Assassin's Creed Chronicles is a trilogy of 2½D titles in the Assassin's Creed series. It is developed by Climax Studios.
Each game is set in a different setting and different period, feature separate Player Character, with their own unique abilities and weapons, as well as its own unique art style.
The three titles are:
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China (Release: 21st April, 2015): A sequel to Assassin's Creed: Embers, Shao Jun sets forth on a mission to rebuild the Chinese Brotherhood in the year 1526. As the Ming dynasty starts to crumble, Shao Jun, the last remaining Assassin of the Chinese Brotherhood, returns to her homeland with a vendetta. Newly trained by the legendary Ezio Auditore, she is hell-bent on exacting vengeance and restoring her fallen Brotherhood.
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India (Release: 12th January, 2016): Arbaaz Mir (from Assassin's Creed: Brahman) is caught up in the tension between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company in 1841. When a Master Templar arrives with a mysterious item that used to belong to the Assassin Order, Arbaaz must discover why he's come, steal back the item, and protect his friends and his lover.
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia (Release: 9th February, 2016): It's 1918 and Nikolai Orelov (from Assassin's Creed: Subject Four) wants to leave Russia with his family, but is required to perform one last mission for the Assassin Order: infiltrate the house where the tsar's family is being held by the Bolsheviks and steal an artifact that has been fought over by Assassins and Templars for centuries. Along the way, he witnesses the massacre of the tsar's children, but manages to save the princess, Anastasia. He must escape the Templars while protecting the artifact and Anastasia.
The games can be purchased online while owners of the Assassin's Creed: Unity Season Pass are able to collect all three titles for free. It was released on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2015 and 2016. On 9th February 2016, all three games were released on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in a retail bundle. In addition, all three game were released on a bundle for the PlayStation Vita.
Tropes
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General
- 2½D: The player moves along two dimensions, but there's certain points that allow moving forward and back.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Each Chronicles game has a separate protagonist.
- Art Shift: All three games have their own unique art style.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The series focuses on Assassins that have thus far only appeared in spin-off media.
- New Game Plus: Completing the main story allows you to replay all the chapters with all the upgrades you collected.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Plus Hard turns you into this.
- Pacifist Run: Getting Shadow Gold in the games requires never being seen once and never killing anyone outside of a target. India adds other ways to stay Pacifist with required targets like either pickpocketing them or choking them out.
- Scenery Porn: The backgrounds of the game are all beautiftul, colorful recreations of that period's art style.
- Scenery Gorn: Except for the Russian game, which is brutal, oppressive, black and grey.
- Promoted to Playable: All the protagonists appeared in their Animated films and comic books before becoming playable in Chronicles.
- Time Skip: China and India have a 315 year gap, while the latter and Russia have a relatively shorter 77 year gap.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
- "Until you have experienced the thirst for vengeance, you cannot know the rage it fuels."
Shao Jun returns to China after visiting Ezio Auditore in Italy. She arrives with her brotherhood destroyed and resolves to rebuild it and gain revenge.
Tropes:
- Action-Based Mission: Most of the game retains the emphasis on stealth and infiltration of its parent franchise. The last portion of the Macau level, however, scores the player strictly based on how quickly they escape the burning harbour.
- Artistic License – History: The Eight Tigers were historically active during the reign of Jiajing's predecessor Zhengde. note
- Historically, Wang Yangming was noted to have a weak constitution, and he died of an illness.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The two heads of the Tigers (Qiu Ju and Zhang Yong) are also the strongest.
- Aborted Arc: While the box given to Shao Jun by Ezio does play a part in her story, it has been downplayed heavily since its use in Assassin's Creed Rogue does not fit with what Ezio said while giving it to her
- Batman Gambit: Zhang Yong executes two. First, counting on Shao's thirst for vengeance, he makes Wei Bin bait to draw her and leave her master unprotected, so he could kill him, and later he relies on Shao's friendship with a concubine she knew to lure her into a trap. It works both times.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: The Eight Tigers, a group of Templar eunuchs who control the Ming Empire.
- Bittersweet Ending: The game ends with The Tigers destroyed, Shao Jun successfully stopping a Mongol invasion before it starts, and looking to rebuild her Order. But her mentor is dead and the Chinese Order will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
- Central Theme: The theme of vengeance bears heavily into the plot, with the main plot (Shao avenging her Order), Shao's character arc (which is exploring the depths of vengeance) and the tagline of sorts above describing it.
- Elite Mooks: A few mooks have heavier armor or additional weaponry.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: By the end of the game, Shao Jun is the only main character and the only Assassin left standing. However, there is an epilogue seen where she has rebuilt the Order, so it's not forever at least.
