Meet Ezio, the dashing hero of the Italian Renaissance in Assassin’s Creed II as he embarks on a quest to avenge his fallen family members and uncover a despicable plot that threatens to plunge all of Italy into chaos! Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood picks up immediately following the events of AC2, and follows Ezio as he delves deep into the heart of corruption in Rome, and rises to a position of prominence and leadership in the Brotherhood. In Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Ezio has become an older, wiser leader of the Assassins… his path will lead him to exotic Constantinople in search of truth, but will he find it within the ancient homelands of the Assassins?

With Assassin’s Creed III primed to launch on October 30, follow up the biggest game of the season with a little background on another legendary Master Assassin: Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Where do you think Connor, our newest hero, learned all of his moves?

In Assassin’s Creed Revelations, we’re linking our multiplayer and single-player experiences by including our multiplayer characters in the single-player campaign. What we want to show you today is a profile of one of these characters, specifically The Sentinel: a former Assassin who betrayed the Brotherhood to join the Templars. Watch our new video to discover how this vile turncoat will cross paths with Ezio!

You can see from the video that The Sentinel uses techniques in multiplayer that you might expect of an Assassin, killing quickly and quietly. He favors the discreet use of knives and his trusty Hidden Blade to eliminate his targets without alerting any nearby assailants. Of course, he’s not above the occasional flourish of brutality, crushing the life from his targets with a precisely placed stomp… which is always a useful tool for intimidating one’s opponents!

Tomorrow, you’ll all get the chance to step into the role of The Sentinel when Assassin’s Creed Revelations launches. You’ll also be introduced to the new modes and maps that we have added that nobody has ever seen before (even if you were fortunate enough to get into our exclusive PS3 Beta!). Corruption is an all-new mode in which “uncorrupted” players attempt to survive as long as they can against the opposing “corrupted” players looking to kill and thusly corrupt you! This mode is best played on the Souk map, which is a veritable warren of overhangs and tented areas especially designed to obscure predator and prey alike!

Hi everyone! It’s officially dark at 6pm and the crisp, woodsy smell in the air lets me know that the holidays are just around the corner. With so many great 3D-compatible titles, such as UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception, Batman Arkham City, and Assassin’s Creed Revelations, recently launched and coming, there’s no shortage of 3D entertainment on the PS3 system this holiday season. That being said, the 3D Display is sure to be a hit under the tree, so we thought we’d give you all a personalized tour of the product.

Featuring a luminous 24” LCD screen with full HD 1080p 3D presentation, the 3D Display delivers an incredible high-definition stereoscopic 3D experience, offering best-in-class visuals in both 2D and 3D for all of you gamers. As our first official gaming display, the 3D Display is enhanced for gaming with SimulView, a special feature that allows you to view individual, unique, full-screen images of gameplay in two-player mode.

We’re very excited to be able to deliver a comprehensive 3D package at an affordable price. We firmly believe that 3D games will lead the charge into 3D adoption and this bundle arrives when great 3D games are launching. The 3D Display bundle is available at a retailer near you for $499.99 (MSRP). It includes the 3D Display, a copy of MotorStorm Apocalypse, one pair of PlayStation 3D Glasses, and an HDMI cable. The 3D Glasses will also be available separately for $69.99 MSRP.

What 3D titles have you played? Are you excited about SimulView? Let us know!

Enter the rich fantasy world of Bethsdea’s Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in this month’s lead feature story. The open world environment is re-imagined and gorgeous. Veronica Belmont explores the new character progression and enhanced visuals as she re-experiences going one-on-one with a dragon!

Next, jump into Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Much has changed with the end of this story arc, Qore discovers why Ubisoft has a playable Altair, how Ezio’s new eagle vision impacts gameplay, and where the series will go from here.

As a follow up to Qore’s earlier profile of Naughty Dog’s Amy Hennig about the story of UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception, this month they focus on the amazing technology and behind the scenes engineering magic used to create the breathtaking environments and robust character animations (that I’ll be enjoying when I get home tonight).

Also check out the beautifully hand drawn environments and characters in the reboot of the classic Rayman Origins, which brings the series back to its 2D roots.

For everyone that downloads Qore this month we have an amazing UNCHARTED 3 theme you definitely don’t want to miss!

And, finally, as many of you already know, after 42 episodes, hundreds of feature stories, and thousands of miles traveled as the host of Qore, Veronica Belmont is leaving the show after this episode. Veronica’s been with the show since the beginning and we’ll miss her dedication, professionalism, and crazy sense of humor. We wish her all the best in her new endeavors.

