The Definitive Chronological Playing Order Of The Assassin’s Creed Games

With the release of Odyssey, the Assassin’s Creed timeline now stretches across over two and a half millennia.

Considering the series is known for blending the fantasy elements with real history, that’s a pretty fascinating, and complicated, chronology. In this post, we’ll break down the timeline based on in-game details and information drawn from the transmedia universe of novels, comics, websites, and other canonical entries.

Given that some of the games, Revelations in particular, take place across the timeline, we’ll be ordering the games by the setting of their main narrative. We’re also primarily covering the “historical” sections of the game, but may flesh out the timeline with the “modern” storyline in the future.

[Update] Updated for the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla reveal trailer.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (431 BC)

Odyssey is the earliest entry in the Assassin’s Creed timeline by several centuries. It predates the Assassin Brotherhood by some time, and connects to the rest of the series by exploring how First Civilization artifacts were used in the ancient world in and around Greece. The story’s primary antagonist organization, the Cult of Kosmos, may also be an early predecessor of the Templar Order.

Assassin’s Creed Origins: Desert Oath (Approx. 70 BC)

This novel acts as a prequel to Origins, and follows a boy named Bayek who would later go on to become a Medjay.

Assassin’s Creed Origins (49-43 BC)

Origins is set in Egypt during the time of Cleopatra, and explores the beginnings of what would become the Assassin Brotherhood through a Medjay named Bayek.

Assassin’s Creed Origins – Comic (30 BC)

This comic book miniseries is set in the final days of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, and centers around the formative years of the Assassins Order.

The Ankh of Isis Trilogy (259 AD)

This trilogy of graphic novels is an interesting addition to the timeline, as the “modern” segments of the story were later deemed non-canonical. The “historical” aspects remain canon for now though, and follow the Assassins (then called Liberalis Circulum) during the Roman Empire.

Assassin’s Creed: Dynasty (755 AD)

This ongoing manga series takes place during the Tang dynasty, and follows an assassin named Li E.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Song of Glory (~870 AD)

This ongoing comic follows Eivor before the events of Valhalla.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (873 AD)

Valhalla‘s reveal trailer showed the invasion of Britain by Vikings, a real historical event that took place in 873.

Assassin’s Creed: Altaïr’s Chronicles (1190 AD)

Altaïr’s Chronicles is a DS and mobile game following Altaïr before the events of the original Assassin’s Creed. It takes place during the Third Crusade in and around Jerusalem.

Assassin’s Creed (1191 AD)

The original Assassin’s Creed games follows Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad as he undertakes a series of assassination missions during the time of the Third Crusade.

Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines (1191 AD)

Bloodlines takes place directly after the events of Assassin’s Creed, following Altaïr as he learns of the Templars’ plan to escape to Cyprus.

Assassin’s Creed: Reflections #2 (1227 AD)

This comic book issue follows an adventure Altaïr had in China.

The Secret Crusade (1256 AD)

This novel tracks the life of the Asssassin Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, as recorded by Niccolò Polo (the father of Marco Polo). Its frame story also connects it to Assassin’s Creed II era, with Ezio discovering the account of Altaïr and reading it.

The Hawk Trilogy

Similar to the previous collection of graphic novels (The Ankh of Isis), this trilogy features a non-canonical “modern” storyline, and a canon “historical” one. The latter follows a character named Numa Al’Khamsin, a member of the Egyptian Brotherhood of Assassins, on a mission to acquir the Scepter of Aset.

Assassin’s Creed Lineage (1476 AD)

This collection of three short films jumps the narrative forward to the 15th century, and details the exploits of Ezio Auditore’s father, the assassin Giovanni.

Assassin’s Creed II (1459-1500 AD)

Set during the Italian Renaissance, this story follows Ezio Auditore da Firenze as he undertakes training as an Assassin in order to avenge his slain family.

Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery (1491 AD)

Taking place during the events of Assassin’s Creed II, this DS/mobile game is a side story follows Ezio as he assists the Venetian Thieves Guild with a threat from the Spanish Inquisition.

