Info about Assassin's Creed® Revelations:

Official game description:
Ubisoft Online Services Decommission Update
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From 25 January 2024:  
Multiplayer and online features will no longer available for this product.
About the Game
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When a man has won all his battles and defeated his enemies; what is left for him to achieve? Ezio Auditore must leave his life behind in search of answers, In search of the truth.  
In Assassin’s Creed® Revelations, master assassin Ezio Auditore walks in the footsteps of the legendary mentor Altair, on a journey of discovery and revelation. It is a perilous path – one that will take Ezio to Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where a growing army of Templars threatens to destabilize the region.  
Key Features:
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*   **BECOME DEADLIER THAN EVER**  
    Wield the lethal skills of a wiser, more efficient and deadlier Ezio. Swiftly eliminate your adversaries by deploying a new arsenal of weapons and abilities, such as enhanced free-running and hook blade combat. Experience new levels of gameplay customization with bomb crafting, and use heightened Eagle Vision to overcome your enemies and the environment.  
*   **EXPERIENCE REVOLUTIONARY GAMEPLAY**  
    Explore the farthest reaches of the Animus as you uncover the mysteries of Desmond’s past while gaining insight into what the future might hold.

Release date: 30 Nov, 2011

Categories: Single-player Story, Character Progression, Real-time Combat, Stealth Gameplay, Parkour Gameplay, Tower Defense, Management Simulation, Puzzle Solving


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Epic Ezio & Altair Conclusion (weight 0.99): Players overwhelmingly praise the game for delivering a perfect, emotional, and mature conclusion to Ezio Auditore's three-game saga, masterfully intertwining his journey with Altair's legacy. This creates a deeply resonant and impactful farewell, providing a profound sense of closure and reflection on legacy and purpose.
- Polished Narrative and Gameplay (weight 0.53): Players appreciate the overall polish, improved story pacing, and refined gameplay mechanics compared to previous entries. The narrative is often described as cohesive, emotionally rich, and well-structured, enhancing the game's depth and making it a more focused experience than its predecessors.
- Enduring Enjoyment and Nostalgia (weight 0.44): The game consistently offers a highly enjoyable and immersive experience, frequently evoking strong feelings of nostalgia for the classic Assassin's Creed era. Many players highlight its enduring quality, noting that the core gameplay and atmosphere hold up remarkably well years after its initial release.
- Dynamic New Mechanics (weight 0.36): The introduction of the hookblade and the customizable bomb crafting system are widely celebrated as fresh and innovative gameplay additions. These tools significantly enhance traversal speed and fluidity, expand combat strategies, and add considerable variety to stealth encounters, making gameplay more dynamic and engaging.
- Vibrant Constantinople World (weight 0.24): Constantinople (Istanbul) is universally praised for its beautiful, vibrant, and atmospheric recreation, offering a stunning blend of Eastern and Western cultures. Players found the detailed architecture, bustling markets, and historical richness to be an excellent and engaging environment for exploration and parkour.
- Evocative Soundtrack Excellence (weight 0.11): The game's soundtrack is consistently lauded as a masterpiece, with players praising its beautiful composition, emotional depth, and seamless ability to complement the game's atmosphere and narrative. The music is often described as melancholic, powerful, and truly unforgettable, enhancing immersion significantly.
- Impressive Visuals and Art (weight 0.11): The game's graphics and artistic direction received strong praise, with many noting significant improvements in lighting, textures, character models, and city design compared to previous entries. Despite its age, the visuals are frequently described as impressive and aesthetically pleasing, contributing to an immersive experience.
- Excellent Parkour System (weight 0.09): The parkour system is lauded for its fluidity, responsiveness, and how it's enhanced by new additions like the hookblade. Navigating the city's intricate environments is described as faster, more dynamic, and highly enjoyable, with Constantinople proving an ideal setting for free-running.
- Deepened Series Lore (weight 0.08): The game significantly deepens the overarching Assassin's Creed lore by expanding on Desmond's modern-day story and providing crucial new insights into Altair's life and legacy. Players found these narrative additions interesting and vital for understanding the broader saga and setting up future entries.
- Engaging Combat System (weight 0.07): The combat system is praised for being exhilarating, fluid, and deeply satisfying, offering dynamic engagements through strategic choices between stealth and aggression. Players enjoyed the improved responsiveness, effective finishers, and tactical elements that made encounters consistently entertaining.

