Assassin's Creed: Rogue

Assassin's Creed: Rogue turns the series' perspective on its head - for the first time, the player takes on the role of a Templar. Shay Patrick Cormac starts out as an assassin, but after a tragic event he unintentionally causes, he turns against his former brothers and becomes a hunter of assassins in the service of the Templar Order. The story takes place during the Seven Years' War in the waters of the North Atlantic and links the end of Assassin's Creed III with the beginning of Assassin's Creed Unity, filling the gap in the story between the two games and explaining how the Templars consolidated power in eighteenth-century Europe and why the Assassin Brotherhood finds itself on the defensive in Unity, nearly on the brink of extinction.

In terms of gameplay, Rogue builds on the naval system from Black Flag - the player once again sails the open sea, fights ship battles, and upgrades the equipment of their ship, the Morrigan, but this time also has to deal with the ice fields of the North Atlantic, where the ship must be de-iced before sailing or risk hull damage and loss of crew. New to the game, the player must also face assassins actively hunting them the same way they themselves used to hunt Templars, including a detection mechanic based on disguise, crowds, and visibility. Also added are a tool for revealing hidden enemies and a more powerful rifle that the main series hadn't offered until then, as well as a new ability to spot traps laid by assassins directly along the path.

Rogue launched simultaneously on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as the last major entry in the series for the previous console generation, and arrived on PC only a year later in a version with higher resolution and improved textures.

Why play: Rogue is for players who want to see the series from the other side of the barricade and who are interested in a story explaining why Templars don't necessarily have to act as clear-cut villains, set in the same naval world as the beloved Black Flag.