Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia finished the trilogy in February 2016. It follows Nikolai Orelov in 1918, taking Assassin’s Creed into a much more recent historical setting…

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia finished the trilogy in February 2016. It follows Nikolai Orelov in 1918, taking Assassin’s Creed into a much more recent historical setting than most of the games that came before it. Nikolai wants to leave the Brotherhood, but one last mission brings him into the story of Anastasia Romanov. Getting her out safely becomes part of his attempt to escape, with the artifact and the wider Assassin–Templar conflict complicating everything. Like Arbaaz, Nikolai also has a history in the comics. The Fall and The Chain are part of his story, so Russia isn’t introducing him from nothing. It’s another piece of a character’s life that was already being told elsewhere. The setting gives this one a different look from China and India, but it still uses that concentrated Chronicles approach to stealth and movement instead of a large open world. Anastasia makes this one different because she becomes more than someone Nikolai is simply trying to get out of danger. She has playable sections of her own, and the connection to Shao Jun brings the trilogy’s earlier history back into the story. It gives the three games more of a link than just sharing the Chronicles name. By this point, the trilogy had taken us through three very different places and periods. That part of the idea had plenty of potential. My feelings about the games themselves are still mixed compared with the main series, but finishing all three gave me a chance to see what they were trying to do across the whole thing. I played this one from beginning to end as well. That was all three finished. They weren’t my favorite part of Assassin’s Creed, but they weren’t bad games either. I had fun with them, even if I wanted more from the idea.