# Assassin's Creed games in order, and where to start

**November 9, 2026 · Perthro**

Assassin's Creed has fourteen main games, and the series had sold more than 250 million copies as of July 2026. It has also changed shape twice. The early games are compact stealth adventures set in a single city. From 2017 the series became a run of very large open-world RPGs. And in July 2026 Ubisoft went back and remade one of the old ones, with Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.

The short answer: you don't need to play them in order. Each game is set in a different period with a different lead, and the modern-day story that links them is thin enough to ignore. For a first game, play Black Flag Resynced if you want the classic style in a modern package, Assassin's Creed II if you want to see why the series took off, or Assassin's Creed Odyssey if you'd rather have a huge RPG. Below is every main game in release order, the same list by historical setting, and where each can be played in late 2026.

## Assassin's Creed games in order of release

| # | Game | Released | Original platform | Where to play it in late 2026 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Assassin's Creed | 2007 | PS3, Xbox 360 | PC; Xbox via backward compatibility |
| 2 | Assassin's Creed II | 2009 | PS3, Xbox 360 | The Ezio Collection: PS4, Xbox One, Switch; original on PC |
| 3 | Assassin's Creed Brotherhood | 2010 | PS3, Xbox 360 | The Ezio Collection; original on PC |
| 4 | Assassin's Creed Revelations | 2011 | PS3, Xbox 360 | The Ezio Collection; original on PC |
| 5 | Assassin's Creed III | 2012 | PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U | Remastered: PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC |
| 6 | Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag | 2013 | PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U | PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC; remade as Black Flag Resynced |
| 7 | Assassin's Creed Rogue | 2014 | PS3, Xbox 360 | Remastered: PS4, Xbox One, Switch; original on PC |
| 8 | Assassin's Creed Unity | 2014 | PS4, Xbox One, PC | Same |
| 9 | Assassin's Creed Syndicate | 2015 | PS4, Xbox One, PC | Same |
| 10 | Assassin's Creed Origins | 2017 | PS4, Xbox One, PC | Same |
| 11 | Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 2018 | PS4, Xbox One, PC | Same |
| 12 | Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 2020 | PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC | Same |
| 13 | Assassin's Creed Mirage | 2023 | PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC | Same, plus iPhone and iPad |
| 14 | Assassin's Creed Shadows | 2025 | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac | Same, plus Switch 2 since December 2, 2025 |
| Remake | Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced | July 9, 2026 | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC | Same |

PS4 and Xbox One versions run on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Unity got an update in March 2026 that lets it run at 4K and 60 frames per second on the newer consoles, which finally makes it play the way it looked in 2014.

The first game is the awkward one. It was never re-released for PS4 or PS5, so on PlayStation the series effectively starts with Assassin's Creed II.

![Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced screenshot from the Steam version of the 2026 remake](https://perthro.io/assets/blog/cd1f91fa84dc2f72.jpg)

## Assassin's Creed games in chronological order

Sorted by when the historical story takes place, the list looks very different. The newest RPGs go to the front.

| Story order | Game | Setting | When |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Odyssey | Ancient Greece, the Peloponnesian War | 431 to 422 BC |
| 2 | Origins | Ptolemaic Egypt | 49 to 43 BC |
| 3 | Mirage | Baghdad | 861 |
| 4 | Valhalla | Norway and England, the Viking age | 872 to 878 |
| 5 | Assassin's Creed | The Holy Land, the Third Crusade | 1191 |
| 6 | Assassin's Creed II | Renaissance Italy | 1476 to 1499 |
| 7 | Brotherhood | Rome | 1499 to 1507 |
| 8 | Revelations | Constantinople | 1511 to 1512 |
| 9 | Shadows | Japan, the late Sengoku period | From 1579 |
| 10 | Black Flag (or Resynced) | The Caribbean, the golden age of piracy | 1715 to 1722 |
| 11 | Rogue | The North Atlantic, the Seven Years' War | 1752 to 1760 |
| 12 | Assassin's Creed III | Colonial America, the Revolution | 1754 to 1783 |
| 13 | Unity | Paris, the French Revolution | 1789 to 1794 |
| 14 | Syndicate | Victorian London | 1868 |

## Should you play Assassin's Creed in release order or chronological order?

Neither, unless you're a completist. Pick by setting and style.

Chronological order is a poor first run. It opens with Odyssey and Origins, two of the longest games in the series, and then drops you into 2007's Assassin's Creed, which is slower, simpler and fifteen years older in design. The historical stories barely reference each other across eras, so you gain almost nothing for the whiplash.

Release order makes more sense, because the modern-day story and the mechanics build from game to game. It is also fourteen games, several of which run past 50 hours. Almost nobody needs to do that.

Only a few games are true sequels. Those are worth playing in sequence if you play them at all.

- **The Ezio trilogy:** Assassin's Creed II, then Brotherhood, then Revelations. One character from youth to old age, and the best continuous story the series has told.
- **The Kenway games:** Black Flag and Assassin's Creed III follow one family, with Black Flag's Edward Kenway the grandfather of III's lead. Black Flag came out second and is set first, and each stands alone. Rogue sits between them and leads straight into the opening of Unity.
- **Mirage and Valhalla:** Mirage is a prequel about a character from Valhalla. It works either way round.