We’ll be introducing the new host of Qore next month. But for now, here’s one final word from V:

Recently, Ubisoft invited us to sample the first few hours of Assassin’s Creed Revelations for PS3. I learned a lot during that play session:

• The control scheme has been revised, pushing Eagle Vision to L3. This frees up the Triangle button for secondary weapons such as daggers.
• Altair comes into play via flashbacks following the thrilling Masyaf key retrieval missions, which are the successors to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood’s Lairs of Romulus.
• The game map now has a Google Maps-style satellite view that I enjoyed while skipping around the sprawling city of Constantinople/Istanbul.
• The Den Defense mission brought tower defense-style sequences that are completely unlike anything I’ve seen in the Assassin’s Creed universe.
• I saw someone actually *use* the Apple of Eden.
• I noticed some different UI in the Animus, and started to wonder why the interface was different (and no, Ubisoft wouldn’t tell me).
• I saw Ezio stab a dude with a guitar – I think they called them “lutes” back then.

And I saw it all in 3D – those leaps of faith are now even more impressive. But it’s not about what I wanted to see; I went in to Ubisoft aiming to get answers to some of your questions. Read on to learn more about the dangerous world of Assassin’s Creed Revelations.

Will Ezio need some prune juice when he eats… because he is about 60 years old? (via @BeyondJizzy26)

While it’s true that our Ezio Auditore da Firenze now looks like The Most Interesting Man in the World, with experience comes wisdom. Early on in Revelations, Ezio is introduced to the hookblade, which enhances Ezio’s parkour skills in a couple of notable ways. When leaping into the air, you can hold down the Circle button to project the hookblade, giving Ezio an extra bit of reach. I adjusted to the move pretty quickly, and experienced noticeably fewer trip-ups while running across rooftops. It also grants compatibility with ziplines, which medieval Constantinople was apparently rife with. And what good would ziplines be if you couldn’t launch assassinations from them? Of course you can.

The hookblade is also battle-ready – the new Hook and Run move allows you to vault over enemies like a 70s action star slides across the hood of a car.

Hookblade aside, I noticed a new leg sweep move (Johnny would be proud), and a chest stomp that wouldn’t be out of place in the WWE. All of this is on top of the impressive arsenal of tricks Ezio earned in previous games, like double assassinations, disposable parachutes, an arm-mounted rifle and more. Would that we were all this spry in our 50s.

Is the super-cool feature where you can call assassins out of nowhere to attack still in the game? (via @francisganzo)

Yes, Ezio still can call in fellow assassins to create a diversion or to get him out of a jam. The feature has been upgraded for Revelations; you still recruit new assassins and send them around the Mediterranean on missions to level them up. When you level up one of your killers to the level of “Master Assassin,” you can assign him to protect one of your dens, preventing further Byzantine attacks.

There are also new challenges associated with these moves which yield tangible benefits. For instance, using your arrow storm and calling in your assassins a set amount of times will reward you with a faster recharging assassin signal, allowing you to use them more often. Similar challenges also applies to bomb usage and the various guilds, encouraging their use.

How many new weapons have been added to the game? Or are there new upgrades to it? (via @Allelujah00)

The aforementioned hookblade is the main difference, but the addition of bombs can change the way you play as well. I’ll be honest, after seeing Revelations demoed at E3, I was a bit worried that Assassin’s Creed was turning into a third-person shooter, but after my hands-on session those fears have been allayed.

Ezio’s bombs come in three flavors: lethal, tactical, and diversion. By combining different shells (impact, tripwire, sticky), actions (explosion, stinkbomb, smokebomb), and explosion radius, you can use bombs to perform a wide variety of actions. You could tag a guard with a stinkbomb to repel people, disappear in a huge puff of smoke, or just chuck explosives into a crowd for some good ol’ high-impact killing. You can only hold three of each type of bomb at any given time, so don’t expect to blast your way out of situations by chucking ‘nades.

Trophy list?! (via @max01payne and many others)

I took a peek at the Trophy list, and it’s got a similar mix as Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Some Trophies awarded for multiplayer success, and many are for single player, both for advancing the story and for performing certain skill actions, plus a range of completionist stuff. If I had to guess, this won’t be an easy game to Platinum.

Will we see Leonardo DaVinci? (via @Dean147)

I looked on the map for you, but didn’t see his icon as in past games. However, it seems that Da Vinci did do some consulting work for the sultan, so fingers crossed.

Is the PS3 version getting exclusive missions like last year? (via @snowman2149)

Exclusive missions? Try a whole game! Ubisoft is taking advantage of the extra space afforded by Blu-ray to gift you the entire original Assassin’s Creed as a free added bonus!

Assassin’s Creed Revelations hits PS3 on November 15th. Look for more here on the Blog in the leadup between now and then.

Hey there PlayStation Assassins! We have something exciting to share today: thanks to a special partnership with PlayStation and the incredible storage space offered by Blu-ray discs, we are offering a full version of the original Assassin’s Creed for free if you’re one of the first to buy Assassin’s Creed Revelations! Supplies are somewhat limited, however, so you’ll need to act quickly (pre-ordering might help ;D) in order to get a copy of the original Assassin’s Creed included on your Assassin’s Creed Revelations Blu-ray disc.