Assassin’s Creed Movie (1492 AD)

Set during 15th Century Spain, the film adaptation of Assassin’s Creed is canonical, featuring an appearance by Arno Dorian, and being referenced in Assassin’s Creed Origins.

Assassin’s Creed Ascendance (1500 AD)

This short film bridges the story between Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood, that follows Ezio and his friend Leonardo DaVinci as they seek information on the Borgia’s rise to power.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (1500-1507 AD)

Taking place directly after the end of Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood follows Ezio as he goes to Rome to take the fight to the Borgia family while he rebuilds the assassin ranks.

Assassin’s Creed: Reflections #1 (1504 AD)

This comic book issue follows Ezio Auditore and his connection to the Mona Lisa.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations (1511 AD)

In the final installment of the “Ezio Trilogy,” the character travels to Constantinople searching for Altair’s secret library, and in the process uncovers the story of his final days.

Assassin’s Creed Volume 3: Homecoming (1516 AD)

This comic book arc follows Hiram Stoddard, a former pupil of Ezio Auditore.

Assassin’s Creed Embers (1524 AD)

A short CGI film set during Ezio’s twilight years, Embers centers around the training of the assasssin student Shao Jun.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China (1526 AD)

This installment of the Chronicles sub-series continues the story of Ezio’s student Shao Jun as she returns to China during the fall of the Ming dynasty.

Assassin’s Creed Volume 2: Setting Sun (1535 AD)

This comic book arc follows Quila, a chasqui (messenger) living in the Incan Empire. Quila inadvertently discovers a plot to assassinate the Incan emperor, drawing her into a conflict between the Assassins and Templar.

Assassin’s Creed Volume 1: Trial by Fire (1692)

This comic book arc follows Tom Stoddard, a Master Assassin who is on assignment in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials. Stoddard is the descendant of Hiram Stoddard, an assassin trained by Ezio Auditore, and the ancestor of Charlotte de la Cruz, a modern-day Assassin.

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag (1712-1722 AD)

This narrative centers around Edward Kenway during the Golden Age of Piracy as he sets off to make his fortune… only to be pulled into a conflict between the Assassins and the Templars over an ancient artifact called “The Observatory.”

Assassin’s Creed: Pirates (1716 AD)

This mobile game (now offline and unavailable to play) follows Alonzo Batilla, a captain during the Golden Age of Piracy as he crosses paths with both Assassins and Templar.

Assassin’s Creed: Reflections #3 (1722 AD)

This comic book issue follows Edward Kenway during a confrontation with the pirate Ned Low.

Assassin’s Creed Forsaken (1735 AD)

This novel is presented as Haytham Kenway’s personal journal, beginning with his childhood and continuing into his rise through the Templar Order.

Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry (1735-1737 AD)

The standalone expansion to Black Flag follows Edward Kenway’s former first mate Adewale, as he engages on a quest to free slaves and disrupt the slave trade in the Caribbean.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue (1752-1760 AD)

Assassin-turned-Templar Shay Cormac hunts down his former brethren during the Seven Years’ War. Many characters in this game, such as Edward’s son Haytham Kenway and Achilles Davenport, are major players in Assassin’s Creed III; and the end of the game acts as a prologue for Assassin’s Creed Unity.

Assassin’s Creed III (1754-1783 AD)

This installment follows Haytham’s son Conner, also known as Ratonhnhaké:ton, as he assists the American Revolution in order to save his Native American tribe from the Templar Order.

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation (1765-1777 AD)

In this PSP game set in the Louisiana Bayou, African-French assassin Aveline de Grandpre battles the Templars in New Orleans towards the end of the French and Indian War

Assassin’s Creed Unity (1776-1808 AD)

Set in Paris during the French Revolution, Unity introduces the assassin Arno Dorian as he seeks to expose the corruption behind the Revolution.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Aveline (1784 AD)

This standalone mission for Black Flag takes place in Rhode Island following Aveline’s mission to recruit an escaped slave into the Assassin Order.

