The first Assassin’s creed was set in Levant during the crusades in the 12th century. Levant was a region by the Mediterranean sea consisting of Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey. The story follows the Assassin Altair, during the third crusade.
The story starts with Altair and two other assassin brothers attempting to retrieve a piece of Eden but are stopped by a grandmaster Robert de Sable of the templar order, the sworn enemy of the assassins order. Altair attempts to kill the grandmaster but he ends up breaking all three of the assassins tenants; he fails to get both, the artifact or kill the grandmaster, and in the commotion one of his brothers is killed and the other brothers arm is crippled which will later be amputated. Altair arrives back at their stronghold empty handed with nothing but apologies; one of the brothers who survived the grandmaster’s attack comes back with the artifact and dismisses Altair due to his arrogance.
During the debrief the stronghold is assaulted by the templars and they have to defend the stronghold and after dealing with the attack Al Mualim the leader of their order demotes him to a novice and strips him of his gear. Altair is given nine contracts he must complete over the Holy land with the aim to bring peace between the crusade and the Saracen forces. Each target is actually based on actual historical figures from the third crusade. On his way to each one of the city’s Altair has to report into an Assassins Bureau there to gain basic information on his targets. He must gather additional information on his own through eavesdropping, interrogations and informants. Once he has gathered enough information he can complete the contract and assassinate the target. On completing this he heads back to Masyaf for a debrief with his superior Al Mualim, with each target he kills he is given better equipment.
As Altair makes his way through the list of targets he learns more about how each target is connected to the Grandmaster Robert and the templars and how they plan to place the holy land under their control. Altair uncovers that Roberts last plan is to unite the Christian and Muslim forces against his enemy, the assassin’s. After hunting down Robert, Altair ends up killing him in front of king Richard, failing to convince the king to end the war.
From Robert, Altair finds out that Al Mualim, the leader of the Assassin’s order is a member of the templar order and was using the assassins to kill members of the order who know about the artefacts’ power so he could keep it for himself. Altair returns to the stronghold to confront Al Mualim who reveals the truth about himself and about the artifact. He explains that the artifact is used to create illusions such as the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the red sea and also the presence of the gods in the Trojan war. Al Mualim explains that he intends to use the artifact to brainwash mankind and end all conflict, he proceeds to use the artifact to cast an illusion to escape however Altair manages to see through the illusion and kills Al Mualim.
Altair retrieves the artifact and it activates in his hand revealing a globe with the other pieces of Eden marked on it.
This one is hard to connect to the series. I’ll try to explain it the best I can, the Levantine brotherhood was founded by Hassan the younger and in 1090, the first recorded existence of the assassins came to light when Hassan founded the assassins own sovereign state with this act the order became part of public knowledge. Not long after this establishment the templars did the same thing changing their name from the order of ancients to the Knights templar and masquerading as a military order defending Christian pilgrims.
As we have come to learn over the release of new games in the series, Bayek, from assassins creed origins and founder of the hidden ones, sent agents to Petra and Judea to help with creating branches across Levant but it wasn’t until a century later when Hassan the younger was leading the brotherhood that it expanded from northern Persia into Levant when Al Mualim and his forces were set the task of establishing strongholds in the An-Nusayriyah mountains. After the death of Al Mualim Altair was made leader of the Levant branch and under his leadership he reformed the order creating new techniques. With the knowledge gained from the apple of Eden the Levantine brotherhood set out to expand and spread its teaching across the globe and with this act the brotherhood became the forbearer of many other branches.