As you know, Assassin’s Creed Revelations will see Ezio follow in the footsteps of the legendary Assassin Mentor Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad on a quest to understand the true nature of what it means to be an Assassin. To prepare you for this journey, we thought it might be a good idea for you to have the game that started it all on-hand just in case you needed a quick refresher on Altaïr’s history.

Vittoria agli Assassini!

Since the Assassin’s Creed Revelations Beta is going so well, at 10:00 am tomorrow (PST) we have decided to open it up to ALL PSN USERS!! The Beta is scheduled to end on the 11th of September, so get started on that download ASAP so you don’t miss even a moment of the action!

In the meantime, I suggest you give our Beta guide a once over so you’re fully prepared.

See you out there!

Heya PlayStation Assassins! Gamescom, the world’s largest trade fair for interactive games and entertainment, has begun in Cologne, Germany. First off, on the show floor, the Assassin’s Creed Revelations booth will feature EIGHT gaming pods equipped with a new multiplayer build. This will be the very first time we’re showing this build to the public, and it will be the first time anyone outside of exclusive members of the press can get their hands on the all new Deathmatch mode! And don’t worry if you can’t wedge your way to the front of the line for multiplayer at our booth, because we’ll also have four additional multiplayer pods at the PlayStation booth to ensure that everyone at the show gets a chance to enjoy a fully updated version of one of the most innovative multiplayer games on the market.

Can’t get to Germany on such short notice? Fear not, Assassins, because we’re also unveiling some all-new gameplay footage! We’re rolling out an all-new single-player gameplay trailer covering some fresh territory that we’ve only hinted at in previous coverage and further demonstrates Ezio’s use of the Hookblade in both combat and navigation… and don’t be surprised if you happen to see a certain LEGENDARY Assassin make an appearance!

You asked for more information on Assassin’s Creed Revelations, my beloved Assassins… well, prepare to reap the whirlwind!

Vittoria agli Assassini!

Characters

Nine characters are available in the Beta which are all unlocked for your use at the outset. Though they share the same overall behavior, their animations differ and their ability sets are customizable. Available Characters include: The Sentinel, The Vanguard, The Guardian, The Vizier, The Thespian, The Deacon, The Bombardier, The Trickster and The Champion.

Maps

Three maps are available in the Beta and are all unlocked from the outset. Be sure to pay attention to their layouts in-game as these maps have been tuned to allow more strategy than those in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (it’s easier to break line-of-sight, for example).

· Knight’s Hospital

· Antioch

· Constantinople

Modes

Four modes are available in the Beta and are all unlocked from the outset. Two of these modes are returning favorites from Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, while the other two are brand new modes designed in response to player feedback. Available Modes include: Wanted, Manhunt, Deathmatch (NEW), and Artifact Assault (NEW).

Abilities

Eight Abilities are available in the Beta, but only some are available initially while others must be unlocked by increasing your rank. Although some Abilities return from Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, you may notice some slight tweaks resulting from player feedback. Available Abilities include: Tripwire Bomb (NEW), Closure (NEW), Disguise, Fire Crackers, Throwing Knives, Smoke Bomb, Poison and Morph.

Prepare yourselves Assassins… to go undercover into the very heart of Abstergo’s training grounds!

With the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3, for those in the know) wrapping up this week, we thought it might be nice to give you a quick round-up of the video content we’ve released for Assassin’s Creed Revelations. During the show, we’ve revealed a great many secrets surrounding ACR, detailing a wide variety of new gameplay features as well as delving deeper into the storyline of this essential piece of Ezio’s final adventure. We even had several multiplayer “pods” set up, both at our Ubisoft booth as well as at the Sony PlayStation booth, to enmesh show attendees in our innovative multiplayer (and show off a handful of the planned improvements we’re working on). So, without further ado, take a look below to see what Assassin’s Creed Revelations has in store!

This gorgeous trailer outlines the basic premise of Assassin’s Creed Revelations. During the trailer, we see Ezio travelling a great distance in order to reach Masyaf in the hopes of uncovering the secrets of Altair. When Ezio arrives, he is confronted by Templars… and the rest is in the video!

This video is the identical single-player walkthough that E3 attendees were able to see at the show! Demonstrating many new features in Assassin’s Creed Revelations, including upgraded Eagle Vision, Ezio’s new hook blade and the Greek Fire cannon, this walkthrough is intended to give you a tiny taste of the excitement and game mechanics you can expect from the game!

Following the traumatic events of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Desmond has a lot to figure out… so much, in fact, that he must take a journey deep into his subconscious. We’d like to say more, but it wouldn’t be much of a Teaser if we gave up all the secrets.

See you all again soon Assassins!
Gabe