I’m almost certain we’ve just committed several war crimes, but we don’t have time to dwell on that. We finally, at long last, have some Templars we need to kill.
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Technically speaking, Prince Ahmet being a Templar is a big plot twist. However, it lacks any form of punch because we spent almost no time whatsoever with the man. Up until this point, it was difficult to even call him a character. The rest of him screen time will be dedicated to trying to backfill motivations and conflict, but we’re almost at the end of the game. There simply isn’t enough run time left for that, and for that reason it’s nearly impossible to sell him as a credible threat.
It’s another example for why the Byzantine Templar plotline is underbaked, especially in comparison to the plots we see in Assassin’s Creed 2 and Brotherhood. Not a single one of them has significant screen time, and nor is their presence felt for most of the game. The one person we spent the most time hunting down isn’t even a Templar. Ezio doesn’t have a link to any of these people, or a stake in their downfall. Were it not for Ahmet somehow knowing who Sofia is, we wouldn’t even have a reason to fight him in the finale.
I don’t fault the dev team for this. With the Borgia plotline resolved, they made the most of their limited time and resources. They only had a single year to adapt the premise of what was originally a 3DS game into the next major release in what was now an annual series.
It’s honestly impressed they managed to make something this feature-complete, flawed as it is, in that time.
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