All Major Events and Characters Explained
Sarah Parker Assassin's Creed is a series that spans millennia and has hundreds of characters. Here's where the major events and characters fit on its timeline.
The Assassin’s Creed series spins a rich alternate history, following an epic, millennia-long saga of would-be gods, heroes, villains, and powerful artifacts. Over the course of a dozen mainline games, several spin-off titles, movies, books, comics, and audio dramas, Ubisoft has created a story and lore so dense that most players would need a spreadsheet in order to keep track of it all.
The games’ story technically all takes place between 2012 and 2020, with all of the past segments played out within the Animus simulation machine. However, this timeline will follow the events of Assassin’s Creed history, starting with its oldest lore. It leaves out the events of some of the Assassin's Creed comics and novels, focusing on the story told by the games.
For the sake of simplicity, the following timeline puts the events of the games in chronological order. The events of the series start several thousand years before the earliest game, so the Isu history has been put into its own section. The history of Assassin’s Creed goes back tens of thousands of years and predates the Assassins, the Templars, and even the human race itself.
Ancient Times: Assassin’s Creed Earliest Lore Explained
In Assassin's Creed lore, before humans became the dominant species on the planet, they were preceded by a race called the Isu. The Isu are an advanced race of human-like beings who created humans as a subservient race. Several of them were perceived as gods by humans and their names were given to gods in various pantheistic religions around the world. Humanity eventually rebelled against the Isu, though their rebellion became moot when the Great Catastrophe - a massive solar flare - occurred that wiped out most of the human race and the Isu.
Some of the Isu have survived to the modern-day either by their consciences being trapped in incorporeal form or by reincarnating as humans. The latter are referred to as Sages. The Isu also left behind various superpowered artifacts called Pieces of Eden. A handful of Isu left behind a machine designed to protect the world from the next predicted solar flare and a series of Pieces of Eden containing instructions to the person they’ve determined is the best to use it: Desmond Miles.
Notable Isu who survived the solar flare by these means include Tyr, Odin, Loki (who became Sages), Juno (who was trapped in a computer network called the Grand Temple by fellow Isu Jupiter and Minerva when she tried to interfere with the messages to Desmond), and Aita (Juno’s husband, whose Sage forms would obsess over releasing her from her imprisonment, or “The Gray,” as they call it).
5th Century BCE - Assassins’ Creed Odyssey
The Assassin’s Creed protagonist from the earliest point in history is Kassandra (the player may choose her brother Alexios as the player character instead, but Kassandra is the canonical protagonist). Kassandra is a Spartan mercenary who becomes embroiled with the Cult of Kosmos, a secret organization that sought to control all of Greece and fomented the Peloponnesian War toward its end. They’d also kidnapped Kassandra’s baby brother Alexios and raised him as their personal enforcer, as they were aware both brother and sister carried Isu blood through their grandfather, King Leonidas.
Upon discovering the Cult was responsible for her family’s suffering, Kassandra wiped them out. While Kassandra was not an Assassin and her opponents were not Templars, both would serve as templates for the later orders of those names. Several other proto-Assassins were active both during this time and in the centuries after Kassandra lived, including Darius, the assassin of King Xerxes, the first user of the Hidden Blade. Kassandra didn’t live a normal lifespan, as she inherited the Staff of Hermes, a Piece of Eden from her biological father, Pythagoras, which makes the bearer immortal - and she would live until the year 2018.
1st Century BCE - Assassin’s Creed Origins
The next-oldest playable character is Bayek of Siwa in Assassin's Creed Origins. A member of an elite Egyptian police force called the Medjay, Bayek and his son Khemu were targeted by a cult called the Order of the Ancients, who threatened them to reveal the location of an Isu vault near Siwa (which contained another Piece of Eden staff, once wielded by Alexander the Great). Khemu was killed in this encounter, which led Bayek and his wife Aya on a campaign of revenge against the Order. In their journey, they became involved with the efforts of Cleopatra to dethrone her brother Ptolemy.
Like Kassandra before him, Bayek killed most of the Order personally, though he failed to eliminate them entirely. He and Aya later formed a coterie called The Hidden Ones, a group of people who would work to eliminate threats to the people of the world from the shadows. [Content warning: suicide.] Aya would later go on to assassinate Julius Caesar, who was secretly involved with the Order and helped Cleopatra commit suicide. The Hidden Ones would go on to become the Assassins.
