Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China

Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China abandons the main series' open world and offers a 2.5D platformer with a fixed side view. The main heroine is Shao Jun, a Chinese assassin whom players know from the animated short film Embers and from Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines – the game tells how, after the extermination of the Chinese Brotherhood, she sets out on a path of revenge against the court eunuchs behind the massacre, and seeks support from her aged mentor Ezio Auditore before returning to China to finish what she started.

Instead of free movement around a city, Chronicles: China emphasizes a smooth sequence of jumps, climbing, and combat within a single plane, similar to classic action platformers, and combines it with stealth mechanics – hiding in shadows, distracting guards with a whistle, and stealthy eliminations from behind and from above, where the player drops down onto an unsuspecting soldier from height. Visually, the game relies on stylized, painterly graphics inspired by Chinese art and ink painting, which clearly sets it apart from the more realistic look of the main series installments and lends even simpler combat its own atmosphere. It is the first of three Chronicles installments; India and Russia followed later with the same gameplay but different heroes and historical periods, while China remains the one that ties the plot directly to Ezio's lineage and the series' main saga.

Chronicles: China launched simultaneously on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One as a smaller, significantly cheaper side story between the series' major installments, available on its own outside the main games and without requiring familiarity with the rest of the series.

Why play: Chronicles: China is for players who enjoy precise platformers with stealth elements and want to see Assassin's Creed in a different visual and gameplay form than the series' main open worlds offer.