Assassin’s Creed: Reflections #4 (1796 AD)

This comic book issue follows the assassin Connor and his daughter, Io:Nhiòte.

Assassin’s Creed Templars Volume 2: Cross of War (1805)

This comic book arc follows the Templar Solomon Bolden in the Mediterranean region.

Assassin’s Creed: Brahman (1839 AD)

This comic book series introduces Arbaaz Mir Kashmiri, Master Assassin of the Indian Brotherhood of Assassins at Amritsar, a storyline that is eventually continued in Chronicles: India.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India (1841 AD)

The assassin Arbaaz Mir attempts to recover the Koh-i-Noor diamond during a war between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company.

Assassin’s Creed Underworld (1862 AD)

This novel follows Henry Green and Detective Abberline in a story that begins six years before the start of Syndicate.

Assassin’s Creed: Last Descendants – Locus (1863 AD)

This comic book miniseries follows Tommy Greyling, a Pinkerton detective. His memories were relived by his descendent Sean Molloy, who is helping the Templars look for the Trident of Eden in the present day.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate (1868 AD)

Syndicate tells the story of twins Jacob and Evie Frye, who must unite the factions or organized crime in Victorian London in order to fight the Templars. A section of the narrative also follows Jacob’s descendant during World War I.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate: Jack The Ripper (1888 AD)

Set 20 years after the main narrative of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Evie hunts for famed murderer Jack the Ripper.

Assassin’s Creed: The Fall & The Chain (1888 AD)

These comic book series introduce Nikolai Orelov, a member of the Narodnaya Volya, the Russian branch of the Order of Assassins.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia (1918 AD)

The final installment of the Chronicles trilogy follows Russian assassin Nikolai Orelov, a character originally introduced in the comic Assassin’s Creed: Subject Four. The story is set in 1918, just after the October Revolution, and centers around Orelov’s mission to save the grand duchess, Anastasia, who shares memories with the assassin Shao Jun. A hidden ending in Chronicles: Russia reveals the Precursor box’s role in the Phoenix Project.

Assassin’s Creed Templars Volume 1: Black Cross (1927 AD)

This comic book arc follows Darius Gift as he travels to Shanghai to undertake his first mission for the Templar Order. It introduces the titular Black Cross faction of the Templars, and Juhani Otso Berg, leader of the Templar Sigma Strike Team.

Assassin’s Creed: Uprising Volume 2: Inflection Points (1937 AD)

This comic book arc follows Ignacio Cardona, a member of the Spanish Brotherhood of Assassins, during the Spanish Civil War.

Assassin’s Creed: Conspiracies (1943 AD)

This comic book series is set during World War II and follows Eddie Gorm as he becomes embroiled in the race to invent atomic weapons.

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodstone (1963 AD)

This story, to date the furthest along on the timeline in terms of the “historic” narrative, follows Alekseï Gavrani. Gavrani is an Assassin and former Soviet hitman. He is recruited by the CIA to undertake a mission during the Vietnam War.

43 Comments

  1. Last Locus is actually ’72, according to the comic. I’m reading it now. It had been a while since I’ve played Syndicate so I’m not sure how it lines up but I wanted to let you know, according to the comic, it takes place in 1872.

  2. Liberation was on the PlayStation Vita not the PSP. They also brought out liberation HD for 360 and it works on series X just fine.

  3. Yo, for the record, your Dynasty link goes to Amazon but it’s for a Shao Jun manga. It’s not Dynasty. I’ve also discovered it isn’t released, in english, until September of this year. It’s only out in French and/or Chinese which occurred this month. Love your list, though. Love your work and have completed almost my entire collection based off of it. Kudos and thank you.

  4. I have followed this timeline in my quest to finish all the games on PC and I just want to say THANK YOU. I just finished Russia and I can say i have officially finished every game in chronological order. The last game that i will play is Valhalla on a higher end pc this month.

