are depicted as authoritarians with figures like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Robespierre, and Cain from the Bible being part of the order or puppets of the order. In a world where Neo-Nazism and far right populism are making a comeback, and vocal chunks of the far-left are positively re-assessing authoritarian Marxism-Leninism due to the rise of modern China in spite of increasing human rights concerns, making a game where the autocratic Templars are the heroes and the Assassins who - as flawed as they can be - are fighting for some degree of freedom for the human race are depicted as the villains for not wanting the human race to live under any brand of authoritarianism may send the wrong message...
The whole series plays with this as, while the historical protagonists are Arab, Italian, English/Mohawk, Welsh, Irish, French, Egyptian, Greek and Scandinavian while the descendant or modern day characters of the Framing Device are always American/North American. The only true exception is the comic Assassin's Creed: Brahman which is set in India with local protagonists in both the modern-day and historical segments of the story. Assassin's Creed: Revelations has an Italian protagonist in Ottoman Turkey, while Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin's Creed Rogue and the Prolonged Prologue of Assassin's Creed III feature white protagonists in a New World setting during the pre-to-late Colonial era. Similarly, the "Dead Kings" DLC of Assassin's Creed: Unity has a French protagonist in Ottoman-controlled Egypt and the Assassin's Creed: Odyssey expansion pack "Legacy of the First Blade" has the Persian Deuteragonist Darius in ancient Greece.
From the perspective of settings, one can observe that none of the games featuring non-Western protagonists (Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed III, Freedom Cry, Liberation, Chronicles: China, Chronicles: India, Origins) are set in entirely non-Western settings and periods. For instance, Ezio in Assassin's Creed II is an Italian, or rather a Florentine, in a period and time where Italians, and Florence in general, are prominent in society and culture, but Altair, Connor, and Bayek of Siwa are Assassins in an era where their lands are occupied by foreign invaders and conquerors. Chronicles: India and Assassin's Creed: Brahman is set during The Raj, while Shao Jun first established herself as a Satellite Character for Ezio's retirement, and Ezio still shows up as a "mentor" in a few sequences of China.
Iconic Sequel Outfit: Ezio Auditore takes his father's Assassin robes at the beginning of Assassin's Creed II and wears them throughout the game until he canonically claims the Armor of Altaïr shortly before the Bonfire of the Vanities. However, he loses both his father's robes and the Armor at the beginning of Brotherhood, before being given a new set of robes◊ upon his arrival in Rome. Between looking closer to Altaïr's outfit in the original game and being the first robes that uniquely belonged to Ezio, this new outfit has proven popular enough to be used in most promotional material involving Ezio, and is the only Legacy Outfit that has appeared in every single main game since Assassin's Creed III.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common criticism of the franchise as time has gone on is that the gameplay has barely changed as time has gone on. Unity got a lot of flack in particular for this, as following the naval combat of Black Flag and Rogue, it returned to the tried and tested formula with little change. As well, the frequent usage of viewpoints is often mocked, since it's often the most boring part of the game. A common statement whenever a new game comes out is to declare that if you've played any previous game in the series, you've pretty much played the newest one. Origins made some major changes to the formula, to general praise, but then Odyssey and Valhalla made few changes of their own.
It Was His Sled: The original trailers and information did their best to hide the existence of Desmond and the modern storyline, except for a few out-of-place "glitches" (now recognizable as elements of the Animus). A rather fancy trick, given the fact that Desmond's storyline is of greater overall importance.
Desmond or any part of the modern plot was only shown in two trailers ("Black Room" and "Gameplay" for Revelations) and the press releases close to never talk about it. The twist can be still held up under the right circumstances.
Alongside individual examples collected on each separate game's page, Ubisoft's marketing has led to a few. There is the tendency of Ubisoft to advertise items and accessories of characters in new releases as "iconic" before the game's release. We have had Arno's "iconic" Phantom Blade, and the "iconic" Rope Launcher of Syndicate. Then they briefly took this trend out of AC to Watch_Dogs with Aiden Pearce's "iconic" cap, and then to The Division with a whole host of other "iconic" items such as the "Iconic Division Jacket". This ended up being acknowledged in Mirage, which has an optional color filter that can be applied to give the game the appearance of the original 2007 game. Said filter is called the Iconic Filter.
