I'm to the point that I want to see/play the race that made the apples/spear/atlantis etc at this point in time, specifically the time frame that has the human's stealing the apples of eden. (I think that was the video ya had to piece together in AC3?).

Or like to see something set in Japan, or even Chicago or New York turn of the century.

Yeah, you are right that de-syncing would ultimately pull you back in line. I can't believe I forgot about that.

as i understand it (and i played most of the games), you couldn't change history. that's what de-synching was - the memory you were reliving deviated from the actual history too much to continue; you dying for example. there was no actual time travel involved so no historical events were actually changed.

The concept of being able to access your ancestor's memories was a cool idea and seemed actually plausible...in a sci-fi kind of way.

The notion of changing history (if I'm remembering correctly?) kind of killed the narrative for me. I thought the memories should be treated strictly as an unchangeable historical record: You could access it, but not use it to manipulate things outside the confines of what the ancestors did.

In terms of gameplay nothing would change. You'd still be free to go about things the way you want. It's just that the "way you want", happens to be exactly what "historically happened".

It's a fine distinction, but I hope I'm making sense.

By the time Black Flag came along, I could care less about all the Abstergo stuff. I just wanted to be a pirate.

A shame it didn't, loved those first 3 and learning the story...