Walkthrough

Full synchronisation in Assassin's Creed 3 is not a harder version of a mission, it is the same mission with a rule bolted onto it, and the rule is what you should read before you set off. Our walkthroughs cover three sequences in that spirit: Sequence 3, Sequence 5 and Sequence 6. Read across all three and the optional objectives sort into four families, and once you can tell which family you are looking at, you already know how to play the memory.

A bar you are not allowed to empty

The gentlest family is a ceiling on damage, and it shows up in the fights you cannot walk away from. The brawl with the wolves in Unconvinced asks you to come out with more than half your health intact, and the scrap on Achilles' lawn in A Boorish Man sets the same fifty percent line, which comes down to parrying rather than trading hits. The escort in The Angry Chef moves the bar onto somebody else, since it is the chef's health that has to stay above half while he charges through the streets. Out at sea The Hard Way removes the margin altogether: the Aquila's first proper engagement wants at least two ships sunk with no damage taken at all, so the targeting meter on each enemy and the brace command are the whole mission.

A clock

Only two missions in these three sequences run on a stopwatch. Trip to Boston gives you eighty seconds to break line of sight after the kill, which is why the guide points at the birds gathering on the rooftops, since they mark the hay you can drop into. The Angry Chef carries a stricter one, a cap of fifteen seconds spent in open conflict across the whole escort, and the advice on the page is to run ahead of the chef and take the guards down before he gets to them.

A verb the Animus takes away

The largest family removes an option rather than setting a number. Execution is Everything bars kills made with a weapon, which is why the infiltration of St. Mathieu is a cart ride, a bush and two sabotaged cannons rather than a fight. Hostile Negotiations bars detection on the long climb to William Johnson and also bars Native American casualties once you arrive. River Rescue bars the water itself, so Terry has to be reached along the logs before the waterfall. On Johnson's Trail limits firearms to five shots, keeps notoriety under level 2 and quietly penalises mercy, since freeing the harassed citizens costs the objective. Boston's Most Wanted is the same idea inverted, a mission about notoriety that fails if you let it reach level 3, and the posters can be torn down in plain sight without getting there. The Braddock Expedition ends the sequence by asking for two guards dead with no open conflict, which means baiting them apart and taking them from cover.

A stunt you have to land

The last family adds something instead of taking it away, and these are the ones worth setting up deliberately before the fighting starts. Unconvinced wants breakable objects used at least twice, so take the tavern fight next to the furniture and let your counters throw people into it. The Angry Chef wants five low profile assassinations, and since those only register from behind, every approach has to be from the man's back. The Tea Party wants ten crates in the harbour, three redcoats thrown in after them and one air assassination performed with a musket in hand, which the ramp obliges by funnelling soldiers underneath you. The Braddock Expedition wants three powder carts destroyed from horseback without losing sight of the man you are chasing, and the reload between shots is the part that catches people out.

Two stretches with no restriction to obey

Not every memory in these sequences carries a condition. Lying Low is a walk through the sewers with candles to light and rats to follow, ending at a lock and a bribed printer, and the Desmond interlude that opens Sequence 6 is a climb up a skyscraper to a parachute jump and a battery. That one does hide an extra objective, though it is a detour rather than a restriction: the stairway on the left leads past Juno to the control deck and opens the cave area for the second power source.

What is written up here, and what it pays

These are three sequences out of the twelve Connor and Haytham play through, chosen rather than collected, so this is not an index of the campaign. Sequence 3 is played as Haytham, hunting Braddock out in the Frontier, Sequence 5 is the one our walkthrough calls the real beginning, because it delivers Achilles, the estate and the Aquila in a single run, and Sequence 6 opens as Desmond before handing Connor the tea in Boston harbour. If you are chasing the reward rather than the individual missions, the prize for clearing every optional objective in the main story is Altair's outfit, which our unlockables guide covers along with the rest of the wardrobe. Naval battles keep their own bonus objectives, which are collected in the naval missions guide rather than here, and the estate that Sequence 5 hands you is explained in our crafting and Homestead guide. The rest of the game starts at the Assassin's Creed 3 hub.