The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

This video is based entirely on KaiyuiKurosaki's earlier story How to Wield the Papal Staff Against Rodrigo Borgia. The idea is to use the Smash attack with a Heavy Weapon to knock the Staff out of Borgia's hands. Before we get to that, let's take it from the top...

The video begins at the last save point before the fight with the Brutes on the Vatican Wall. If you have a skip procedure I suggest you use it here. It's hard to do everything correctly in one playthrough. Backup your savegame at any point shown in the first two minutes of this video.

When you arrive at the scene of the big fight with the Brutes, it's tempting to double air assassinate the first two guards. Doing so causes Ezio to cross an invisible line that spawns the two Brutes and two other guards, which means he'll be fighting eight guards at a time. In order to keep the fights manageable and prevent the Heavy Weapons from being lost in a pile of dead bodies, I postpone crossing the line until the first six guards are eliminated.

The Brutes run out with their Heavy Weapons drawn. Practically every way of killing them results in them dropping their weapons where Ezio can pick them up. One thing you don't want to do is to disarm them and then counter, leaving the Heavy Weapon stuck in the corpse. You can also lose access to their weapons by throwing them over the wall or into a collapsible structure.

Once you're Anonymous you can pull the lever on the balcony to open the door. Select a Heavy Weapon from a dead Brute. It doesn't matter which you choose because all of them can do a Smash attack. Brutes may be carrying any of the following:

From left to right: Labrys, Bearded Axe, Bastard Sword

Make your way through the two corridors without being detected. If necessary, you may temporarily drop the Heavy Weapon to assassinate guards with Hidden Blades.

Now comes the hardest part: Jumping through the Sistine Chapel without dropping the Heavy Weapon all the way to the floor below. Fast Walking and Sprinting cause Ezio to drop it, but Running is okay. The trick is to Run and just tap the Legs button when you need to jump. Go ahead and practice in the hallway: Run and Jump. If you drop the weapon here at least you can pick it up.

Use this technique to make your way to the suspended platform above Borgia. Target lock him and use the Run/Jump tap one more time to drop behind him. Quickly swing the Heavy Weapon before being detected.

From here on, the cutscenes are glitchy. Ezio stands next to Borgia instead of being blown back. You can make Ezio turn in place so I turned him to face the camera. The Apple magically appears in Ezio's hand, his clones spawn offscreen, and the Apple disappears again.

Pick up the Heavy Weapon and hold [Armed Hand] to wind up a Smash attack while Borgia is preoccupied with Ezio's clones. Borgia moves around quite a bit so it's sometimes hard to land the Smash attack. Don't worry as you have plenty of time. When it does land, the Papal Staff goes flying out of Borgia's hands. Watch where that thing lands! Disengage from fight mode, drop the Heavy Weapon, and pick up the Papal Staff.

The fight itself is rather disappointing. The Papal Staff acts like a long weapon with the Sweep attack. Borgia remains unarmed. I've never seen him pick up the Heavy Weapon. It would be interesting if he used a Smash attack to break the Papal Staff into two pieces. I tried to demonstrate the different attacks with the Staff but there really aren't that many.

More glitchy cutscenes: Borgia clutches the Papal Staff but he isn't really holding it. He bangs it on the ground a few times. The Apple also disappears as he places it on the end of the invisible Staff. Finally, Ezio uses his Armed Hand to push the buttons on the wall, all while holding the Staff in that hand.