9th Century CE - Assassins’ Creed Valhalla
The Order of Ancients would continue to be active in most of the settled world after nearly being wiped out by Bayek. In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, One of their members, Kjotve, wiped out the village of Heillboer in Norway. One of the few survivors of the raid, Eivor Varinsdottir, hunted down Kjotve and crossed paths with two Hidden Ones, Basim and Hytham, who were also set on killing Kjotve. Eivor and her adoptive brother Sigurd later set sail for England, and Eivor is gifted a Hidden Blade by Basim. Upon arriving in England, Sigurd and Eivor founded the settlement Ravensthorpe.
While Eivor is attempting to expand and defend Ravensthorpe, she is transported to the realm of Asgard many times. Though neither Sigurd nor Eivor ever knew it consciously, they were Sages, or reincarnations, of the Isu Tyr and Odin, respectively. Basim, a Sage of Loki who is aware of his nature, corrupts Sigurd to the point where a rift grows between him and Eivor. Eivor, like her two predecessors, wiped out the Order with the help of its former leader, King Alfred (the historical figure), who would eventually reform the Order into the religious sect that would be known as the Knights Templar. Eivor eventually defeats Basim at the Isu Yggdrasil machine and leaves him plugged into it.
12th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed
At some point in the Assassin's Creed games' timeline, the Hidden Ones at some point became the Assassins, a name derived from the word "Hashashin". They become a public group, claiming a fortress in Masyaf, Syria as their own territory. During the Crusades, born Assassin Altair Ibn-La'Ahad is tasked by his Mentor, Al Mualim, to eliminate several Templars who had been bedeviling the Holy Land in order to redeem himself for a past mistake. It was only after he’d eliminated most of the Templars that he realized Al Mualim was one of their number and had ordered Altair to kill them so he could be the only one with the knowledge contained within a Piece of Eden known as the Apple.
After Altair assassinated Al Mualim during the Crusades in the first Assassin's Creed and reclaimed the Apple, he worked to reform the Assassins with the help of his wife and sons, moving them from their seclusion in Masyaf. He and his son Darim assassinated Genghis Khan with the help of Mongolian Assassin Qulan Gal. While away, Altair’s rival Abbas enacted a coup against him, killing his other son Sef and his wife Maria. Altair left Masyaf for several years but later returned as an old man to reclaim the Brotherhood from Abbas. After gifting his journal to Marco Polo, Altair would die at an advanced age, sealed inside a vault in Masyaf with the Apple.
15th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed 2
The Templar Order in Italy began to move to oust the Medici family from Florence in the 15th Century, and their initial plans toward this goal were uncovered by Italian Assassin Giovanni Auditore. Before Giovanni could thwart them, he was betrayed by a family friend secretly in league with the Templars, and he and his two sons Federico and Petrucchio were hanged. He was survived by his vengeful son, Ezio Auditore, who would go on to uncover the same plot and assassinate every Templar who was part of it with the help of his uncle Mario, a fellow Assassin.
In Assassin's Creed 2, Ezio eventually confronted the leader of the Templar Order, Rodrigo Borgia (aka Pope Alexander VI), and defeated him, but did not kill him. Instead, he used Borgia's Papal Staff, another Piece of Eden, to open a vault beneath the Vatican. There, he accessed a recording left by the Isu Minerva, who used him as a conduit to speak to someone named “Desmond.” Ezio eventually returned to his family home of Monteriggioni.
16th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Revelations, & Chronicles: China
Ezio later faced Templar retaliations, specifically from Roderigo’s son Cesare Borgia, who killed Uncle Mario. In later Assassin's Creed games, Ezio would go on to dismantle Templar operations in Rome and retrieve an Apple of Eden from Cesare (not the same one Altair used) and killed Cesare during the Siege of Viana. He hid the Apple in a vault in Rome, accessible via the Coliseum. He was made the Mentor of the Italian Assassins, and his sister Claudia was also inducted into the Brotherhood.
