Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (2010)

This AC entry is a direct sequel to Assassin's Creed II, so the MC is yet again Ezio on a journey in Renaissance Italy. Set primarily in Rome, the game refines the series’ formula by introducing squad-based mechanics, Ezio can recruit and train fellow assassins, adding a new strategic layer to missions. I enjoyed this mechanic very much, especially since it felt like the perfect fit for the lore of the game, taking into account the first title that we are introduced by an order and it's members.

The city of Rome is richly detailed and massive, offering numerous side quests, collectibles, and territory control mechanics, and I think this one strikes a good balance in side-content, especially compared to the more modern titles, which are longer than they should be, for no good reason. The combat is more fluid and aggressive, and the story balances historical intrigue with the series’ sci-fi narrative arc.

While not a radical departure from its predecessor, Brotherhood stands out for its polished gameplay, meaningful progression systems, and surprisingly robust multiplayer mode—a first for the franchise, it even added a multiplayer mode, which fit perfectly into the proposal of this title, was quite nice but not really my thing. This is a refined and content-rich sequel that expands on AC II’s strengths without losing its narrative momentum.

Platform: Xbox 360

Language: French

Finish Status: Completed

Playtime: 17h

Played it right after wrapping up the 2nd game, Brotherhood just kind of adds up on top of that with more content, which I don't mind at all. I miss the Villa now replaced by a cold underground basement, larger, but less cozy. I also miss the little underground crypt trials, now replaced by dirty cult areas with not a charm to spare.

Nevertheless I have a lot of fun with the pigeons and the crossbows and the many other additions to this installment. Possibly, the 2nd and 3rd might be the best games in the entire series. The parkour feels good, the story isn't crazy but actually holds some kind of funny guys. You wanna see what happens with that apple. It's a good time all the way around!

The story I've heard is that this game was planned to be an expansion for Assassin's Creed 2 but ended up being a stand alone game because of scope bloat.

Idk if that's true or not but it sure feels like it is. This game is very fun, Ezio continues to be a good character, and the gameplay elements it adds to AC2 are all a lot of fun. It does a lot to make it really feel like you're rebuilding and expanding the brotherhood.

Unfortunately though it's just a little too short.

4 / 5 Stars

okay so hear me out:

don't make a map where 2/3rds are the COUNTRYSIDE and even in the Centro district which is the 'city' area... the buildings are just incorrect idk, the parkour felt so less fluid than in AC2's maps

anyways, the main plot here just isn't as cool as in AC2... like okay i wanna kill the borgia as much as the next guy but the motivation is just so bleh - save Roma! they're templars!
the missions are also just way less iconic, remember the venice assassination in AC2? ik right my badussy is throbbing - but anyways, we never get anything near as iconic as that here. instead we just climb the castel sant'angelo like 40 times for our latest episode of keeping up with the borgias

in conclusion: they should have saved Rome for a game set during or after the Baroque period where it's urban planning was vastly improved and there were Bernini sculptures outside San Pietro x

the davinci dlc improves on the base game because it's gay, and also brings back lucrezia who is my personal #girlboss

You don't play Assassin's Creed games because the combat is good - it's just ok, not for the story because frankly it's crap and not because of parkour or freerunning because it's just holding the right trigger and pushing the left stick forward.

You play them because the world is immersive and captivating. The open world here is honestly more interactive and interesting than what Rockstar Games offered in GTAV.

• You can buy and rebuild stores and landmarks that bring revenue.

• You can hire members of the Courtesans, Thieves and Mercenaries, the 3 friendly factions in the game. A group of Courtesans create a "crowd" in which you can hide or they can lure guards away without much noise. Thieves attack and lure away guards in a more aggressive and quicker way. Mercenaries will simply help you take on you enemies.

• The city has several Towers where the antagonist faction resides, destroying one will rid a city area off of their "influence" and the city streets will have rebellious citizens who openly critisize every passing guard and will slow down guards that are chasing you.

