The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Good point I never noticed that I dont know any Italian. Which is ironic since I know most other European languages quite well

damn nice find

i was actually looking around the hideout a bit and i looked outside and could hardly see anything climbable. I was a bit dissapointed.

If you couldn't see much out the windows, try lowering your brightness.

I hate to burst your bubble here but...

You actually can see out of the windows in AC1. And what you see are fleets of skyscrapers representing a city. As far as I am aware of, cities in Italy do not have skyscrapers like the Americans do in the United States (see New York and Chicago for examples). Another reason why I still think they're in America is because of the accents. This isn't a very strong point, but I think that pretty much everyone in the hideout is American except for Shaun, who obviously has some sort of British accent. Because everyone else speaks like an American and no one has an Italian accent like Ezio's, I believe that they are most likely in America or possibly Canada (Montreal, most likely).

But that still doesn't explain the heavy amount of Italian architecture and the parking sign. I don't know what to make of that. Perhaps this is one of Assassins Creed II's plot holes.

I too feel that the Abstergo building being in Italy doesn't make much sense. They didn't know about the significance of Italy until the beginning of AC2, so it would have to be a major coincidence that they happened to already be in the same place. IMO, major coincidences like this equal poor writing.

I agree with the problem of lack of Italian accents in Abstergo and that it just didn't seem like an Italian city that we saw out the windows.

The houses outside the hideout don't seem to me to be 100% Florentine. They look similar even to houses in my city. It's not an uncommon style. Either way, I doubt they would have gone to the trouble of creating brand new houses that most people wouldn't even notice anyway. It's easier just to re-use existing ones and strip away the details and fog up the windows.

However, the parking signs all being in Italian cannot be ignored. There is more than just the one sign; I think there are four, and they are all clearly in Italian. And the countless signs in the hideout/warehouse are all Italian as well. If it were just one sign I could overlook it, but this many signs isn't just some little easter egg. They're all Italian for a reason.

Then there's the fact that the cars in the parking lot at Abstergo are very European-looking. The license plates on the vehicles are also clearly European; they are certainly not North American license plates.

As much as I dislike the idea, I think the evidence is clear - the Abstergo building Lucy and Desmond escaped from is in Italy. What remains unclear is why. More particularly, why the writers thought this was a good idea, because as far as I'm concerned, it isn't.

Maybe they crossed borders in the car. They didn't really give any concept of how long the car ride was.

It couldn't have been that long because Lucy didn't give Desmond a bottle of water or anything, nor did Desmond complain when they arrived (which he certainly would have had it been a long trip).

Plus, it's not like they drove from the US to Italy.

Haha not without a boat involved somewhere along the way anyway

Well, he did complain. And I'm pretty sure that Europe has some skyscrapers too.

He didn't complain that much. And that doesn't explain the Italian signs.

maybe they are in the Italian district of the town.
America has that sort of thing, right?
like China town but with pizza

You wouldn't see signs inside of buildings like that though. Don't forget that the hideout warehouse also has Italian signs all over, and it's definitely not in the same district of town (if it's the same city at all).

Abstergo may have been in a skyscraper filled city in Europe. Then, Lucy drives Desmond to Italy in a couple hours.

I doubt that Ubi thought that hearing Desmond whine for more than a couple seconds would have been appealing.

Again, don't forget that the signs in the Abstergo building were also in Italian.

Unless the signs in both buildings were somehow a mistake (which seems very unlikely), both buildings are most likely in Italy.

I have a theory that would be completely plausible.

Abstergo is in Little Italy, New York, which is where one of the Pieces of Eden is located, if you recall. This would explain the skyscrapers. After the breakout, Desmond and Lucy drive to the hideout, an abandoned warehouse in another part of Little Italy. The warehouse has Italian signs because it's in Little Italy, the cars are European because they're in Little Italy, they talk with American accents because they live in America, the skyscrapers are those of New York, the drive was short because they stayed in the same neighborhood, there's a Piece of Eden IN New York, it all makes sense!

Maybe, but I personally would never buy the idea. I don't imagine an ethnic area of any city in the world being large enough for such a drive. The drive was long enough for Lucy to pour over how to convince Desmond, and the Assassins are smarter than to try to hide three blocks away from those who are overturning every rock looking for them.

Not to mention the area in question would need to span enough space to have tall buildings seen through every window in one location and no tall buildings seen in any direction even off in the distance when looking out all of the windows at another location. I don't believe such ethnic neighborhood exists anywhere, never mind New York.

It's also unlikely for a large and fully modern building like Abstergo's to have foreign signs unless all their employees were specifically Italian, which we know they are not. It makes far more sense for those to be the standard signs used in all local buildings.

As much as we dislike the idea, it just doesn't make much sense for the Abstergo building and the Assassin hideout to be anywhere else but Italy.

I still don't understand the skyscraper business, though. I've been to Italy. I've been to Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan, I don't recall seeing any skyscrapers. I'm willing to believe this is just a huge plothole that Ubi missed. Ian, do you think your friend at Ubi could help us sort out all this nonsense?

I wouldn't really call them skyscrapers. Keep in mind that Desmond's room and the animus chamber were only on level 4. It's not a long way down to the underground parking. That means that those buildings outside only need to be about 8 or so stories high to be what we saw through the windows in AC1.

There's also the fact that this is the future. Who's to say that a bunch of 10-story apartment buildings aren't going to be built somewhere in Italy by late 2012? It would only take three of them to provide what we see from the animus chamber.

mybe i'm doing this the wrong way, but i can't see anything thriugh those bloody windows.
all the windows i see in the hideout are just blurs of light

Rob, use your eagle vision, that makes things clearer.

It's easier to see when playing in HD.

I never actually noticed this until i saw this topic. IMO i think this is just a huge cock up

mAYBE THEY TOOK THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS