Assassin's Creed Revelations: Ezio in Constantinople

Assassin's Creed Revelations opens in 1511 at Masyaf, the Assassins' former stronghold, where the aged Ezio Auditore da Firenze comes looking for a library built by Altaïr. He finds the fortress occupied by Templars, escapes their attempt to execute him, and learns that Altaïr sealed the library with five keys hidden in Constantinople. The real castle, in Hama Governorate, Syria, is a medieval structure that stands on a platform about 20 metres above the plain and was the stronghold of Rashid ad-Din Sinan, the Old Man of the Mountain. Restoration by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture began in 2000.

Ezio reaches Constantinople in 1511, when Galata is one of the four city districts open to him, and befriends Yusuf Tazim, leader of the Ottoman Assassins. The medieval Genoese Galata Tower, built in 1348 as the Tower of Christ, stands at the district's highest point and was then the tallest building in the city; the player can renovate it for income. Today it is a museum reached by a nine-story climb to an observation deck 51.65 metres up, with the rooftops of Beyoğlu and Istanbul spread below.

Visitor guidance: Now a museum open to the public, with views over the city from its observation deck.

At Hagia Sophia, Ezio hunts down Ishak Pasha's memoir pages: collecting them unlocks a secret mission in which he explores the inside of the church to retrieve Pasha's armor. The building itself was completed in AD 537 under Justinian I and for centuries was the world's largest interior space. After the Ottoman conquest of 1453 it served as a mosque, with minarets added soon after. It became a museum in 1935 and was redesignated a mosque in 2020; the player can also renovate it in the game.

Visitor guidance: Hagia Sophia is a working mosque again; visitors are admitted outside prayer times.

Topkapı Palace is the seat of the Ottoman court in the game, where the succession quarrel between the princes Ahmet and Selim runs beneath Ezio's hunt for the keys. The palace served as the administrative center and main residence of the sultans from the 1460s until 1853, when the court moved to Dolmabahçe Palace; Mehmed the Conqueror had ordered it built in 1459, six years after the conquest. In 1924 it became a museum, and it forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Areas of Istanbul.

Visitor guidance: It is now a museum; the palace complex is part of the UNESCO Historic Areas of Istanbul.

The Maiden's Tower, on its own islet at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus, holds one of the five Masyaf keys: Ezio must climb it and collect the key to finish the game. The real tower, 200 metres off the Üsküdar shore, was wrecked by the 1509 earthquake, burned in 1721 and rebuilt; boats still ferry visitors out to it through the day. Restored once more, it reopened to the public in May 2023, with a restaurant inside and the old city on the far shore.

Visitor guidance: Reopened in May 2023; small boats run out to the islet from the shore.

For the last key, Ezio travels to Cappadocia and its underground city, a stronghold of the Byzantine Templars where he assassinates Manuel Palaiologos and recovers what he needs. The game's city is a fiction, but Cappadocia's real underground cities were cut into soft volcanic rock; Derinkuyu descends about 85 metres and could shelter as many as 20,000 people with their livestock. It was linked to Kaymakli by some 8–9 kilometres of tunnels and was rediscovered in 1963 after a local knocked through a basement wall.

Location precision: The game calls the hideout simply Cappadocia; the pin marks Derinkuyu, the largest of the underground cities built there.

Visitor guidance: Derinkuyu is open to visitors; it lies near the town of the same name in Nevşehir Province.