So I just bought 3 and 4 (summer sale )... But I haven't yet played Brotherhood or Revelations. Should I try and get those two and play them through first, for story reasons, or am I fine just having played 1 and 2 beforehand?

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~4400 manga completed
~1700 ongoing...

You should be fine just playing 3 and 4. Brotherhood and Revelations barely forward the present day timeline and focus on Ezio in Animus sessions so you missed nothing super important to the overall story. That's not to say they weren't good games (I didn't like Revelations all that much, Brotherhood was really good) their story is just filler content.

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Things I enjoy:

1. Badassery. I love being, doing, and living it. I also enjoy seeing it as it usually makes me cry man tears.
2. Badassness.
3. Badasses.
4. Badass mofos.
5. Manly badasses.

Things that I hate:
1. Wimpy protagonists.
2. Girly protagonists (if they're men).
3. Douchie protagonists.
4. Idiotic protagonists.
5. Over-the-line rude protagonists.

Ok, thanks. But yeah, I will get my hands on Brotherhood and Revelations one day... Just not now, I'm out of "entertainment" money for now

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~4400 manga completed
~1700 ongoing...

I started playing AC with Black Flag... I was mostly confused when it came to present day stuff, but I loved the pirate story line. After awhile I went online and found a site that summarized the entire AC storyline from start to finish up to the present game [I think it was Rogue at the time].

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This is my Sig ..............................................................

BTW, has anyone read the novels? Are they any good?

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~4400 manga completed
~1700 ongoing...

Brotherhood and Revelations are both good games, but are not necessary to understand AC III and AC IV. Both AC:B and AC:R introduced new gameplay mechanics - recruits and bombs to be specific. I had loads of fun terrorizing the guards of Constantinople in AC:R 😀 If you have the time and money, I recommend playing both 🙂

As for the books, I've read most of them. Some are good, some less. If you're going to read any, I highly recommend The Secret Crusade (AC I, details Altaïr's life after the first game) and Forsaken (AC III, focuses on Haytham's life, recommend reading after playing the game). I enjoyed Unity (AC V) as well, as it told the story of AC V from Elise's POV (it's good to play the game first to know what's going on).
Renaissance, Brotherhood and Revelations aren't bad, but I felt like they're just retelling the game without adding anything new or telling the story from a different POV. I've read Black Flag as well, but as I don't remember anything about it, it probably didn't leave much of an impression on me...
Haven't read Underworld, Desert Oath or Odyssey yet.

Aside from the Oliver Bowden books there's one more, by a different author - Heresy by Christie Golden. It's not bad, a good summer read, but nothing extra in my opinion.

And then there are the various comics and manga... 🙂

(edit: I just noticed that the original thread is from 2015 🤣 Oh well 😁)