The game takes place almost entirely in the town of Monteriggioni and Rome. The Tuscan town is home to Villa Auditore, the general headquarters of the sect of the Assassins, which also featured in the previous chapter in the series. The capital, as with Venice and Florence in the previous chapter, is reconstructed in great detail here. The Monteriggioni in the game features the same outer walls in the actual town, although there is no Villa Auditore in real life (there is a very similar villa not far from the town’s walls). The city of Rome in the game is three times bigger than Florence. Reconstructed using comparisons between modern maps and old maps, worth mentioning is the meticulous work on not only the urban context, but the Roman countryside and the underground city too. Also very interesting is the player’s interaction with the city’s artistic heritage through the game’s unique ‘recover’ mode, in which the protagonist must free various areas of the city from the control of the Borgia family, by helping to construct new workshops and restoring monuments like the Pantheon and the Colosseum. Some missions take place on the Alban Hills, on Mount Circeo, in the Valnerina and in Naples. In the case of the second to last, no specific locations are recognisable: the Valnerina takes its name from the River Nera, which runs from the Sibillini Mountains in the Marches, and comes into its own mainly in Umbria. The fortress shown on the mission, albeit generically medieval, perhaps references the Rocca Borgesca, which was built on the orders of Cesare Borgia in Camerino (a municipality to the north of the Sibillini Mountains). At the beginning of the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci was hired by none other than Cesare Borgia, who exploited his military expertise (as shown in the mission featured in Brotherhood). In the case of the latter, we see Vesuvius and Castel dell’Ovo. That said, the game contains the usual but forgivable historical inaccuracies (for example the alleged rivalry between Machiavelli – the Grand Master of the Assassins – and Cesare Borgia – the Grand Master of the Templars: in real life the writer was inspired by the warlord for the protagonist of his famous piece, The Prince). In the eternal city the player can explore various places of interest, including the Pantheon, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Colosseum, the Baths of Diocletian and Caracalla and many more. The overall architectural style is more Baroque than Late Renaissance, as the city would have looked very similar to Florence in the previous chapter.
The game takes place almost entirely in the town of Monteriggioni and Rome. The Tuscan town is home to Villa Auditore, the general headquarters of the sect of the Assassins, which also featured in the previous chapter in the series. The capital, as with Venice and Florence in the previous chapter, is reconstructed in great detail here. The Monteriggioni in the game features the same outer walls in the actual town, although there is no Villa Auditore in real life (there is a very similar villa not far from the town’s walls). The city of Rome in the game is three times bigger than Florence. Reconstructed using comparisons between modern maps and old maps, worth mentioning is the meticulous work on not only the urban context, but the Roman countryside and the underground city too. Also very interesting is the player’s interaction with the city’s artistic heritage through the game’s unique ‘recover’ mode, in which the protagonist must free various areas of the city from the control of the Borgia family, by helping to construct new workshops and restoring monuments like the Pantheon and the Colosseum. Some missions take place on the Alban Hills, on Mount Circeo, in the Valnerina and in Naples. In the case of the second to last, no specific locations are recognisable: the Valnerina takes its name from the River Nera, which runs from the Sibillini Mountains in the Marches, and comes into its own mainly in Umbria. The fortress shown on the mission, albeit generically medieval, perhaps references the Rocca Borgesca, which was built on the orders of Cesare Borgia in Camerino (a municipality to the north of the Sibillini Mountains). At the beginning of the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci was hired by none other than Cesare Borgia, who exploited his military expertise (as shown in the mission featured in Brotherhood). In the case of the latter, we see Vesuvius and Castel dell’Ovo. That said, the game contains the usual but forgivable historical inaccuracies (for example the alleged rivalry between Machiavelli – the Grand Master of the Assassins – and Cesare Borgia – the Grand Master of the Templars: in real life the writer was inspired by the warlord for the protagonist of his famous piece, The Prince). In the eternal city the player can explore various places of interest, including the Pantheon, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Colosseum, the Baths of Diocletian and Caracalla and many more. The overall architectural style is more Baroque than Late Renaissance, as the city would have looked very similar to Florence in the previous chapter.
Ezio Auditore is once again the protagonist of this instalment, the direct sequel to the previous chapter which ended at Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. Ezio must face members of the Borgia family, who belong to the Knights Templar, in the Italian capital. Heading up the enemy faction is the famous warlord Cesare Borgia. The game develops like the previous chapter, without any significant changes, with the exception of the addition of a multiplayer mode that allows players to take control of characters other than the protagonist Ezio.