- Historical Domain Character: A few pop up. Shao Jun's mentor is Wang Yangming
, a renowed Neo-confucian thinker and military man and the antagonists are the Eunuch cabal known as The Eight Tigers. The Empress makes a brief appearance as well. - Killed Offscreen: Three of the Tigers die offscreen, the first having been betrayed and executed by Zhang Yong, the second is killed by Wang Yangming while Shao is dealing with Gao Feng, and the third is mentioned (in the tie-in Blade of Shao Jun) to have died of old age.
- MacGuffin: Ezio's mysterious box is what Templars and Assassins are fighting over. Curiously, neither of them seems to know what it actually is, and are just massacring each other on the assumption it is important to their cause.
- Made of Iron: Averted with Shao Jun, who dies with just two blows. Played straight with Qiu Ju, who survives being kicked into a raging fire and several sword slashes before going down.
- Mr. Exposition: Wang Yangming lectures Shao (and the player) on the nature of each target.
- My Greatest Failure: The destruction of Macau's port, which Shao is indirectly responsible for. She also blames herself for Wang Yangming's death, and it causes her to change her vengeance-driven worldview.
- Outrun the Fireball: Done frequently by Shao in the "escape the level as fast as you can" portions.
- Praetorian Guard: A few of the Elite Mooks, namely the personal bodyguards of Wei Bin.
- Prevent the War: The final levels deal with Shao stopping Zhang Yong's attempt to create a war between China and Mongols.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Ezio Auditore shows up as an Old Master to train Shao Jun in the combat tutorials.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shao Jun, the vengeance-driven assassin who'll stop at nothing to acquire it, and Wang Yangming, the more level-headed older man, respectively.
- Revenge: Shao Jun's goal.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Shao Jun leaves a lot of bodies in her wake.
- Sacrificial Lion: Wang Yangming's death is the point Shao truly gives into despair.
- Sequel Hook: Zhang Yong succefully smuggles The Box out of China and into safe Templar hands.
- Shadow Government: The Eight Tigers are revealed to be the real rulers of the Ming Dynasty in China, acting on behalf of the Templars.
- Slave Liberation: Twice in the game. Segment 3 has you liberate slaves while Segment 9 has you liberate concubines from the Forbidden City.
- The Stinger: A brief cutscene after the credits shows a Time Skip with a much older Shao Jun having become mentor of the Chinese Assassins. She confesses to her subordinate that she never did recover the Box or find out what it did.
- Trojan Prisoner: The story opens with Shao in a Templar Hellhole Prison, seemingly captured. We soon learn she intended to be captured all along to bring down the prison from the inside.
- Vengeance Feels Empty: A running theme of the game.
- You Are Too Late: Twice. Shao's too late to save her mentor Wang Yangming, and near the end of the game, arrives too late to stop the Box from being smuggled out of China.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India
- "Until you have found a cause worth fighting for, you cannot know what you will sacrifice for it."
Arbaaz Mir continues his quest to defend and protect Pyara Kaur and the Koh-I-Noor diamond against the background of the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Tropes
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Late in the game, Masters show up who are not only expert fighters but also hide in the shadows and kill Arbaaz if he crosses their path.
- Been There, Shaped History: Arbaaz enters Afghanistan to recover the First Civilization artifacts rather than to help the Afghanis throw off the invaders. However, Arbaaz does manage to open the citadel doors at the end to create a distraction and uses the confusion to complete his mission. He also plays a key role in weakening Alexander Burnes, paving the way for the latter's brutal offscreen death.
- Bizarrchitecture: The First Civilization Temple visited by Arbaaz has the same defenses as the Observatory from Black Flag.
- Came Back Strong: One of the conversations you hear has two British soldiers talk about the Chinese branch of Assassins that was rebuilt by Shao Jun, which has become much stronger over the last 300+ years.
- Catchphrase: Arbaaz keeps lamenting "Why do I make things hard for myself?"
- Chekhov's Gun: In the start of Section 2 as Arbaaz leaves Pyaura's room, she mentions she now carries a concealed dagger on her. At the end of the game, she uses this to get out of Sleeman's grip.
- Cold Sniper: In Section 8, Arbaaz picks up a rifle to take down soldiers before he infiltrates a tower.
- Death Ray: The Precursor temples have light traps that instantly kill anyone who crosses the streams.
- Interquel: As far as Arbaaz Mir's story goes, India takes place after Assassin's Creed: Brahman and before Assassin's Creed: Underworld. The game deals with Pyara and Arbaaz becoming an Official Couple The Stinger reveals Arbaaz's friendship with Ethan Frye, father of Jacob and Evie, which is touched on in Underworld.
- Gameplay Grading: Each section is graded individually between bronze, silver and gold, as well as the category of completion used. The game treats shadow gold as the best rank, which is remaining undetected and no unnecessary kills.
- Macguffin: The Box is once again one of the items Arbaaz is trying to get back along with the Koh-I Noor diamond.
- Mythology Gag: Like Ezio and Cristina, Arbaaz uses his Assassin skills to arrange an assignation with Pyara Kaur as part of a tutorial level.
