Assassin's Creed 2

Assassin's Creed 2 follows up the record-breaking original with a new hero and a new age. Ezio Auditore da Firenze is a young Italian noble who turns to the assassins' path after his family is betrayed, setting out to avenge them. Charming and free-spirited yet recognizably human, Ezio carries players through his transformation into a master assassin.

The setting is fifteenth-century Italy, less a unified country than a patchwork of city-states where powerful families seize control of places like Florence and Venice. Ezio befriends Leonardo da Vinci, takes on Florence's mightiest houses and threads the canals of Venice, all amid an era when art and culture flourished alongside corruption, greed and murder.

The open-ended world brings back free-running and adds swimming and even flight, letting players approach missions when and how they wish. A dynamic crowd turns every passerby into an opportunity, making it easier to blend in or enlist help, though cooperation can lead to surprising consequences. Ezio earns new weapons, learns to disarm enemies and turn their own arms against them, and strikes with twin hidden blades. Online features for the game were retired in November 2018.