• Destroying a tower isn't a side quest, it's part of the open world, it requires you to infiltrate a restricted area, assassinate an officer without alerting him (because then he will flee), and afterwards climb a tower and set it on fire.

Most of the enjoyment from this game I got from roaming the open world, buying properties and liberating areas because it made the areas more active and living with all the citizens that appear. It felt that what I was doing made a difference as opposed to watching a cutscene where I'm told that "The last assassination really hurt our enemies!" or something like that.

There are a few additions compared to AC2, you can hire Assassins and use them in combat but it ultimately didn't change much.

The story missions are mostly linear and boring, Ubisoft wasn't able to utilize their beatiful, living and breathing open world in story missions, though it must be a pretty difficult task.

The story itself, I just didn't care. I didn't care in AC2 and here it's even more bland.

All in all, it's better than what came before, because of more activity in the open world. Yes, it's mostly ticking the items on the list: climb a tower, synchronize, burn the tower, buy property, rince repeat. Ubi games have been critisized for sharing this design model but I have to say, it's pretty entertaining. Don't know why but it just is. But i can totally understand why some people hate it.

I don't owe the second game so I just skipped to Brotherhood and for me Brotherhood takes the style, feeling and interesting parts of the first game and just tops them. The visuals are beautiful, the controls are much, much more easy, even if that might be that I get used to them.The character of Ezio for me is much better than Altair's, even if his arc ain't as big or nice as Altair's.

My biggest problem with the first game was that the objectives were pretty much the same. Here some missions might have a similar style, but they always change and they always are different and I really enjoyed that. It made the game much more easy and fun to play. Also I really liked how they incorporated the stealth technic too. Certain missions had to be made stealth, but it wasn't like tremendously hard. It would always give you just enough help to go pass them.

The first seven sequences also went by really smoothly, but I do think that the last two were kinda rushed and the time moved way too fast. Still I get why they would do that for the story, but it didn't go as smooth as with the story before. Also I really liked how the Desmond story is just in the start and the end, because in the first time it was kinda boring going from Assassin to just walking through a lab.

Now the story was pretty simple and forward, but it didn't mind me. The villain in the end did get kinda over the top, but he still did feel kinda threatening. The ending leaves you with a really big cliffhanger, just like in the first and I get why they do that (to sell the next one too), but I would prefer if it felt more complete as a game on its own rather than feel like a part of a universe.

Overall I really enjoyed Brotherhood, more than I expected, and I would really recommend it. I did get lost at first, because I hadn't played 2, but it does give you a "What happened in the previous episode" so to catch on. Really excited to play Revelations.

A continuation of Assassin's Creed II. It's practically more of the same with just a pinch of new features added to the mix.

The game continues the story of Ezio and this time takes place in Rome. While most of the story is pretty good there are some weaker missions here and there. The amount of collectibles keeps on increasing with each installment of Assassin's Creed to the point where it can drive any completionist crazy.

Brotherhood adds a couple of new features to the mix with running Assassin's Guild - you can recruit people into the guild, send on missions to earn money and level up your assassin's and in the crucial time of need you can call them out. The management aspect is pretty tedious and boring but using your adepts to help you out on occasion seems almost like cheating. It's amazing though to see assassin's leaping from building and killing of your targets.

Apart from that you're also task with liberating different parts of the city by burning down watch towers - which is not that bad. A nice addition is collecting Romulus armor where you need to traverse certain locations reminding of Tomb Raider tombs - enclosed areas where you rather explore than do combat in order to fetch different pieces of the armor - really enjoyed those missions.

This installment also fixes the controller support (xbox one) as it was broken for me both in first and second AC game.

My biggest problem with the game is the setting. The Rome at many parts feels just empty. There are wide gaps between denser areas. I've also hated Colosseum - which looked cool at first but was not fun at all to traverse. Combined with enough missions there to showcase probably the asset make me really hate this particular spot.

In the end it's just more of Assassin's Creed II with some improvement. Mechanically game feels better, setting was worse and the story didn't really thrill me. It's no point playing it without having a go at the predecessor but definitely worth picking up if you enjoyed the previous one.