Ezio later traveled to Constantinople to recover Altair’s secrets from the Masyaf vault. Allying with the Ottoman Assassins, Ezio was drawn into the conflict with the Ottoman royal family when he discovered Prince Ahmet was a Byzantine Templar also attempting to access Altair’s vault. Ezio also made friends with future Sultan Suleiman, whose father, Prince Selim, eventually killed Ahmet. Ezio also met his wife, Sofia Sartor, in the city, and traveled with her to Masyaf. Despite the amount of time he put into the search, Ezio opted to leave Altair’s Apple in the vault and went on to retire from the Assassins.
Ezio would later train the Chinese Assassin Shao Jun before his death. Shao Jun would return to China with a gift from Ezio: A Piece of Eden known as a Precursor Box. She was later captured and the Box was taken by a Templar offshoot called the Eight Tigers. Jun would assassinate all of the Eight Tigers, but would never recover the Precursor Box.
18th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Black Flag & Freedom Cry
In Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, a journeyman sailor named Edward Kenway was shipwrecked with a traitorous British Assassin named Duncan Walpole, whom he killed in self-defense. Edward stole Walpole’s identity but was later discovered by the Caribbean Templars. Edward escaped them with the help of Adewale, and they became the first two members of the crew of the Jackdaw. Edward would later meet with Assassins of the West Indies, Ah Tabai and Mary Read, and learned from them of an Isu laboratory called the Observatory.
Believing the Observatory to hold treasure, Edward killed several of his former Templar allies and recruited Black Bart, a Sage of the Isu Aita, who had a genetic memory of the Observatory’s location, as well as the Piece of Eden that powered it: a Crystal Skull. Edward’s quest in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag ultimately proved futile, as he lost the friendship of Adewale, was double-crossed by Black Bart, and returned to join the Assassins. He eventually redeemed himself by wiping out the rest of the Caribbean Templars. He would later marry and father a son named Haytham Kenway.
Years after Edward’s death, Adewale, now a member of the West Indies Brotherhood, would be shipwrecked in Port-au-Prince. He became involved with the Maroon Rebellion led by Augustin Dieufort and worked with Maroon agent Bastienne Josephe to free slaves across Haiti. He would later kill the corrupt Governor Pierre de Fayet - who is one of the few Assassin's Creed villains not affiliated with the Templars. Adewale would return to his Assassin duties, but promised Bastienne he would use his skills to attempt to free more oppressed people.
18th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Assassin’s Creed 3
The American Assassin Brotherhood was established in what was then the Colonies in 1746 by Achilles Davenport. He would train several Assassins, including a young Irish immigrant named Shay Cormac. Several years after the Brotherhood was founded, Haytham Kenway, now a Templar, would sail to the Colonies to take up the role as leader of the Colonial Templars and search for a Precursor site. He would recruit several locals to the Templar cause, and briefly allied with Kaniehtí:io (Ziio), a member of the Kanien'kehá:ka nation who could help him find the site. She kept her word, but Haytham was unable to access the site. He and Ziio would have a child together, unbeknownst to Haytham.
Achilles instructed Shay to retrieve a Piece of Eden in Lisbon, which led Shay to unknowingly cause the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake - a consequence he later discovers Achilles was aware might occur. Angry at Achilles’ disregard for human life, Shay defects to the Colonial Templars and becomes their top enforcer. He goes on to kill several of his former Assassin colleagues, including Adewale. Shay and Haytham eventually discovered an Isu Temple in the Arctic, where the battle between them and Achilles’ Assassins caused another earthquake. Haytham left Achilles alive but shot him in the leg.
18th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed 3 Continued & Liberation
Ziio’s son with Haytham, Ratonhnhaké:ton (who later took the name Connor), grew up in a village with his mother, until it was razed and his mother was killed, apparently by Templar Charles Lee. He sought out Achilles for training as a young man and became an Assassin. He dismantled the entire Colonial Templar Order, teaming up with the American Patriots and participating in several major events of the American Revolution. He would eventually catch up with and kill his own father, Haytham, who learned shortly beforehand of their relationship. He also hid the key to the Precursor site his father sought.
In Louisiana, a young heiress named Aveline de Grandpre joined a southern branch of the American Assassin order. She was trained by Agate and made it her business to free slaves and break up Templar slavery operations. She also sought her mother, a slave named Jeanne, who disappeared when Aveline was a child. She eventually discovers that the head of a Templar slave trafficking ring was her stepmother, Madeleine de L’Isle, and that her mother disappeared to escape Agate, from whom she stole a valuable artifact. Aveline would fake joining the Templars in order to kill her stepmother and the rest of the Templars in the area, but Agate took his own life, believing that Aveline had betrayed him.