    1. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Identity is not canon and therefore not in this main timeline

  5. Did anyone else have a hard time following the story of Liberation? I remember finishing the game and just having this feeling of “wait… WHAT?”

    1. yeah Liberation’s story is pretty messy… uh, don’t worry about it too much lol
      I liked the game though.

  6. hey so i like this website and it really fits well but im confused. it says ac 1 takes place in 1191 AD but then it says later on that altair traveled to china in 1504 AD. i dont know if its an error of if this is actually what happened. i would like if you could respond to this because i’m seriously confused lol. thank you!

      1. ok thanks for fixing it, i thought for a moment that he used the apple of eden to become immortal for a moment lol. i dont know the lore that well so i want to play the games because its more fun than watching someone explaining it

  7. How is the games play order affected if you arrange them based on events outside the animus rather than by the era’s in which you play the assassins??

    1. I’m pretty sure the modern day sequences are chronological by release date of the game. I could be remembering wrong. But I’ve played all but Odyssey, Valhalla, and some of the mobile games, and I’m pretty sure each game’s modern day segments follow the modern day segments of the previous game. Some might have been so light on those aspects of the story though that you could argue them falling just about anywhere in the timeline, I suppose.

    2. Honestly the shit that happens outside the animus makes little to no sense if you play them in game order anyway. You’d be better off just watching someone’s summary to really understand all the first civilization crap. I think if you play them in chronological order you can really see the progression of how the Templar and assassins came to be and the links between time periods which I think is a lot more interesting. The whole animus storyline is basically just there to explain away the HUD.

  8. Missing
    ank of Isis trilogy
    The hawk trilogy
    Uprising volume 1 and volume 3
    Locus comic 1-4
    Reflections comic 1-4
    Origins comic 1-4
    Dynasty manga (ongoing)
    Song of glory manga (upcoming)

  9. Just want to give you props for doing this list!

    I’m re-playing all the older games and its mad how many DLC’s and whatnot i missed!

  10. What about Assassin’s Creed: Pirates (2013) during the Golden Age of Piracy? Even if it is an Android/iOS game, I think it deserves to be mentioned.

  11. This may have already been said, but if you watch the ac movie, it is about Giovanni (Ezios father). So the movie would go before ac 2.

    Other then that, I found out the hard way that black flag came before ac 3 and did not know that rogue came after acbf. Thank you for those site

  12. Thanks for this. I recently bought a bunch of assassins creed titles and i wanted to playing them in order to learn more about Desmonds and The First Civilizations Story. Thanks a bunch.

  13. Looking at the timeline for AC Rogue, it doesn’t seem to include the later memories from Paris and Versailles in the timeline given for Rogue. Given their relevance to Unity, they’re pretty important.

  14. This is pretty awesome, been looking for something like it. However, a couple of things seem to be missing. There’s the movie Lineage, which I believe is set just before ACII, and Ascendance, which I *think* is set between ACII and ACB but I’m not entirely sure. If you could add these, it would be great! Thanks

      1. Thank you so much! You might be aware of this already – I think you’ve created the only easy-to-find resource that attempts to place each game in chronological order (in terms of events and gameplay).

        Even the AC Wikia is incredibly obtuse when it comes to something as simple as “the game / historical order is as follows”.

        Right now, I have access to a PS4 and Xbox One and AC4, Freedom Cry, Aveline DLC, and Unity. While I would love to play Rogue, I don’t have an Xbox 360 or PS3 at the moment, so I’m trying to figure out the “intro” and “capping” (concluding) events in each game to figure out the impact of temporarily skipping Rogue (until, hopefully, it becomes BWC on Xbox One).

        Any thoughts on that?

        1. You should be fine. The game Rogue effects the most is ACIII by providing backstory, which wasn’t really needed in the first place. Rogue was designed as a supplemental experience, so you should be just fine playing from ACIV on. Worst case you need to glance at a wiki!

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