Desmond Miles returns to Renaissance Italy to follow the life of his ancestor Ezio Auditore. After seeing his home destroyed, Ezio travels to Rome in an effort to rebuild the Assassin Order and bring down the Borgia family, who rule the city with an iron fist. Along the way, the modern day assassins hope to discover the location of the Piece of Eden, or 'The Apple' before the Templars find out first.
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The PC version of Assassin's Creed II had infuriated players by demanding a constant internet connection just to play offline. Ubisoft quietly scrapped that for Brotherhood's PC release, settling for a single login instead, which was a genuine relief for anyone with an unreliable connection.
Brotherhood didn't just win over players, it picked up a Writers Guild of America award for its story and script, beating out some stiff competition including Fallout: New Vegas and God of War III that year.
Brotherhood was the first entry in the series to let Ezio recruit and train his own roster of assassins, sending them off on missions across Europe. It's a small addition but it's the one that really cemented the idea of Ezio as a leader rather than a lone wolf.
Brotherhood's main story DLC, The Da Vinci Disappearance, sees Ezio teaming up once again with his old friend Leonardo after the Templars kidnap him to get their hands on his war machine blueprints. It launched on Xbox 360 in March 2011 before making its way to the other platforms.
Europe, Australia and New Zealand got their own exclusive Codex Edition, packaged inside a Renaissance-styled collector's chest that included a 3D thermoformed portrait of Ezio, exclusive multiplayer characters, bonus singleplayer maps and a DVD of the short film Assassin's Creed: Lineage.
The Ezio Collection bundled remastered versions of Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations together for PS4 and Xbox One back in 2016, complete with sharper graphics and every piece of single-player DLC. The multiplayer modes didn't make the cut, though.
Not long before Ezio reunites with Leonardo da Vinci in Brotherhood, you can stumble across a cardboard box sitting somewhere it really shouldn't be. It's a direct nod to Metal Gear's signature hiding spot, tucked in for anyone paying close enough attention.
During the mission 'Femme Fatale', Lucrezia Borgia cracks a joke about Ezio 'rescuing princesses from castles' as he breaks her out of Caterina Sforza's cell, a clear wink at Mario. Ubisoft doubled down on the gag by naming the related achievement 'Principessa in Another Castello.'
Setting a game in Italy was apparently too good an opportunity to pass up. One of Brotherhood's achievements is literally called 'Plumber', and its icon is a green Warp Pipe lifted straight out of the Super Mario games.
Once you've won over all three faction guilds, you get a short conversation with Niccolò Machiavelli, who asks Ezio how he managed to unite them all. Ezio's answer is a single word, 'virtue', a quiet reference to the ideas Machiavelli laid out in his own famous work, The Prince.
