Assasin's Creed

Assassin's Creed is an award-winning historical video game series that currently^{[as of?]} consists of six games, with one to be added, a Facebook game, a short film (split into three episodes), two novels and comic books. The games appeared on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Mac OS X, iOS, HP WebOS,^[1] Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms. The main games in the franchise were developed by Ubisoft Montreal, with the handheld titles developed by Gameloft and Gryptonite Studios, with additional development by Ubisoft Montreal. All games in the franchise are published by Ubisoft.
The main story arc of the series revolves around a bartender named Desmond Miles as he is captured by megacorporation Abstergo Industries (a front for the Knights Templar). Using a machine known as the Animus, Desmond is forced to relive his ancestors' memories, who were all assassins, in order to recover artifacts, called the "Pieces of Eden", for Abstergo. While the original assassin ancestor of Desmond is Altaïr Ibn la-Ahad, the most recent games feature another assassin from Renaissance Italy named Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Assassination targets are mostly actual historical figures, although the timelines for their lives and causes of death have been changed to suit the games' plot (in-game these inaccuracies are attributed to the Templars rewriting history to cover up their actions, as well as honest mistakes on the part of historians).
The gameplay varies slightly from game to game, consisting of a mixture of action and adventure with a heavy emphasis on stealth in open world recreations of historical cities. The series has sold over 20 million units.
The overarching plot for all of the games takes place in the year 2012. It is implied that the 2012 of the game's timeline is rife with chaos and destruction. In-game emails report of a plague that has wiped out the population of Africa, a story about the Mexican President increasing border security in response to "American Refugees" crossing the border, an extreme number of hurricanes across the world, and the closing of the last major film studio in an unnamed country.^[2]
Amidst this strife, megacorporation Abstergo has devised a plan to seize control of the minds and free will of every person on Earth. To achieve this goal, they must locate artifacts called "Pieces of Eden". Abstergo captures Desmond Miles, a bartender who as a child was an assassin trainee, to search his ancestors' memories stored in his DNA in order to find the Pieces of Eden. Desmond is forced to enter the Animus, a machine that allows for the viewing of such memories.