Common complaints:
- Critical Technical Instability (weight 0.45): The game suffers from widespread and persistent crashes, freezes, and game-breaking bugs, particularly in Sequence 7 and Altair's memories. These issues often prevent progression, corrupt save files, and make the game largely unplayable for many, even on modern hardware.
- Broken & Inaccessible DLC Content (weight 0.4): Key single-player content, including 'Desmond's Journey' and 'The Lost Archive' DLC, is broken, unplayable, or entirely removed. This often stems from server shutdowns or faulty updates, requiring players to use unofficial workarounds or making 100% completion impossible.
- Repetitive & Uninspired Gameplay (weight 0.35): The gameplay is often described as repetitive, boring, and lacking significant innovation compared to previous titles. Side content and missions feel like 'more of the same,' contributing to a sense of monotony and disengagement.
- Unpopular New Mechanics (weight 0.18): New gameplay additions like the tower defense mini-game and the bomb crafting system are widely disliked. Players find them tedious, intrusive, uninteresting, and rarely utilized, often feeling out of place within the Assassin's Creed universe.
- Downgrade from Brotherhood (weight 0.17): The game is frequently compared negatively to its predecessor, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, regarding content, innovation, plot depth, side quests, and overall polish. It's often seen as a significant step backward for the series.
- Weak Ezio/Altair Story & Character (weight 0.16): The game's story, particularly Ezio's arc, is perceived as shorter, weaker, and less impactful than previous entries, with some criticism of character changes. It is frequently seen as the weakest title in the Ezio trilogy.
- Lack of Controller Support (weight 0.09): The game suffers from a significant lack of controller support, especially on PC and Steam Deck, despite previous functionality. This forces many players to use an uncomfortable keyboard and mouse setup or makes the game unplayable for them.
- Tedious & Bugged Achievements (weight 0.08): Many achievements are reported as boring, tedious, or bugged, with some requiring excessive grinding or being impossible to obtain due to inaccessible DLC. This frustrates completionists and diminishes the reward for playing.

Gameplay feedback:
- Ezio's Concluding Legacy Journey (weight 0.16): The game serves as the final chapter for Ezio Auditore, depicting an older Ezio traveling to Constantinople and Masyaf to uncover Altair's secrets, specifically his hidden library and five keys. It intertwines the narratives of Ezio, Altair (through relived memories), and modern-day Desmond, bringing closure to the trilogy's main protagonists.
- Enhance Movement with Hookblade (weight 0.11): The hookblade is a significant new tool that improves Ezio's parkour, allowing faster climbing, longer reaches, and quicker traversal across rooftops via ziplines. It also adds new combat moves and overall enhances the fluidity of movement within the city.
- New Den Defense Minigame (weight 0.1): The game introduces a 'Den Defense' minigame, a tower-defense-style mechanic where players must protect Assassin hideouts from Templar attacks by strategically placing assassins and barricades. This mode can be triggered when the Templar alert level is high but is largely avoidable after its initial introduction.
- Introduce Versatile Bomb Crafting (weight 0.1): A new bomb crafting system is introduced, allowing players to create various types of bombs (offensive, defensive, distraction) with customizable effects like explosion radius and throw behavior. This system adds strategic depth, offering alternative approaches to stealth and combat situations.
- Vibrant Constantinople Setting & Management (weight 0.1): The game is set in a historically rich 16th-century Constantinople, featuring a blend of Ottoman and Byzantine architecture. Players engage in city management mechanics, liberating districts, renovating shops, and recruiting/sending Assassins on missions to expand their influence and generate income, similar to previous games.
- Familiar Core Gameplay Formula (weight 0.07): The game largely retains the established Assassin's Creed gameplay formula from previous titles, particularly Brotherhood, offering similar stealth, parkour, and combat mechanics. While it refines some elements and adds new tools, it doesn't revolutionize the series, providing a consistent experience for long-time fans.
- Desmond's Abstract Puzzle Sections (weight 0.05): Desmond's modern-day storyline unfolds within his subconscious on the Animus island, featuring first-person, puzzle-platforming segments. These 'Desmond's Journey' stages offer a break from the main gameplay, exploring his fragmented memories and providing narrative context, sometimes compared to Portal.
- Accessible Difficulty and Length (weight 0.05): The game is generally considered to have an easy to medium difficulty curve, described as 'easy to learn, hard to master.' The main story typically ranges from 8-12+ hours, offering a solid single-player experience suitable for teens and adults, though full completion takes longer.
- Manageable Achievements & DLC Challenges (weight 0.05): Achieving 100% completion and all achievements is generally straightforward due to the smaller map and shorter story, with an estimated 40 hours for the base game. The 'Lost Archive' DLC, a first-person puzzle-platformer, is crucial for certain achievements and, though it was sometimes an issue, file downloads can fix access.

