Assassin’s Creed II is where Ezio’s story starts, and there is a lot more going on here than just introducing another Assassin.

Assassin’s Creed II is where Ezio’s story starts, and there is a lot more going on here than just introducing another Assassin. The first game brought us into the conflict through Altaïr. This one lets us watch someone get pulled into it. Ezio starts out as a young man in Florence with a family, friends, and a life that has nothing to do with understanding this enormous war. Then his father and brothers are executed, and everything changes. What begins with him going after the people responsible gradually becomes something much bigger. That’s an important part of this game. Ezio doesn’t walk into the story already knowing everything. He learns. His uncle Mario helps train him. Leonardo da Vinci becomes a friend and helps turn what Ezio finds into equipment he can actually use. His mother Maria and his sister Claudia survive that initial betrayal, and Monteriggioni becomes a place for the family to rebuild. And the game itself expands right along with him. Florence and Venice have completely different personalities. You have the countryside around San Gimignano, Forlì, the villa, the tombs, the hidden messages, and all these little pieces of history worked into the larger story. There’s more equipment to use, more ways to approach people, and more to do outside the next assassination. The double hidden blades, swimming, disarming enemies, hiring people to distract guards, and improving the villa all help make it feel like the series is growing. The tombs give the climbing and movement their own challenges. The glyphs take you into a completely different kind of mystery. In the present day, this is still Desmond’s story. He’s out of Abstergo and working with Lucy, Rebecca, and Shaun. While we watch Ezio learn, Desmond is learning through him. That connection matters, because these aren’t just historical stories sitting next to each other. What happens in the past keeps reaching forward. This is also only the beginning of Ezio’s part in the series. Brotherhood carries his story forward, and Revelations brings another stage of it. So when I go through this first wave, ACII deserves more than a quick mention. There’s the story, the changes to the gameplay, and a lot to cover for anybody trying to finish everything.