- The Raj: The setting, the twilight years of the Sikh Empire.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The game ends with the Assassins in possession of the Koh-I-Noor and the Templars in possession of Ezio's box. Both objects change hands several times over the course of the game, but at the end of it, the Assassins have the gem and the Templars the box again, making the events of the game effectively inconsequential.
- The Stinger: Ethan Frye, father of Jacob and Evie, appears in a cameo after the credits, where Arbaaz hands him the Koh-I-Noor and Ethan promises to find an use for it.
- War Elephants: In Section 9, Arbaaz has to run like hell away from charging elephants.
- The War Sequence: The second section of the game takes place during the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan war (the greatest military disaster in The Raj's history). Enemy soldiers standing on ramparts often get killed by oncoming bullets before they notice Arbaaz.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia
- "Until you have been disgraced, you cannot know the fire that burn for redemption."
While completing his final mission for the Assassins, Nikolai Orelov saves Anastasia Nikolaevna and vows to get her somewhere safe.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Typical for the series, we have select missions playable by Anastasia Nikolaevna.
- Artistic License – History:
- Orelov somehow manages to rescue Anastasia. It is known by historians that despite the romantic stories, she was definitely executed along with the rest of her family.
- The depiction of the execution, the Templar-Bolsheviks, i.e. the ones who infiltrated the ranks, torture and kill the Tsar and his wife, and then target their daughters when Anastasia escapes. In real-life, the Romanovs were not tortured in their final days, nor killed one after another, but were all murdered together in one fell swoop - either shot or (for the ones who survived the initial hail of bullets) stabbed to death with bayonets.
- Badass Longcoat: Nikolai wears one as part of his assassin outfit.
- Big Bad: Averted. There's no real big bad in this story, the final boss is a Tank and while Sergei comes close, his fate occurs in The Fall comic rather than here.
- Cold Sniper: Nikolai Orelov carries a sniper rifle as a weapon.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The backgrounds are done in drab colours so as to imitate the look of black-and-white photographs.
- Dirty Commies: Since you walk in on them killing the Tsar's children and protect the youngest daughter. Leon Trotsky later openly betrays Nikolai and arrests him and states that Anastasia must die for the greater good.
- Foregone Conclusion: The full detail of Nikolai Orelov's life is fully told in The Chain, which was wirrten several years before this game was published.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: How Trotsky appears when he arrests Nikolai Orelov.
- Gas Mask Mooks: Soldiers appear whose gas masks make them immune to smoke bombs.
- He Who Fights Monsters: At this point of time, the methods that the Assassins take are not too different from the Templars, such as deciding to murder Anastasia in order to end the Revolution for good. Nikolai is disgusted.
- Historical Domain Character: Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, though heavily fictionalized obviously. In addition there is Leon Trotsky and Yakov Yurovsky.
- Interquel: Takes place sometime between Nikolai obtaining his Scepter shard during The Fall, and his arrival in the United States with his wife and daughter.
- Mirroring Factions: Like the Templars, the Russian Assassins are willing to kill Anastasia to end the Russian Revolution for good. This is one of the reasons Nikolai decides to leave the Order for good.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Surprisingly, neither the Russian Assassins nor its Templars participated in the October Revolution. Nikolai is surprised to find out that the Templars have infiltrated the Bolsheviks. Trotsky ironically inverts this when he tells Orelov that he doesn't care about the Assassin-Templar conflict but he can't let Anastasia live for the good of the revolution.
- Tank Goodness: Subverted in this case as you're on the other side of it being chased down during the final level.
- That Man Is Dead: Anastasia sheds her former identity, feeling that the Tsardom is finished. Nikolai gives her the papers he had made for his wife and she takes the name of Anna Anderson.
- The Stinger: There have been hidden codes you'd find throughout all three games. After the credits roll, you can input them into a code box. It shows Juhani Otso Berg being tasked by Laetitia England to deliver the Box, the same one that had been fought over by Assassins and Templars over the centuries, to Dr. Alvaro Gramatica, who plans to use it, and perhaps the Shroud they got at the end of Syndicate, as part of Project Phoenix.
- One Last Job: Nikolai Orelov's final mission.
- Powers via Possession: Anastasia becomes playable by absorbing Shao Jun's skill and memories via the Box and the Piece of Eden around Nikolai's neck, she gets additional powers later on, by apparently tapping into the Nexus dimension.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Trotsky, and later the Russian Assassins.
- Wild Card: Nikolai Orelov ends up opposing every faction in the game by the end, Assassins, Templars and Bolsheviks, all to save Anastasia and protect his family.
- Would Hurt a Child: Everyone is okay with murdering seventeen-year-old Anastasia, the Ekaterina Soviet who order the execution, the Templars who infiltrated the Bolsheviks, even the Assassins want to extract Shao Jun's memories from Anastasia even at the risk of killing her.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Nikolai's main reason for protecting Anastasia.