For a while it was common to claim any character wearing a white hood and doing parkour in other media was an Assassin's Creed reference.
Never Live It Down: Among the lore fans, that Juno was unceremoniously killed off in a comic after Black Flag,Unity and Syndicate all hyped her up as the franchise-wide Big Bad became often-derided and is nowadays used as a primary example of Ubisoft having no clear end-goal for the series.
Newbie Boom: Many people who don't like or care about the series ended up liking Black Flag. It became an issue when those who came to the series to play as a pirate clashed with the fans who thought Black Flag was In Name Only, and that if one only liked Black Flag but hated the rest, they couldn't really be counted as an Assassin's Creed fan. This led to sailing becoming somewhat of a Broken Base; some wish to see it return, while others note that the "exploring a historical city" aspect would suffer if sailing was shoehorned in so some players would be able to sail around in empty seas near the historical location.
Once Original, Now Common: On account of its ubiquity and overexposure and spin off media, Assassin's Creed is often written off as another open-world game, with many people forgetting how fresh and innovative it was when it came out.
The open-world foot, parkour and climbing of Assassin's Creed was more or less one of the first attempts to make a detailed and immersive game where the background buildings, with its roofs, side walls, ramparts were fully interactive and accessible. Unlike Grand Theft Auto and its clones, most of which had vehicle traversal, and as such had buildings and roofs that were mostly background scenery and open only for scripted sequences, the open-world in AC-1 was fully interactive by hand and foot, with nothing truly inaccessible and out of reach.
The idea of the Templars trying to take over the world, while the Hashashin try to stop them has been done before in the Broken Sword series.
Paranoia Fuel: The protagonists in the franchise are pretty much it. They are Professional Killers with years of physical, mental and intellectual trainings, who get direct intel about where their targets are, and can get wherever they need by Le Parkour. The targets almost never know of it until it's too late, and almost no amount of preparation or guards in the area prevents the assassination.
Play the Game, Skip the Story: The weird Kudzu Plot of the series lore is a punching bag in gaming circles, as is its wide annualization and Archive Binge. As such most people admit that they play the games largely for the unique settings and sandbox environments rather than the actual story. The AC games that are most well-liked, the Ezio games and Black Flag, are the ones that are most standalone and tied to its setting than the overall plot.
Replacement Scrappy: While Desmond remained controversial, fans have since mellowed down especially after his death. His replacement, Layla Hassan, on the other hand is even more hated than Desmond. Fans sees her story a harsh repeat of Desmond's story but without Desmond's Character Development, tragic background and being surrounded by interesting supporting characters. Fans also didn't like it that she master the Bleeding Effect faster than it took Desmond and defeated fan-favorite Otso Berg with ease, something that Galina Voronina, another fan-favorite, couldn't despite having more experienced with the Animus. In addition, not only her death is another copy to Desmond's plot, it lacks the same emotional send off.
Seasonal Rot: It's generally agreed that the series has long passed its peak, though the question is when the games began to slump in quality and whether or not it's since recovered. Most fans place Unity as the beginning of the rot due to its bad launch sullying the series' name, especially as Syndicate failed to impress. While Origins was well received, the following game being Odyssey (creating the new arguments about the Genre Shift to a more conventional RPG experience) muddied the waters.
Spiritual Licensee: Given that the franchise spans multiple historical periods and events, the games will sometimes serve as unofficial adaptations of movies and TV shows such as Black Flag for Pirates of the Caribbean and Black Sails or Odyssey for 300. And as mentioned on the trope page, the series is inspired by Vladimir Bartol's Alamut as not only do both works focus on a secret society of assassins but the Brotherhood mantra "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" is derived from the book's maxim "Nothing is an absolute reality, all is permitted"
Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Despite the games' focus on unearthing a particular set of memories of a character or a moment in history, the gameplay encourages sidequests as a means of furthering synchronization. This leads to all kinds of Headscratchers like in Assassin's Creed III where in the Present the Earth is on the brink of an upcoming solar flare, so Desmond should ostensibly have little interest or time to pursue the many sidequests his ancestor has access to.