Performance notes:
- Widespread technical instability (weight 0.12): The game exhibits pervasive technical problems such as frequent crashes, freezes, and significant stuttering and lag, regardless of PC specifications. This instability is compounded by issues like screen tearing, flickering, and black screens, highlighting a general lack of optimization and compatibility challenges with newer systems due to its age.
- Delete systemdetection.dll for fixes (weight 0.06): A widely reported community fix involves deleting the 'systemdetection.dll' file from the game's root directory. This action effectively resolves common visual glitches such as screen flickering, shaking, and general stuttering, particularly during the initial parts of the game.
- Mixed system requirement feedback (weight 0.02): Player opinions are divided on the game's system requirements; some consider it lightweight and capable of running on older or 'potato' PCs, while others report it demands a 'decent PC' and can still be resource-intensive, even on modern hardware, experiencing FPS drops. This inconsistency suggests varying experiences based on specific hardware configurations.
- DLC content inaccessible (weight 0.01): The game's downloadable content is no longer officially available for purchase through standard channels, despite its achievements still being present. Players must resort to unofficial and often difficult methods to acquire and play this additional content.
- Launcher and platform hurdles (weight 0.01): Some players experience difficulties launching the game, occasionally requiring direct launch through the Ubisoft App. Additionally, playing on portable platforms like the Steam Deck introduces an inconvenience where players must re-enter their Ubisoft Connect password upon each game launch.

Recommendations:
- Recommended for Fans on Sale (weight 0.31): While overall sentiment is positive, especially for fans, many players recommend purchasing the game only during a sale due to its age and technical issues. It often receives positive numerical ratings (7-10/10) when considering its value at a reduced price or its importance to the series.
- Essential Story Conclusion (weight 0.17): Players overwhelmingly recommend the game for its crucial role in concluding the stories of Ezio Auditore and Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, offering a fitting and emotional farewell. It's considered a "must-play" for fans invested in these characters and the overarching Assassin's Creed lore, with many suggesting watching the "Embers" short film afterward for a complete narrative closure.
- Major Technical & Playability Issues (weight 0.12): A substantial number of reviews highlight severe technical problems, particularly with the PC and Steam Deck versions, making the game unplayable for some without significant effort or "tinkering." These issues include game-breaking bugs, lack of support, and problems with achievements and DLC, leading many to advise against purchasing the game in its current state, especially at full price.
- Requires Prior Series Play (weight 0.08): To fully appreciate and understand the narrative, players strongly recommend completing previous Assassin's Creed titles, especially AC2 and Brotherhood. Revelations serves as a direct continuation and conclusion to Ezio's story arc, making prior knowledge essential for context.
- Varied Gameplay & DLC Experience (weight 0.04): The game offers a mix of exploration, stealth, and strategic combat, appealing to players interested in historical depth. While some prefer Brotherhood's gameplay, the DLC can enhance the experience with new content, though some users encounter activation issues.

