TheAssassin’s Creedfranchise has seen countless characters throughout its nearly 20-year history, with many becoming fan favorites and icons of the gaming industry as a whole. While some characters have taken longer for players to warm to, others were instant classics, filling out the impressive roster of heroes and villains from throughout history and across the globe.
Despite its general success,Assassin’s Creedhas also seen several less liked characters, whether allies, villains, or protagonists. This list looks at 6 of the most hated characters in the franchise, ranking them based on just how much players disliked them. While each has its own reasons for being so disliked, there are some less hated than others, and a few that are arguably redeemable.
Haytham Kenway is a divisive character. Many players appreciate him because he embodies the Templar philosophy well. This is, however, a major reason many despise him.Assassin’s Creed 3starts with the player taking control of Haytham Kenwaybefore switching to the main protagonist. This section of the game does a lot to make Haytham a more likable character. However, this is somewhat undone later in the narrative of the game.
After spending a substantial amount of time tracking down the Templars as Connor, with several twists and turns forcing the player to constantly reconsider where their loyalties lie, the assassin hopes to ally with Haytham to work toward peace. This is turned down, Haytham completely convinced of the Templar plan to replace the president with Charles Lee. Ultimately, Haytham is an incredibly well-written character, and fiercely loyal to his cause, which is what makes him so detestable.
The best way to describe Alkibiades is that he’s a pest. He appears throughoutAssassin’s Creed Odysseyto repeatedly proposition the player to indulge in various acts of debauchery. Other than that, he adds little substance to the game. Many players have flocked to social media sinceOdyssey’s release to relentlessly complain about this frustratingly annoying and overtly sexual character.
While the player can turn Alkibiades down each time he appears, his relentless pestering is an unstoppable force that continuously harasses the player. While the world of Ancient Greece is vast and full of numerous interesting characters and stories, Alkibiades sticks out as one of the few truly negative NPC interactions in the game.
Dag is a character who finds himself hated in a similar way to Alkibiades — his general annoying demeanor and confrontational personality lead him to be an overall pest throughoutAssassin’s Creed Valhalla. Dag consistently questionsEivor, the protagonist ofValhalla, harboring great disdain for their rule over his own.
In the end, Dag challenges Eivor to a battle to the death for leadership of their clan, which leads to his death. Despite his constant questioning, pestering, and stubbornness, Eivor still gives him a burial befitting a friend. Dag died as he lived, going against Eivor’s word, choosing death over exile, and annoying many players in the process.
The last character on this list hated for being a general annoyance isAssassin’s Creed 2’s Vieri de' Pazzi, a rival of Ezio early in the game. Vieri does little other than taunt and goad Ezio, causing several fights, and generally whining with little to do other than cause trouble. This changes, however, after Ezio flees Florence with his mother and sister. Vieri and his men confront Ezio again, now intending to murder them.
While Ezio ends up getting his revenge on the Templar, Vieri leaves a lasting impression due to the level of annoyance he causes the player. He is not a difficult character to kill, acting as a semi-tutorial. However, he is persistent, loud, arrogant, and unavoidable on every playthrough of the game. Vieri is an irredeemably hated character; however, he is ultimately inconsequential in the greater narrative of the franchise.
Cesare Borgia is ambition manifest inAssassin’s Creed Brotherhood, having had his brother killed to further his standing. Using the power of the Templar cause, he waged an invasion of Italy, claiming to want its unification under Templar rule. Despite this, everything he did was entirely in the pursuit of personal power, eventually killing his father to obtain the Apple of Eden, a legendary artifact with incredible power.
Unlike Haytham Kenway, who is written in a way to make his devotion to the Templars somewhat admirable, Cesare is an irredeemable monster of greed. He is one of the greatest villains in Ezio’s story, wielding more power than many of the other Templars encountered in the franchise, and yet still wanting more.The only catharsis to his character is his inevitable demise at the hands of Ezio.
The final (and most disliked character) is Abbas Sofian, an ally turned villain. Abbas was once a member of the same brotherhood asAltaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, training alongside him; however, when Altaïrkilled their previous mentor, Abbas began to resent him. This culminated in Abbas leading a coup to overthrow Altaïr’s leadership. Abbas’s own leadership led to a time of corruption within the assassin’s brotherhood, forsaking their creed.
Abbas devolved into a paranoid mess, hiding away and fearing the return of Altaïr, leading to his death. The gratification of Altaïr eventually killing Abbas is bittersweet, however, thanks to the hurt caused by his betrayal and the murder of Altaïr’s son. While the death of Cesare was the end of his greed, the death of Abbas was also the death of a friend, the end of a chapter of both Altaïr’s life and the franchise. Abbas is by far the most disliked character in the franchise, having no qualms about the murder of his friend’s son and the corruption of the order to which he had dedicated his life.