On a wider note, this is the principal accusation leveled by Minerva on the Assassins vs. Templar conflict, noting that they spent far too much time searching for Pieces of Eden to control or keep out of "unworthy" hands than actually using said gifts to find the Grand Temple and solve the crisis together.
This becomes Harsher in Hindsight where at the beginning of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, after discussing Ezio's vision at the vault, the Assassins debate on their next course, with Mario showing interest in the mysterious 'Desmond' while Ezio is focused on consolidating the Brotherhood and Machiavelli is obsessed with defeating their surviving enemies who he notes, accurately, are too dangerous to ignore altogether. In other words, the Assassins throughout history were often diverted from their real responsibilities.
Desmond Miles was disliked as an Audience Surrogate and a generic protagonist but these same critics, including Ben Croshaw disliked the fact, at least after the first and second games, that the present day story was ultimately an Excuse Plot for the historical portion and eventually a "Shaggy Dog" Story since all the focus on bleeding effect and Desmond absorbing his ancestors' abilities via a sacrifice he was tricked into making ultimately didn't pan out and was eventually removed altogether.
Assassin's Creed II appeared to be building up Rosa as a potential Love Interest for Ezio. However, Real Life Writes the Plot due to the death of her voice actress, which resulted in the Rosa character being dropped from future installments.
Many have felt that the decision to kill off Kassandra at the tail-end of Odyssey's modern story was a mistake on the part of the franchise. Any hope that she could be brought back through Isu Artifact shenanigans was also quashed when Fate of Atlantis said her body withered away to dust — despite the scene showing she had aged, but not as if she chose poorly or how Pythagoras' body was still around after he relinquished the staff. While her 2400+ year lifespan affords her a wealth of opportunities to take part in historical events, these seem like they'll be reduced to cameo appearances or smaller tales at most — not helped by the Crossover Event having her state she's worked alone on a single-minded quest to gather Pieces of Eden. Certainly, it aligns with the goals of the Hidden Ones and the Assassins, but it may not be enough to give her a full-fledged story in a mainline game. Adding to this, many believe that had Kassandra been kept alive by retaining the Staff rather than the writing needing it to be handed to Layla, she could have helped bring the Modern Day storyline back together by virtue of being an ancient proto-assassin. That Basim was given this treatment in Valhalla seems in some way to be Ubisoft recognizing their mistake, though it's also resulted in divisive opinions.
Chunks of Subject 16's messages at the end of the first game reference places many thought subsequent games would go, such as Yonaguni (and its underwater formations that may or may not be manmade), Egypt, Aztec/Mayan Mexico, and China. With the exception of China and Egypt, none of these locations have been featured in the other games. Yonaguni hasn't been mentioned once, the Aztecs have only been referenced in a Facebook game and while Mayan locations made an appearance in 3 and Black Flag, the era itself remains untouched.
There's a sizable amount of players that dislike the conspiracy themes and modern-day segments, who would just like to play a stealth-based game about being an Assassin in different periods in history.
Despite how disliked the modern-day segments there, there were a group of players out there who were hoping that all the build-up surrounding Desmond was eventually going to lead up to a game where you play as him as an assassin in modern day. Obviously, that can't happen anymore now that Desmond's been killed off.
III released Juno into the present day world with the idea that she would be the new Big Bad of the series. The plot gets some attention in Black Flag with the introduction of the Sages but more or less get shoved off into the backstory of Rogue, Unity and Syndicate. By the time Origins rolls around, it's dropped from the games completely because it was concluded in the comics when Juno gets uploaded into a new Body before getting killed off for real.
Made doubly so since Origins more or less confirmed that AC has a Shared Universe with Watch_Dogs - meaning that while the former has a villainess who can take over technology and the latter takes place in a world where Everything Is Online, these two premises are never combined.
