Story beats · 8

1. 01Monteriggioni falls

   Cesare Borgia answers the Vault with cannon fire. Mario dies, the Apple is taken, and Ezio limps out of his family's fortress with nothing but intent.

2. 02Rome, occupied

   The Eternal City is a Borgia machine — towers, taxes, terror. Ezio finds the local Brotherhood down to one strategist and a bad mood.

3. 03Towers and recruits

   Every Borgia tower burned frees a district; every freed district yields the aggrieved. Ezio trains them, and Rome's rooftops grow crowded with allies.

4. 04Starving the beast

   The Banker, the French general, the executioner: Ezio kills Cesare's money, army and knife, and lets the man himself rot in the middle of the web.

5. 05The Borgia eat their own

   Cornered by his father's caution, Cesare poisons Pope Alexander VI — and hands the papacy, and his own arrest, to the Borgia's enemies.

6. 06Viana, 1507

   'No man can murder me.' Ezio, holding him over the castle wall: 'Then I leave you in the hands of fate.' The fall closes the Borgia chapter for good.

7. 07The vault under the Colosseum

   Ezio seals the Apple beneath Rome with a message only the Animus can read — the first time an ancestor knowingly writes to the future.

8. 08The Temple's first victim

   Desmond takes the Apple in 2012. Juno takes Desmond. Lucy falls to his own blade, and the team loads a comatose Subject 17 back into the Animus.

Characters

• 
  Ezio Auditore da Firenze

  Now Mentor in all but name — rebuilding the Brotherhood inside the Templars' capital

  protagonist
• 
  Cesare Borgia

  Rodrigo's son — no patience for shadows, wants Italy by cannon

  antagonist
• 
  Niccolò Machiavelli

  Doubts Ezio's mercy, documents his method

  ally
• 
  Claudia Auditore

  From bookkeeper to Madame of the Rosa in Fiore to Assassin

  ally
• 
  Bartolomeo d'Alviano

  Mercenary captain, subtle as a siege tower

  ally
• 
  Juno

  The Isu voice with her own plans for Desmond

  antagonist
• 
  Desmond Miles

  Exploring present-day Monteriggioni between sessions

  modern

OppositionTemplar Order (the Borgia)

Modern frameDesmond Miles

Pieces of Eden

• Apple of Eden

Connections

• AC IIDirect sequel

  Opens days after the Vatican Vault — same Ezio, same Apple, new war.

• AC RevelationsDirect sequel

  Desmond's coma is the reason Revelations happens inside the Animus' Black Room.

• AC IIICharacter

  Juno's manipulation of Desmond here is the opening move of the Grand Temple endgame.

In game · 8 shots

Trailer

YouTube · loads on play

Introduced to the series

• Assassin recruits & the brotherhood call
• Borgia towers / district liberation
• Shop, guild & landmark investment in one city
• Competitive multiplayer debut

Institution-building · Power as infrastructure · Mercy audited · One city as a whole world