Other player notes:
- Poignant Conclusion to Ezio's Saga (weight 0.2): Many players view this game as a fitting and emotionally resonant conclusion to Ezio Auditore's journey, exploring his older, wiser self and providing important narrative closure. It is frequently highlighted as a nostalgic peak for the series, contrasting with the perceived decline of later Assassin's Creed titles.
- Achievement Completion Requires Workarounds (weight 0.12): Although Steam achievements were recently implemented, achieving 100% completion can be challenging due to bugs and the inaccessibility of certain DLC content. Players often need to follow community guides and apply specific fixes to properly unlock all achievements and synchronize game progress.
- Aged Graphics, Demanding Remaster (weight 0.11): Despite its narrative strengths, the game's visuals and underlying mechanics show their age, impacting the modern player experience. There is a strong and recurring desire for a comprehensive remastered version, especially for the entire Ezio trilogy, to update graphics and potentially resolve long-standing technical issues.
- Mixed Reception Compared to Brotherhood (weight 0.11): While a vital part of the Ezio trilogy, Revelations often receives a mixed reception when compared to its predecessor, Brotherhood. Some consider it slightly less iconic or 'cooler,' with minimal visual changes, while others see it as a worthy, albeit underestimated, conclusion to the saga.
- Numerous Technical & DLC Access Hurdles (weight 0.1): The game is plagued by significant technical issues, including screen flickering and crashes, alongside major problems accessing crucial DLC content like Desmond's Journey and The Lost Archive. Players frequently rely on unofficial community guides, mods, and file manipulation to fix these issues and make the game fully playable.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.26): The primary cause of Satisfaction is the game's compelling and emotional narrative, particularly its role in providing a perfect and worthy conclusion to the stories of Ezio Auditore and Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. Players also highly enjoyed the refined gameplay mechanics, such as the fluid parkour system with the hookblade and improved combat, alongside the immersive and beautifully detailed setting of Constantinople and its atmosphere. The overall high quality of the game's presentation, music, and character development further contributed to this positive sentiment.
- Frustration (weight 0.2): Frustration stems primarily from severe technical issues, including game-breaking crashes, pervasive bugs, and poor optimization that frequently hinder progress or render the game unplayable. Players are also highly frustrated by missing or broken content, such as inaccessible DLC (like The Lost Archive) and Desmond's Journey sequences, which prevent 100% completion and diminish the overall experience. Ubisoft's perceived negligence in addressing these long-standing problems and their persistent launcher/DRM issues amplify player annoyance.
- Disappointment (weight 0.17): Disappointment largely arises from the game's poor technical state, with players encountering persistent, unfixed bugs, crashes, and a generally unoptimized PC port that makes the game unplayable or diminishes enjoyment. There is also significant disappointment over the game's perceived lack of innovation and reduced content compared to its predecessors, particularly the short story, repetitive side tasks, and inaccessible DLC or multiplayer features. Ubisoft's handling of the game's legacy, including server shutdowns and failure to address long-standing issues, further fuels this negative sentiment.
- Appreciation (weight 0.05): Appreciation stems from the game's profound and emotionally resonant narrative, praised for its mature exploration of Ezio's character arc, the compelling conclusion to the Ezio and Altaïr sagas, and its expansion of the series' lore. Players also highly value the stunning and historically detailed setting of Constantinople/Istanbul, enhanced by beautiful visuals, immersive atmosphere, and an exceptional soundtrack. The game's refined gameplay mechanics and intuitive design, including the hookblade and improved traversal, further contribute to this positive sentiment.
- Admiration (weight 0.04): Admiration is primarily driven by the game's masterful narrative, which reviewers often describe as a 'masterpiece' for its profound emotional depth, brilliant storytelling, and its role in providing a perfect, philosophical conclusion to Ezio and Altaïr's sagas. Players also admire the exceptional character development, particularly Ezio's journey and wisdom, alongside the game's outstanding artistic design, including its evocative soundtrack, stunning depiction of Constantinople, and overall cinematic quality.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.04): Nostalgia is strongly evoked by players reliving cherished childhood memories of growing up with and playing the Ezio trilogy, often associating it with a 'Golden Age' of Ubisoft. This sentiment is amplified by the emotional connection to Ezio and Altaïr as beloved characters, with the game representing a poignant farewell to their stories and the classic Assassin's Creed era. The game's legacy as a series highlight and its evocative soundtrack further contribute to this feeling of longing for past experiences.
- Excitement (weight 0.03): Excitement is generated by the game's compelling narrative, particularly the emotional and epic conclusions to Ezio and Altaïr's stories, along with impactful plot twists and lore revelations. Players are also thrilled by the majestic setting of Istanbul/Constantinople and the introduction of innovative gameplay mechanics like the hookblade, which revolutionizes traversal and combat, and the strategic base defense system. The overall high quality of the game, its fast-paced action, and cinematic moments contribute to an energetic and engaging experience.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.03): Enjoyment comes from the game's engaging core gameplay elements, including fluid parkour, satisfying combat, and new mechanics like the hookblade and bomb system, which enhance traversal and strategy. Players also find the compelling story, immersive atmosphere of Constantinople, and strong character development highly enjoyable. The overall experience is often described as fun and addictive, especially when replaying the classic Ezio trilogy.
