Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed

      Stay your blade from innocents.

Be discreet.
Never compromise the Brotherhood.
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

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This game contains examples of

• Arc Words: "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."
• Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Interesting, the protagonist Altaïr is the Assassins' resident Arrogant Kung Fu Guy. And the reason why he's in trouble.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Desmond's white hooded sweatshirt. Picture how he'd look with the hood up.
• Also, the scar. Altaïr, Ezio and Desmond all have a virtually identical scar on their lips (though Ezio doesn't have one for the first five minutes of the game; he gets it in the tutorial).
• Aura Vision: 'Eagle Vision'
• Awesome Yet Practical: Counters.
• Calling The Old Man Out: Altaïr does this twice, and both are Crowning Moments of Awesome.
• The Combat Pragmatist: Altaïr is a master at fighting dirty. Ezio follows in his footsteps. When they say "Everything is permitted", they mean everything is permitted.
• Interestingly, this also helps distinguish the town militia from the knight orders. The former more or less adhere to Mook Chivalry and fight in a relatively honorable fashion. The knights, having more actual combat experience, are much more likely to stab you in the back and are very happy to counter a grab by kicking Altaïr in the groin.
• Conspicuously Public Assassination: The best parts of the game, really. Although it's possible to stealth-assassinate every mark, doing it in high-profile is just that much more fun.
• Counter Attack: And oh, what counter attacks... Notably, this is actually the only reason to use the Hidden Blade in combat (in-universe, Altaïr would modify the design so that weapons could be blocked using his new bracer design for the Hidden Blade).
• Eye Scream: One of the hidden blade counters you can do involves stabbing the unfortunate victim in the eye.
• Genetic Memory: The gimmick used for the framing device.
• A Lighter Shade Of Grey: What's the difference between the Assassins and the Templars?  ^*
• Law of One Hundred: There are 100 flags hidden throughout the Kingdom and each of the three cities. Masyaf, being smaller, only has twenty flags.
• Leap of Faith: Altaïr can swan dive down into conveniently-placed haystacks if he's standing in the right place. If you're not holding the right buttons, though, you just fall and go splat. Same goes for Ezio.
• Legacy Character: Half the premise is based around this trope. Desmond being a direct descendant of Altaïr.
• Le Parkour: Altaïr and, presumably, all the rest of the assassins are proficient at this.
  • Justified in-game by their, um, very distant ancestors.
    • Strangely the city guards and crusaders can also do this when hunting you. Keep an eye on them during pursuit they jump over buildings and gaps with ease. Despite often wearing heavy chainmail. Apparently,Le Parkour is not a modern extreme sports but just a forgotten art.
• Lost In A Crowd: A crucial part of gameplay is Altaïr, in his white robe, being able to hide in a cluster of wandering priests, also in white robes. Minus all the weaponry.
• Matrix Raining Code: Every time the Animus loads memories.
• Ninja: At least, from a certain point of view. The Ninja, the Sulsa (the Korean organizations on which the Ninja were based), and the Assassins all used techniques which originated with strategists and soldiers who fled China in the collapse of the T'ang Dynasty, in the 600s AD. There is very little information about this on the Internet.
• Nonlethal KO: Altaïr and Ezio never actually die; Desmond gets "desynchronized" from their memories, so the Animus re-initializes the memory.
  • Also possibly as a sort of finishing move for Altaïr, where, instead of finishing off his opponent in a squickyway, he merely stomps their knee and breaks it in a completely different squicky way.
• Not So Different: One thing the Templars always do as they have a Final Speech during the whitescreen heart-to-hearts with Altaïr is expound about how their goals, methods and tools are so very similar.
• Older Than They Think: Not the story, but the Hidden Blade. A hidden blade described exactly like the one Ezio uses in ACII appears in Tamora Pierce's Circle Of Magic series, used by the plant magus and former thief Briars. It is most noteable in "Street Magic", in which Briars stars, and "Will Of The Empress", where he uses it when he is challenged to a duel.
• One Man Army: Altaïr. It is entirely possible to run around the Kingdom and cheerfully slaughter entire enemy camps as well as massacre the equivalent of a few small armies. If the timing of the hidden blade's counter-attack has been mastered, it is also entirely possible for Altaïr to slaughter all of the aforementioned enemieswithout taking a single scratch.
• The Order: Both the Assassins and, naturally, The Knights Templar.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Kill enough guards without taking a hit and the survivors will break and run if there are no Elite Mooks around to rally them. Sometimes even then.
• Shut Up Hannibal: Altaïr's response to the numerous Not So Different comments by his assassination targets, though he does have doubts. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that while their goals and methods are somewhat similar, he and his are on the lighter gray side of this Grey And Gray Morality, Well Intentioned Extremist divide because they don't want to Take Over The World, whereas the Templars do. Which is hilarious considering that Al Mualim, who helped him reach this revelation, not only does want to take over the world, but is in fact a member of the very Templars that he claims to be fighting!
• Spam Attack: One of the Hidden Blade counter animations is a series of slashes to the throat.
• Squick: "Break his legs. Both of them."
• • Also High Octane Nightmare Fuel, just like when Altaïr breaks his opponents' legs.