In this section, we offer a concept art tour of the Assassin’s Creed IV world arranged in an order that broadly reflects the chronology of the game, and illuminating signature quotes from the main protagonists.
Edward Kenway
Caroline Scott: “Why not sail with the King’s Navy? Earn a proper wage. Sail under gentlemen.”
Edward Kenway: “Sod the Navy’s gentlemen. For every Shilling I’d earn, the Captain’d get six hundred. That’s no way to earn a fortune.”
Caroline Scott: “We don’t need a fortune.”
Edward Kenway: “It’s not about need, Caroline.
I want food that don’t make me sick.
I want walls that hold back the wind.
I want a decent life.”
“God sink me for this pittance. One thousand Reales for those maps. That’s what? A hundred pounds at most. How’s a man supposed to become rich in these times with a miser like Torres running the world?”
“It’s funny that with scurvy, the fix is more pleasant than the cause. When you catch a dose from a whore and must treat it with quicksilver, you’re fonder of getting the disease than of curing it.”
Caribbean
Julien du Casse: “Where the sun is brightest, hearts are darkest.”
GOVERNOR LAUREANO DE TORRES Y AYALA
“Mark and remember our purpose. To guide all wayward souls ‘til they reach a quiet road. To guide all wayward desire ‘til impassioned hearts are cooled. To guide all wayward minds to safe and sober thought. By the Father of Understanding’s Light, let our work now begin.”
“For two decades now I have endeavored to locate this Observatory… a place rumored to contain a tool of incredible utility and power. It houses a kind of armillary sphere, if you like. A device that grants us the power to locate and monitor EVERY man and woman on Earth, whatever their location. Only imagine what it would mean to have such a power. With this device, there would be no secrets among men. No lies. No trickery. Only justice. Pure justice. This is the Observatory’s promise. And we must take it for our own.”
“A body enslaved inspires the mind to revolt.
But enslave a man’s mind, and his body
will trot along naturally. Efficiently.”
Woodes Rogers
“Soon all the monarchies of the world will be obsolete. And when that day comes, men like Torres and myself will reveal ourselves as the architects of their undoing.”
Julien Du casse
Woodes Rogers: “You’ve got my two best pairs of matched pistols, Duncan, so handle them with care.
Edward Kenway: “If I had eight, I’d treat each as my own son.”
Woodes Rogers: [laughs] “Quite”.
Julien du Casse: “I once fought beside a man who carried nine on his person. They were a boon in battle, but hindered his ability to swim, sadly.”
“Is petty larceny the extent of your ambition? Have you no mind to comprehend the scope of ours? All the empires on earth, abolished! A free and opened world, without parasites like you! May the hell you find be of your own making!”
“I have no love for Assassins, but even less for liars.”
Jungles
Opía Apito: “This jungle is still thick with vines and trickery.”
Benjamin Hornigold
“I am Captain Hornigold and this is my crew. We’re sailors like yourselves, but quite unalike in our purpose. For we intend to take all that you own. Yet no harm shall befall any man, so long as he remains at ease.”
“After you subdue a prize, project authority and demand respect that you would never give yourself. This weaves a spell over soft minds. For your victims must always have in the back of their minds the uneasy idea that you could snap at any moment, and unseam them from prick to sternum.”
Charles Vane
“So this is the new Libertalia, eh? Stinks the same as every squat I’ve robbed this past year.”
“The pardon up your ARSE, Governor!”
Pirates
Edward Kenway: “Gentlemen! As is custom among our kind, we do not plunge headlong into folly on the orders of a single madman, but act according to our own collective madness.”
Pirates: [laughter]
Edward Kenway: “The object of our attention is a square-rigged galleon, and we want her for the advantage she’ll bring Nassau. So I’ll put it to the vote: all those in favor of storming this cove and taking this ship, stomp and shout aye!”
Pirates: [shouting] Aye!
Edward Kenway: “Those who oppose… whimper nay!”
Pirates: [silence]
Edward Kenway: “Never was the King’s Counsel
this unified.”
Solider 1: “The way I see it is, sword fighting is a little like making love. It’s not always what you do, but what you say.”
Solider 2: “A pity for you then, eh? You’re the most inarticulate bugger I ever met.”
Solider 1: “Oy, man! That ain’t… that ain’t… nice.”
Havana
Unnamed pirate: “Curse you lot! And curse this bloody city! The Venice of the West Indies, they said! The jewel of Civilization? Bah! Syphilization, more like it. Yellow fever and misery!”
Blackbeard (Ed Thatch)
The QUEEN ANNE’S REVENGE
“Caution’s nothing without charisma! For if a man plays the fool, then it’s only fools he’ll persuade. But appear to be the devil, and all men will submit.”
“I drink damnation to you and your men, who are cowardly puppies! I shall give nor take no quarter.”
“Why fly a black flag when a black beard will do?”
Nassau
Benjamin Hornigold: “We had here a rare opportunity; a chance to take something base and shape it into a government, made and maintained by men of vision. But in two years we pissed it away. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Blackbeard: “Jaysus Edward. Living like this is like living with a large a hole in your gut, and every goddam time your innards spill over the ground, you’re obliged to scoop ‘em up and shove ‘em back in. When Ben and me first set down in Nassau, I undervalued the need for folks of character to shape and guide the place to its full purpose. But I was not wrong about the corruption that comes with that course. Once a man gets a taste of leadership, it’s hard for him not to wonder why he ain’t in charge of the whole world. I know these men think me a fine captain, but I bloody hate the taste of it. I’m arrogant. I lack the balance needed to lead from behind the crowd.”
