When and Where It Takes Place
Where Rogue Fits Into the Assassin’s Creed Timeline
Spoiler warning: In the spirit of the game’s new release on current generation consoles, we’re recapping where Rogue fits into the story and timeline for the entire Assassin’s Creed franchise. While we’ve tried to avoid major spoilers, some of the details of its story are contained in this article. Obviously, avert your eyes if you’re particularly worried about any potential giveaways.
The story of Assassin’s Creed: Rogue takes place between 1752 – 1760. As is typical of the series, the main narrative focus pertains to the war between the Templars and the Assassins, which takes place across locations: New York, the Hudson River Valley, and the North Atlantic Ocean. Much of the story takes place during The Seven Year’s War, a global conflict that took place between 1754-1763, fought between multiple European nations, primarily Great Britain and France. Intense fighting in North America saw the French ally with native Iroquois tribes to push back the British advance, prompting the infamous French and Indian War. All of these historical events set the stage for Rogue’s dramatic story, filled with plenty of cloak and dagger conspiracy, and a tale of revenge.
Rogue’s historical setting places it closest to Assassin’s Creed III and Assassin’s Creed: Liberation. The Colonial America branch of the Assassin Brotherhood plays a central role in the game, and they’re lead by a character most fans will be familiar with: Achilles Davenport, Connor’s teacher. Rogue also works as a conclusion to the Kenway saga, wrapping up the stories of Haytham, Edward, and Connor.
The modern story of the game takes place one year after the events of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, with you taking control of a new unnamed Abstergo employee. While exploring the memories of Shay Patrick Cormac, an Irish assassin, you inadvertently trip something that corrupts the Abstergo servers. The crux of Rogue has you unraveling Cormac’s story, and finding out the truth about who he really is.
Who is Shay Patrick Cormac
Where Rogue Fits Into the Assassin’s Creed Timeline
At the beginning of the game, Shay Patrick Cormac is a member of the Colian America Assassin Brotherhood, but he’s just an initiate. While Cormac is relegated to a secondary role at first, Achilles believes giving him an important task can help the young man prove himself. Because of this, Cormac is given the task of hunting down a Piece of Eden that was stolen from the Caribbean Assassins.
His search takes him to Lisbon, but along the way starts to doubt the intentions of the Brotherhood. When he retrieves the piece, a massive earthquake levels the city, shaking Cormac’s beliefs to his core. A string of events leads him to join the Templars, and he becomes a dangerous Assassin hunter, whose sole goal is to hunt down his former mentors. Cormac is actually introduced to the Templar Order by Haytham Kenway, the father of Connor in Assassin’s Creed III and a central character of that game. Over the years Cormac becomes an infamous Assassin hunter, and he eventually ventures to Versailles in order to track down a dangerous item the Brotherhood was using to locate Pieces of Eden. While Rogue is a side story, Cormac’s role in the overall narrative is quite a bit deeper than you’d expect.
Which Games It Ties to Directly
Where Rogue Fits Into the Assassin’s Creed Timeline
There are three games that Rogue ties directly to: Assassin’s Creed III, Black Flag, and Unity. The ties to Assassin’s Creed III are the most obvious, considering the two games take place roughly around the same time period. Haytham Kenway’s involvement shows a bit of how the Templar Order grew to power in the Americas, and the Brotherhood lost its foothold. Achilles is a confident, daring leader in Rogue, a far cry from his crippled and bitter character he played in III. All of this is given context and explanation in Rogue. There’s plenty of other familiar faces you’ll bump into, which makes Rogue feel more substantially connected to the overall picture.
But its ties to Black Flag aren’t quite as fleshed out. There’s just one character that appears in both: Edward Kenway’s quartermaster, Adewale. He does, however, play an important role in the story at one point, which we won’t spoil how. Finally, the events of Rogue actually play right into the beginning of Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Some twenty years pass during the time periods that Rogue shows, and the final events of the game have Cormac tracking down a French assassin named Charles Dorian. That name is significant for anyone that’s played Unity, as Charles Dorian is the father of the game’s main character, Arno Dorian. Rogue is the catalyst that sets into motion the events of Unity, and if you’re really into the connecting story of the series it’s a must-play.
Published: Mar 20, 2018 01:10 pm