Platform: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Publication date: October 5, 2018
Engine: AnvilNext
Months later his adventure in Egypt, Layla Hassan is now an agent of the Assassins; during a search campaign she finds the Spear that belonged to the King of Sparta Leonidas, broken after the Battle of Thermopylae, and recognizes in it an artifact from the First Civilization; with the help of Victoria Bibeau, Layla extracts the DNA of two siblings who lived in the fifth century B.C., Alexios and Kassandra, and chooses whether to follow the history of one or the other through the Animus in order to discover the location of the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus. The character he chooses to follow will be known as “the Misthios,” or the mercenary.
Misthios was the eldest son of Nicolaus and Myrrine, a Spartan warrior and the daughter of Leonidas, respectively. During the childhood of Misthios, Nicholas had learned a prophecy that his youngest son would bring destruction throughout the Greece, and had decided to throw it from the Taigeto; little Misthios had tried to save him, resulting in the death of the oracle who had foretold the prophecy and the apparent death of his brother (or sister, depending on whether you chose to impersonate Alexios or Kassandra). Such murder had then prompted Nicholas to sacrifice his own firstborn son as well. Each unbeknownst to the other, the two brothers both survived the fall; Misthios, recovering Leonidas’ broken spear, had managed to reach Cephalonia, where he was found by a greedy merchant, Marcus, who had made him a mercenary. Here Misthios grew up with his new family, consisting of Markus and a little orphan girl named Phoebe, performing dirty jobs until the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.
One day Misthios is contacted by Elpenor, a mysterious individual who offers him an assassination assignment: the killing of the “Wolf of Sparta.” Misthios agrees, but while carrying out his mission he discovers that the Wolf is actually his father Nicholas, now become a general and the father of an adopted son, Stentore, also a Spartan soldier. Misthios helps Stentore conquer the Megarid, keeping his identity a secret from him in order to have an interview with the Wolf. Having achieved victory over the Athenians in that region, the Misthios and Nicolaus have a dramatic confrontation at the end of which a decision can be made whether to execute the Wolf or spare his life. Nikolaus reveals to him that he was never his real father, but that he had raised and loved the two children as his own, despite the fact that his duty as a Spartan had led him to sacrifice both of them, and that Myrrine had conceived them with someone else before she met him, urging him to track her down to learn the truth about her origins. Upon returning to Elpenor, the latter reveals to him that he knew all along that Nicholas was his stepfather and entrusts him with another mission: to kill Myrrine. The mercenary refuses and Elpenor flees. Misthios then goes to Delphi to ask Pythiawhere Myrrine is; here he meets Herodotus, who recognizes in the weapon the mercenary carries the Spear of Leonidas, and decides to help him in his missions. The Pythia tells Misthios about a mysterious brotherhood, the Sect of Cosmos, that has commissioned the elimination of his entire family; Misthios therefore tracks down and kills Elpenore, also a member of the organization, and uses his disguise to sneak into a Sect meeting. Here he discovers that the Sect of Cosmos is a powerful order of warriors and politicians from all over Greece, whose purpose is to take possession of it by fomenting the Peloponnesian War, purposely creating chaos among the population in order to then set themselves up as saviors of the Greek momdo; he also meets Deimos, his missing younger brother/sister, who was raised by the Sect and became a strong and unscrupulous warrior in its service.