## Which Assassin's Creed should I play first?

| If you want | Start with | Roughly how long |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The classic formula, modern look | Black Flag Resynced | 25 to 30 hours for the story |
| The series at its storytelling best | Assassin's Creed II (The Ezio Collection) | About 20 hours |
| A giant open-world RPG | Odyssey | 45 hours and up |
| A short, focused stealth game | Mirage | About 15 hours |
| The newest one | Shadows | 35 hours and up |

### Black Flag Resynced, for most people

Black Flag was already the easiest Assassin's Creed to recommend: a pirate game with sailing, sea shanties and a lead, Edward Kenway, who starts out with no interest in the Assassins at all. Resynced is a full remake for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, released on July 9, 2026. Critics were divided on some of the changes, which we went through in our [Black Flag Resynced review deep dive](/blog/2026-07-08-assassins-creed-black-flag-resynced-review-deep-dive), but for someone who has never played the original it's the most approachable way into the older style. The 2013 version is still sold, costs much less, and remains a fine way to play.

### Assassin's Creed II, if you want the beginning that matters

The first game set up the idea. The second one made it work. Assassin's Creed II follows Ezio Auditore through Florence and Venice, and it introduced most of what people think of as Assassin's Creed. The Ezio Collection bundles it with Brotherhood and Revelations on PS4, Xbox One and Switch. It shows its age in the controls, and it's still the best argument for the series.

### Odyssey or Origins, if you want an RPG

From Origins on, the series is a different genre: levels, loot, skill trees and maps that take a hundred hours to clear. Origins has the better story. Odyssey has the better world and lets you choose your lead, and after the release of Christopher Nolan's film The Odyssey in July 2026 it saw a jump in players and climbed to 89% positive reviews on Steam. If the size worries you, our guide to [playing a huge open world without clearing every icon](/blog/2026-11-01-play-open-world-without-clearing-every-icon) was more or less written about these games.

### Mirage, if you have a week

Mirage was made as a throwback: one city, a stealth focus, and a story you can finish in about 15 hours. It's the best pick if you want to find out whether you like the core idea before committing to anything bigger.

![Assassin's Creed Odyssey screenshot from the Steam version of the 2018 open-world RPG set in ancient Greece](https://perthro.io/assets/blog/aa1e87c0b67c0109.jpg)

## Do you need to follow the modern-day story?

No. Every Assassin's Creed is framed as someone in the present reliving an ancestor's memories through a machine called the Animus. In the first five games this present-day plot, about a man named Desmond Miles, is a real part of the story. After Assassin's Creed III it shrinks to short interludes, and recent games keep it to a minimum.

If you start with a later game you'll get a few scenes that reference things you haven't seen. They pass quickly, and the historical story never depends on them.

## Which Assassin's Creed games can you skip?

None of them are required, so this is about time. Rogue is short and mostly reuses Black Flag. Syndicate is fun and inessential. Valhalla is the longest of the lot and the one most people don't finish; Ubisoft said in October 2026 that it had passed 40 million players, and it added a New Game Plus mode on November 5. If you're unsure whether to push on with a 100-hour game, our piece on [when to stop playing a game](/blog/2026-09-21-when-to-stop-playing-a-game) is for you.

The handheld and mobile spin-offs, the three Chronicles side-scrollers and the VR game Nexus sit outside the main list and can be left alone.

## What's next for Assassin's Creed?

Ubisoft has confirmed two projects without dates. Codename Hexe was announced in September 2022 as the next flagship game after Shadows, with Clint Hocking leading development at Ubisoft Montreal. Ubisoft has described it as a very different kind of Assassin's Creed and has not confirmed a setting. Codename Invictus is a standalone multiplayer game from the same studio. A live-action Netflix series is in the works too, with casting announced in late 2025.

With nothing dated, the back catalog is where the series lives for now, and Resynced suggests Ubisoft knows it. It's the same pattern we looked at in [why there are so many video game remakes](/blog/2026-09-29-why-so-many-video-game-remakes).

Fourteen games, some of them enormous, is a lot to keep straight. In [Perthro](https://apps.apple.com/app/perthro/id6764673686), you can make a list of the ones you actually plan to play, log each with its platform and hours when you finish, and write down where you left off in the ones you paused. Our [backlog tracker](/backlog-tracker) page shows how that keeps a long series from turning into a pile.

### Sources

- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Black_Flag_Resynced)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_IV:_Black_Flag)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed (2007 video game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_%28video_game%29)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_II)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_III)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Rogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Rogue)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Unity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Unity)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Origins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Origins)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Odyssey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Odyssey)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Valhalla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Valhalla)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Mirage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Mirage)
- [Wikipedia: Assassin's Creed Shadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Shadows)
- [Steam: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3751950/)
- [Steam: Assassin's Creed Odyssey](https://store.steampowered.com/app/812140/)
- [Steam: Assassin's Creed Shadows](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3159330/)