Adewalé
“With this skin and this voice, where can I go in the world and feel at ease? This country here is my best chance. This country called Jackdaw, where I know all citizens, and they know mine, and we work together. Not always out of love, but to keep our country afloat.”
Edward Kenway: “Can you feel it, Adé? We’re moments away from the grandest prize of all.”
Adewalé: “I feel nothing but a hot wind in my ears, Captain.”
“To fight beside a man so driven by personal gain and glory is a hard thing, Edward. And I have come to feel the Assassins – and their Creed – a more honorable course.”
The Jackdaw
Edward Kenway: “I’ve made my choice, Adé. I’m calling her the Jackdaw. For a sly bird I loved as a child back in Swansea.”
Naval Battles
Blackbeard: “We’ve knocked them on the heads except three or four. Let’s jump aboard and cut ’em to pieces!”
Adewalé: “Beat to quarters, lads! We’re sailing into hell!”
Open Sea
Traditional song, as sung by Charles Vane:
“Here’s a health to the King and a lasting peace
To faction an end, to wealth increase;
Come, let us drink it while we have breath,
For there’s no drinking after death,
And he that will this health deny,
Down among the dead men,
Down among the dead men,
Down, down, down, down,
Down among the dead men let him lie.”
Underwater Diving
Ah Tabai
“It will take more than a few favors to call yourself a true Assassin, Edward.”
James Kidd (Mary Read)
James Kidd: “You’re married, are ya?”
Edward Kenway: “In God’s eyes, I am. She left me some time ago.”
James Kidd: “Even so, keep that fact hid away. Most of these pirates don’t respect a man with higher commitments than rum and plunder.”
“No one honest has an easy life, Edward. It’s aching for one that causes the most pain.”
“To be blunt… we kill people. Templars and their associates. Folks who’d like to control all the empires on Earth, claiming it’s in the name of peace and order.”
The Assassin Hideout
James Kidd: “We’re Assassins and we follow a Creed, aye. But it doesn’t command us to act or submit… only to be wise.”
Edward Kenway: “Oh do tell. I’d love to hear it.”
James Kidd: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted. This is the world’s only certainty.”
Edward Kenway: “Everything is permitted? I like the sound of that. Thinking what I like, and acting how I please.”
James Kidd: “You parrot the words… but you do not understand them.”
Pirate Life
“I’d follow you to hell for this, mate!”
“I was a Navy man once, but I found a better life sailing under a black flag. And you could too, mate.”
“Sails ho, on the horizon!”
Anne Bonny
“Then I’ll be up the duff the next time you come knocking!”
“I miss them so, rough as they were. Do you feel that too? All empty inside, like.”
Calico Jack (Jack Rackham)
“Now. Where can a man find a bit of rough, d’you know?”
“Oy! Lad! That’s my lass you’re making love to! Lay off or I’ll cut ya!”
Edward Kenway: “You weren’t much of a friend, Jack Rackham, nor an able sailor neither… but you were strange and lively, and you made me laugh more than once… and that’s enough to make me sorry for seeing you like this. I hope you’ve found a lasting peace, down there among the dead.”
Kingston
Laureano Torres: “So many churches in Kingston. Have the English at last taken to converting their slaves to the Christian faith?”
Charleston & North Carolina
Bartholomew Roberts
“For I have dipped my hands in muddied waters, and withdrawing them find ‘tis better to be a commander than a common man!”
“A merry life and a short one, that’s my motto. It’s all the optimism I can muster.”
Bartholomew Roberts: “All men desire to live by a code, or a creed, yes? Yet when pressed, most defer to their instincts rather than the laws that bind them. But what is the appeal of a creed if it does not yoke all men to like behavior?”
Edward Kenway: “Might make a man feel like… he belongs to something. What’s your answer?”
Bartholomew Roberts: “Ah… that all men are sheep. And that an old wolf like me deserves every ounce of blood he draws.”
Edward Kenway
“For years I’ve been rushing around, taking whatever I fancied, not giving a tinker’s curse for those I hurt. Yet here I am with riches and a reputation, feeling no wiser than when I left home. Yet when I turn around, look at the course I’ve run… here’s not a man or woman that I love left standing beside me.”
“If nothing is true, then why believe anything? And if everything is permitted… why not chase every desire? It might be that this idea is only the beginning of wisdom, and not its final form.”
Bartholomew Roberts: “A merry life and a short one, as promised! How well I know myself. And what of you, Edward? Have you found the peace you seek?”
Edward Kenway: “I’m not aiming so high as that. For what’s peace but a confusion between two wars?”
TULUM, Mayan Ruins & Temple
Edward Kenway: “Whatever’s waiting at the end of this path had better be worth my time.”
The Observatory
Laureano Torres: “For two decades now I have endeavored to locate this Observatory… a place rumored to contain a tool of incredible utility and power. It houses a kind of armillary sphere, if you like. A device that would grant us the power to locate and monitor every man and woman on Earth, whatever their location.”
Bartholomew Roberts: “There were many stories about this place once. Tales that turned into rumors, and again into legend. The inevitable process of facts becoming fictions, before fading away entirely.”
“Think of this place as a large spyglass, like we sailors carry. A device… capable of seeing great distances.”
Abstergo Entertainment
Olivier Garneau
Melanie Lemay
Abstergo Bunker & Server Room
JOHN FROM IT
“So! They tossed you in the bunker. Nice! Those Templars upstairs aren’t taking any chances.”