The Misthios therefore embarks on a journey throughout Greece, taking revenge on the members of the Sect and cleansing the world of their corruption. During his journey he fights from time to time for Sparta or Athens, meeting figures such as Pericles, Aspasia, Hippocrates, Socrates, Alcibiades and Aristophanes. After warning Pericles of the threat posed by the Sect of Cosmos, Misthios finds himself in an Athens brought to its knees by the plague, an event that favors the Sect itself in reaching out to the weakened father of democracy, killing him at the hands of Deimos. Phoebe, who had reached Athens shortly before, is also killed by assassins of the Sect of Cosmos, forcing Misthios to leave the Athenian polis along with Aspasia, Pericles’ companion and the next target of the conspirators. After these events, Misthios is able to reunite with Myrrine, who escaped from Sparta after the tragic night of the alleged death of her two sons, now at the head of the island of Naxos after embarking on the pirate’s life for a while. Misthios helps his newfound mother eliminate the threat of Paro, the rival island of Naxos, before returning to Sparta to reclaim her home. Myrrine explains that the real father of both children was Pythagoras, how she belonged to the lineage of the Isu, the descendants of the First Civilization, endowed with superhuman strength and “eagle sense,” which had led the Sect to mold Deimos as a human weapon and to track down and kill the other family members. She and Pythagoras had conceived the two children to preserve the genealogical line of Leonidas and Those Who Came Before. Back in Sparta, the Misthios unmasked one of the two kings, Pausanias, as a member of the Sect, killing him, but later arriving at the clash with Deimos during a battle between Spartans and Athenians, however, being captured by the Sect and discovering that he also Cleon, leader of Athens after the death of Pericles, was a member of them. Misthios escapes from prison and with the help of Socrates, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, and Brasidas (an old Spartan general and friend of Misthios’s family) manages first to expose Cleon’s corruption and then to kill him on the battlefield near Amphipolis. In the clash, Brasida is killed by Deimos but the latter is severely wounded by an arrow shot from behind, being presumed dead by Misthios. The latter and Myrrine again travel to Mount Taigeto to put their tragic past behind them once and for all, discovering to their enormous surprise that Deimos had survived and was there waiting for them. Depending on his actions during interactions with him, Deimos may or may not believe the words of his true family members, killing Myrrine in case he has failed to be fully redeemed, which will lead to the inevitable fratricidal duel. If not, Misthios will be able to bring him back on the right path by reforming his family with him/her, Myrrine, Nicolaus, and Stentore (if the latter two also survived Misthios’ choices). Misthios meets his real father Pythagoras, kept alive by the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus and now placed to guard Atlantis, the last stronghold of the First Civilization; the mathematician asks Misthios to help him seal the Lost City in order to preserve forever the wisdom contained therein; to do so, the mercenary will have to defeat four mythological creatures: the Sphinx, the Minotaur, a cyclops and Medusa, actually holograms created by the First Civilization to close the gates of Atlantis.
Once all the followers of the Cosmos Sect have been eliminated, Misthios goes to their meeting place to destroy the Pyramid, an artifact that allowed them to see into the future and which they used to subjugate Greece. In destroying it, the Pyramid gives him a vision of the battles that will happen in the future (corresponding to the timeline of the Assassin’s Creed series) and the world split down the middle between the eternal struggle between Order and Chaos. Shortly thereafter the head of the Sect reveals himself to Misthios: it is Aspasia, who tells of having once been at the top of the Sect, but having backed down when it had become progressively more corrupt and cruel to the point of killing her beloved Pericles, and therefore thanks him for destroying it, now wanting to create a new utopian vision in which order would prevail over everything. The Misthios can decide whether to eliminate her as well or leave her alive, but either way he decides to cut ties with what had been the “Spectre of the Sect.” Finally, once the Keys of Atlantis have been found, the Misthios returns to Pythagoras to seal the City; this action triggers a recording of Aletheia, one of the Precursors, who warns the Misthios (and through them Layla as well) that their wisdom is not made for humankind, and that it will have to be destroyed to allow humans to develop their true potential. Pythagoras surrenders the Staff to Misthios willingly or unwillingly according to the words used in dialogues with him, and then dies; Misthios will then continue his adventures in Greece.
In the present, Layla uses the information gathered through the Misthios story to locate Atlantis and travels there to reopen the City; here, to her surprise, she finds the Misthios, kept alive by the Staff of Hermes. The Misthios reveals to Layla that the world needs a continuous balance between order (the Templars) and chaos (the Assassins), and that the prevalence of either faction over the other would cause the destruction of humanity; when Layla reveals that she is an Assassin who was once a Templar, the Misthios reveals to her that she may be the key to the balance between order and chaos, as was predicted in the Pyramid prophecy. Misthios sacrifices himself by handing over the Staff of Hermes to Layla, not before asking her to continue her battle and destroy all artifacts of the First Civilization.