- Anger (weight 0.03): Anger is primarily directed at Ubisoft for its perceived negligence in fixing the game's numerous technical issues, including pervasive bugs, terrible optimization, and frequent crashes that lead to an unplayable experience or significant loss of progress. Players are also incensed by Ubisoft's abandonment of the game, evidenced by removed DLC and multiplayer content, lack of proper customer support, and decisions regarding the PC port that are seen as incompetent or deliberately restrictive.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is derived from the game exceeding expectations and holding a special place in players' hearts, often from childhood, culminating in a profoundly positive and enjoyable overall experience. This includes immense satisfaction from the compelling story and character development, particularly Ezio's growth and relationship with Sofia, as well as exploring the amazing and historically rich setting of Constantinople. Engaging gameplay, effective use of the hookblade, and the impactful soundtrack further contribute to this sense of delight.
- Sadness (weight 0.01): Sadness predominantly stems from the emotional conclusion to the stories of beloved characters, particularly Ezio Auditore and Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, as players bid farewell to their epic journeys and witness their twilight years or tragic fates. The game's bittersweet ending and poignant final scenes, coupled with the feeling that it marks the end of an era for the series, evoke a deep sense of loss. Additionally, persistent technical issues like crashes, which prevent players from fully experiencing these emotional moments, contribute to this sadness.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance is frequently caused by Ubisoft's persistent launcher issues, such as constant login demands and password resets, along with the publisher's controversial decisions regarding content removal and the need for unofficial workarounds for DLC and achievements. Players are also annoyed by game crashes, pervasive bugs, general instability, and certain repetitive or poorly designed gameplay mechanics like unnecessary side quests and restrictive escort missions.
- Helpfulness (weight 0.01): Helpfulness is demonstrated through players actively sharing detailed solutions, technical fixes, and workarounds for common issues such as game crashes, inaccessible DLC, and achievement synchronization problems. This stems from a desire to assist fellow players in overcoming the game's technical shortcomings and fully enjoy their experience.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom primarily arises from repetitive gameplay mechanics and mission design, which players find uninteresting and tedious, especially after experiencing previous titles in the series. The main story is sometimes perceived as unengaging or 'mid,' leading to declining plot engagement towards the game's latter parts. Specific gameplay elements like the tower defense mini-games and the repetitive nature of Constantinople's setting can also contribute to this feeling.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion often stems from technical issues, such as missing controller support or unexplained game crashes, and uncertainty regarding solutions. Players are also confused by certain gameplay mechanics, like the Animus desynchronization rules, poorly designed controls, or the underutilization of advertised features. Publisher decisions, such as offering achievements for unavailable DLC, further contribute to this bewilderment.
- Dislike (weight 0.01): Dislike is frequently directed at specific gameplay mechanics, notably the intrusive and poorly received Tower Defense system, which many players found unsuited to the series. Other causes include the portrayal of an older Ezio, perceived changes in character voice actors, and the game's pseudoscientific story premise. Some players also expressed a general dislike for the Istanbul setting or for the Assassin's Creed series as a whole.
- Relief (weight 0): Relief is experienced by players when they successfully find and apply solutions or workarounds for persistent technical issues, such as game-breaking bugs, crashes, CD key problems, or inaccessible DLC. This allows them to finally play the game as intended, alleviating prior frustration and enabling them to progress or access content.
- Love (weight 0): Love for the game is deeply tied to its compelling story and immersive atmosphere, often extending to the entire Ezio trilogy and its iconic protagonist. Players express strong affection for the game's overall quality, its graphics, and the innovative new hidden blade, particularly enjoying the experience of re-experiencing historical Istanbul through its narrative.
- Reflection (weight 0): Reflection is prompted by the game's exploration of profound themes such as legacy, aging, and the meaning of life, especially through the emotional conclusion of Ezio's character arc and his nuanced portrayal. Players engage in deep thought about Ezio's journey, his personal history, and the broader direction of the Assassin's Creed series, often connecting these themes to their own past experiences with the game.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0): Mild disappointment is felt due to the game's perceived shorter length and reduced content compared to its predecessors, particularly Brotherhood. Players also note that Constantinople is less memorable, and the game exhibits visually dated or grayish graphics, alongside repetitive NPC sounds, contributing to a slightly underwhelming experience.}