Following the end of the initial trilogy, Assassin's Creed: Unity and Assassin's Creed Rogue both seemed to be building up to a final showdown between the Colonial/French Templars and Assassins led by their respective trump cards of Shay Cormac, Connor Kenway, and Arno Dorian. Fans were pretty unhappy when it was later confirmed that no such event happened, and all three characters went on to live pretty mundane lives after their respective games, especially considering the fact that Shay was the one who killed Arno's father in the first place.
Tough Act to Follow: Assassin's Creed II is still the most critically acclaimed and beloved entry in the franchise, thanks in part to its sprawling story, charismatic hero, large cast of historical characters who remain relevant to the plot, jaw-dropping period architecture, sweeping soundtrack, and for making the most improvements and innovations on the formula. Future games would add gimmicks, change up character approaches, use other interesting and dramatic settings and so forth, but none have managed to captivate the same way. In fact, despite being follow-ups to II and following the same time period and main character, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations both garnered detractors as well (however both games have their fans).
Vindicated by History: With the exception of Syndicate, almost every game in the series that was contentious at launch has received some fair apprisals in hindsight:
While I was never seen as a fully bad game, its lack of content outside of the viewpoint climbing and Templar assassinations was criticized, with Altair's moveset being more limited than his fellow Assassins. In more recent years, especially after Unity and Odyssey were accused of over-stuffing their games, 1 has been praised for being very minimalistic and focusing entirely on just being an Assassin, with Altair having no gimmicks or gadgets to dilute the experience.
Revelations was seen as having the dubious honor of finishing Ezio and Altair's stories while having to follow up on Brotherhood, then seen as the series peak. While it's still usually seen as the weakest game of Ezio's trilogy, its side content has been praised alongside its attempts to innovate the formula with bomb-making and the hookblade, alongside Ezio getting to be a Mentor to the Brotherhood and having a surprisingly happy ending for the character.
III is perhaps still the most contentious game in the series overall besides Odyssey, even as the years have gone on. Its pacing remains a big deal-breaker, particularly in how it's only after Sequence 6 that Connor even gets to wear the Assassin robes and the overly long prologue with Haytham, which only accentuated Haytham's scene-stealing reputation. But in terms of the wider franchise, III included forest parkour and began the naval mechanic that would be further refined in Black Flag and Rogue to critical acclaim. While Connor's vocal performance remains contentious, more people becoming aware of side content like the Homestead that shows more to his personality, alongside pity from the fans over the poor hand Ubisoft is perceived as having dealt him (Rogue has an Abstergo file which says Connor died alone after his wife left him, which was so poorly received a comic afterwards retconned it as Templar propaganda) has kept him from being one of the more disliked protagonists.
While Unity will never escape the spectre of its launch and the poor state it released in, it has garnered some attention and praise otherwise. The parkour is gorgeously animated and surprisingly deep on a mechanical level and Paris remains one of the most beautiful and detailed locales in the series. That this was also the last Assassin's Creed game to try multiplayer out has also garnered some attention. While Arno remains controversial and the story is usually seen as wasting the potential of the French Revolution setting, much of the side content including the murder mysteries and the Dead Kings content has been praised in retrospect.
The Woobie: Many characters in the Franchise and extended story:
Subject 16. Everything about Subject 16. The Trauma Conga Line of the Bleeding Effect that he undergoes could put many of the entries on that page to shame. The revelations in later entries, namely that the visions he experienced were not only his ancestor memories but "calculations", visions of possible futures, only makes his ordeal even more agonizing, making him the true Mad Prophet of the series. His struggle to hold on to his sanity against the clutter of memories, Juno messages and false futures is nothing short of heroic, especially after his betrayal by Lucy Stillman. His ignominious death, the fact that even fellow Assassins - Shaun and Rebecca - call him Subject 16 even after his death only makes his life a vast "Shaggy Dog" Story, leave alone that he was in the end a puppet for Juno to con Desmond into sacrificing himself to release her.
Daniel Cross is acknowledged and discussed by Rebecca as such. His backstory, constant Mind Rape via bleeding effect and the fact that he's an engineered Tyke Bomb by Abstergo to destroy the Assassins as a "sleeper agent" including as we learn his Implied Love Interest Hannah Mueller only makes his relative innocence horrific. The backstory of his ancestor Nikolai Orelov and Innokenti, as well as the remarkable survival of his great Aunt Anna in present-day Russia is probably the only happy part of that tragedy.
