Assassin Recruits

Liberating districts of Boston and New York from the baleful influence of the Templars provides Connor with up to six Assassin recruits and a total of eight special abilities. Though the process of liberating city districts to expand the New World Brotherhood and the specific function of each ability is covered in the Side Quests chapter, this short section looks at the use of recruits in open conflict.

Assassin Abilities

Once Connor enlists the services of Stephane Chapheau at the conclusion of The Angry Chef in Sequence 06, you gain the option to press / at any time in combat to summon available recruits with the Call Backup ability. Though this will initially only offer the assistance of Chapheau alone, you can increase Connor’s Brotherhood to a maximum of six recruits: a further two from fully liberating Boston during Sequence 06, with the final three available to enlist in New York from Sequence 09. All of your recruits gain levels gradually as you call them on the battlefield or send them on assignments.

In open conflict, the Call Backup option overrides all other recruit abilities, which remain unavailable until Connor kills his final opponent or escapes. Tapping / summons a recruit into a fight immediately, where they will then engage your opponents to the best of their abilities. Each additional press of / will summon another Assassin trainee if available, up to a full six once all Liberation Missions have been cleared ( 01).

Naturally, this has a huge effect on the difficulty of most combat encounters. Though the recruits are rather feeble at lower levels, their presence divides enemy forces and presents many opportunities for one-hit kills as you take adversaries concentrating on your allies by surprise. While recruits may fall quickly in early battles, they cannot die: the only penalty is a five-minute “cooldown” period as they convalesce. Once they gain experience through combat encounters, ability use and by completing contracts, however, they become incredibly effective warriors. At high ranks, you can often summon recruits into a fight and almost sit back and let them do the hard work.

Though most Assassin abilities available outside of open conflict are used for stealth, infiltrations and neutralizing specific targets, the Marksmen command warrants a special mention here. Select it by holding / and choose it from the list on the right, then target any opponent in range. After a short pause, all available recruits will open fire, killing your specified hostile and up to five of his nearby cohorts instantly, before diving into battle. If you need to eliminate priority targets, or face a large battle against numerous opponents, this can enable you to even the odds – or perhaps end a fight before it really begins.

Though Assassin recruits are unavailable in the Frontier and in certain main missions, we would describe them as an “easy mode” for the more demanding combat encounters. The extent to which you call upon their services during battles is very much a question of personal taste.