18th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Rogue Continued & AC Unity
French Assassin Charles Dorian was murdered in front of his young son, Arno Dorian, by Shay. Arno was adopted by François de la Serre, the Grand Master of the French Templars. Arno would grow up to fall in love with Elise de la Serre, also a Templar, though Arno was unaware of either order until after Monsieur de la Serre was murdered and Arno was accused of the crime. He met French Assassin Pierre Bellec in the Bastille, who informed him of the truth. The Bastille was stormed shortly after, signaling the beginning of the French Revolution, Arno and Bellec escaped, and Arno joined the Assassin Order.
Arno would attempt to uncover the conspiracy that led to Monsieur de la Serre’s death and eventually teamed up with Elise. They discovered a plot against her father led by Templar Sage François-Thomas Germain, the new Grand Master of the French Order. Bellec also betrayed the Assassin leadership, killing his Mentor, the Comte de Mirabeau, for their truce with the Templars. Arno would meet other key figures in French history at the time, including Napoleon Bonaparte, and would explore a very detailed Notre Dame. Eventually, Arno killed Germain, but Elise died in the process.
19th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India & AC Syndicate
The Indian Assassin Brotherhood would come into conflict with British Templars over a very powerful Piece of Eden on Assassin's Creed's timeline: the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Kashmiri Assassin Arbaaz Mir and his slave Raza would find the diamond, but Raza gave it to Sikh Princess Pyara Kaur. Pyara would inadvertently use it against her would-be Templar kidnapper Francis Cotton, killing him. Arbaaz then retrieved the diamond from another Templar faction and entrusted it to his friend, British Assassin Ethan Frye. Arbaaz and Pyara would have a son, who later came to England under the name Henry Green.
Years later, Ethan’s twin children, Jacob and Evie Frye, would come to London to retake the city from the Templars in Assassin's Creed Syndicate, led by Grand Master Crawford Starrick. The Fryes would found the street gang The Rooks to wrest control of the London underworld from the Templars. They dismantled the extensive Templar operation, even foiling a plot to kill Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. They eventually assassinated Starrick when he attempted to kill Queen Victoria and steal another Piece of Eden: the Shroud.
20th Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Continued & Chronicles: Russia
During World War 1, Lydia Frye, the granddaughter of Jacob Frye, would dismantle a German spy network in London at the request of Winston Churchill. The leader of the spy ring was a Sage of Aita and was secretly operating a cult to Juno, Aita’s wife, whose conscience was still trapped at this time. Russian Assassin Nikolai Orelov, who’d already been involved in several events of Russian history, as detailed in the Assassin’s Creed comics, would rescue Princess Anastasia from a Templar plot that resulted in the death of the rest of her family.
The lore in the games indicates the Assassins and Templars were subsequently involved in several major events of the century, including World War II, the moon landing, the assassination of John F. Kennedy - in fact, the deaths of just about every major world leader in this time are the work of either the Templars or Assassins. The Templars also founded Abstergo, a pharmaceutical company, as a front for their work. Templar scientist Warren Vidic would begin experimenting with the Animus, a device for recalling genetic memories.
21st Century CE - Assassin’s Creed Modern Storyline
The modern story of the Assassins follows mostly two individuals: Desmond Miles and Layla Hassan. Desmond, the inheritor of several Assassin bloodlines, was kidnapped by Abstergo in order to reveal Assassin secrets via his ancestors. Desmond relived the memories of Altair first, which revealed the location of several heretofore-unknown Pieces of Eden. Desmond later escaped with the help of Assassin mole Lucy Stillman and met up with an Assassin cell made up of Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane. The three had Desmond relive Ezio’s memories in order to take advantage of a “bleeding effect” that would allow Desmond to pick up Ezio’s skills. Desmond also heard Minerva’s message in the Vatican via Ezio that was directed at him.
Desmond would later retrieve the Apple of Eden that Ezio had hidden in Rome, which revealed to him that Lucy had secretly defected to the Templar Order. Juno’s spirit in the Apple forced Desmond to stab her. Desmond had to be revived in the Animus, where he received help from Clay Kaczmarek, an Assassin who was forced into the Animus and whose mind had become trapped there. Desmond would later hear Ezio, who remembered his name from the first encounter with Minerva, encourage him across the ages to make all the suffering the Pieces of Eden had caused worth it.