Desmond Miles ultimately. A decent young man who chafed under his father's dubious parenting skills only to run away and somehow make it as a bartender in New York with an active social life, only to be taken against his will by Abstergo, undergo the unpleasant and bitter realization that his Jerkass father was right about the Templars all along and the cherry on top is his death, via Batman Gambit by Juno. Even after that, his body is unceremoniously desecrated by Abstergo, who harvest his DNA into Sample 17 and use their acquisition to make crappy video games about his Pirate Ancestors.
Jennifer Scott, the daughter of Edward Kenway and Caroline Scott. We see her as the cute and innocent 8 year old girl, delighted to see her cool father and his cool ship for the first time. Then we see that she's become a famous society beauty who still honours her mother by keeping her Family Name over Edward's. But then you read Assassin's Creed : Forsaken and find out what happened to her, namely that her father had engaged her into a marriage she did not want with Reginald Birch, who was not only a Templar but killed Edward and then kidnapped her and sold her into sex slavery. When Haytham rescues her years later, she's bitter and angry at her father, full of hated towards Reginald and appalled that Haytham is serving the Templars. She ends up becoming a bitter old spinster, estranged from her brother, who unbeknownst to her would soon be dead at her nephew's hands.
Speaking of Haytham, he fares no better than rest of the Kenways. He watched his father died trying to protect him and his half-sister taken by the mercenaries. He then raised by Reginald Birch and trained as a templar. During his rescue of Jenny, his friend, Jim Holden was captured and castrated when trying to protect them, and later committed suicide. The death of his friend caused Haytham to be ruthless and often resort to extreme measures when dealing with his enemies. Haytham also suffered Broken Pedestal when learning that Birch is one who killed his father. His dedication as a templar also estranges his mother and his sister. Haytham's life in American Colonies is worse than his adventure in Europe. His wife Ziio forced him to leave when learning his templar identity, his son was trained by Achilles, a assassin grandmaster and mortal enemy. Throughout Assassin's Creed III, Haytham witnessed his order crumble at the hand of his son, who also took his life as well. In the end, Haytham's ideal of bringing order to the colonies and making peace with the assassin brotherhood died with him.
Connor, who's specifics can be seen on the YMMV page for Assassin's Creed III, is a Jerkass Woobie to some, but a Woobie nonetheless. For starters, he lost his mother and his home at a very young age, and when barely a young adult had to leave forever to become an Assassin. There's more than enough to go on talking about, like his forced Patricide and the fact his whole fight for freedom becomes a "Shaggy Dog" Story, and those are just the things the game calls specific attention to. He loses everything despite a typically good nature and several attempts to be an Actual Pacifist.
Altair, who counts more as an Iron Woobie. Lets see, when he was 11 his father was killed by the Salah ad-Din in exchange for Ahmad Sofian's life, who later committed suicide in front of Altair because he couldn't live with the guilt causing Umar's death. This cost him the friendship to Abbas. Fast forward, Altair starts a relationship with Adha who later dies. The year after, through his own fault, he get's Kadar killed, Malik crippled, and is stripped of his rank as Master and publicly humiliated, forced to reclaim his honor through relearning what it means to be an assassin. All while Malik (and most everyone) takes every opportunity to remind him of how terrible a person he is. He grows as a person, earns Malik's respect and then... finds out his Mentor and foster father Al Mualim is a Templar, forcing him to kill him. He becomes Mentor, marries, has two sons. Yay. Or not as one of said sons - Sef - is killed, Malik is blamed for it, and branded traitor. Altair is so distraught that he almost believes it but Maria manages to make him see reason and they rescue Malik from the dungeons. Which lasts about a day before Malik is beheaded and his head is given to Altair in a sack. They leave, return, Maria is killed. And despite all that, and despite losing his faith in people overall, he never stops fighting for a better world.
William Miles, a massive Jerkass Woobie, but still. After losing his son he almost literally has the weight of the world on his shoulders as the Mentor.
to pass things off as new.