In 2012, Desmond and his Assassin cell, which now included his father, Assassin Mentor William Miles, used the Apple to open the Precursor site. Inside was the Grand Temple, the Isu machine built to help the Earth withstand the next solar flare. The device required a key to enter, the same one Connor had hidden. Desmond relived Connor’s memories to find its location and would go on several Assassin missions himself to retrieve power sources for the Temple, killing elite Templar hitman (and former Animus victim) Daniel Cross. He also used the Apple to rescue William when the older man was captured by Templars, killing Vidic as he did so.
When Desmond entered the heart of the Temple, he was told he had two options: Let the world be ravaged again and guide what little of humanity remained in the aftermath, or use the device to protect the Earth but release Juno, whose consciousness was still trapped in the Temple. Desmond eventually opted for the latter option, knowing it would mean his death, but believing that humanity was worth saving and that the Assassins would find a way to deal with Juno. He activated the machine, sacrificing himself to save the world.
21st Century - Assassin's Creed After Demond Miles
After Desmond’s death in the Assassin's Creed games, his body was taken by Abstergo, who used his genetic memories to make a pirate video game. An unnamed Abstergo researcher would relive the memories of Edward Kenway and found themselves targeted by another Sage named John, who intended to use the researcher to give Juno, who was still in ephemeral form, a body. John was thwarted, and the researcher was recruited into the Assassins.
Later, a second Abstergo researcher would relive the memories of Shay Cormac, under the supervision of Templar enforcer Juhani Otso Berg. Unlike their predecessor, this second researcher was press-ganged into the Templars upon the completion of their work with Shay’s memories (the alternative being death). The Assassins would go on to recruit an unnamed Helix Initiate to relive the memories of Arno Dorian, Jacob Frye, and Evie Frye.
Layla Hassan was a former Abstergo researcher who modified a personal Animus to allow her to relive the memories of ancient people who were not related to her personally, provided she could get a sample of their DNA. While on a research expedition in Egypt, she discovered mummies of Bayek and Aya and relived their memories against orders from her superiors. She was attacked by an Abstergo strike team and was rescued by William Miles, though she refused to join the Assassins.
21st Century - Assassin's Creed Modern Day Characters & Events
Working with an Assassin Cell, Layla relived the memories of Kassandra from Assassin's Creed Odyssey in an attempt to find Atlantis, which Kassandra did in her lifetime. To her surprise, a still-alive Kassandra greeted her personally and warned that the Assassins and Templars were both going to doom the world if they were ever to win, and, as she was instructed to by the Isu Aletheia in Ancient Greece, gives the Staff of Hermes to Layla before dying in her arms. Layla would go through trials to prove herself worthy of the Staff before eventually using it and her Bleeding Effect-strengthened combat skills to defeat the Interloper, Juhani Otso Berg.
After this, Layla was assigned to work with Rebecca Crane and Shaun Hastings, searching for a way to reverse the problems to the Earth’s magnetic field Desmond inadvertently caused when he used the device in the Grand Temple. Layla found the grave of Eivor and relived her memories, where she witnessed Eivor using the Yggdrasil supercomputer, the same device the Isu used to calculate how to save earth from the original catastrophe. She searched for and found the machine - and inadvertently released Basim, who was still attached to it. As Layla used the machine, she dropped the Staff of Hermes, which Basim stole to restore his body.
While Basim/Loki has returned to the world, Layla remains trapped in the Yggdrasil machine, where she meets a spirit that sounds very much like Desmond Miles. He tells her he is using the supercomputer to make his own calculations on how to reverse the problems with the Earth’s magnetic field. Layla commits to staying in the Grey, the world within the machine, to help the spirit find a solution, even as he tells her that she’s dropped the staff and her physical body is about to perish from radiation poisoning.
For now, that’s the state of the world in Assassin’s Creed. At the moment, players will presumably have to wait until the events of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Infinity in order to learn what happens next, although The Siege of Paris DLC is releasing for Assassin's Creed Valhalla soon and may provide some updates to the series' overall timeline.
