The Lost Archive

"Abstergo has experimented through their Animus program on 17 known test subjects. This is the story of Subject 16."

―Introduction to the Lost Archive.

The Lost Archive is a downloadable content addition for Assassin's Creed: Revelations, with gameplay similar to the Desmond's Journey sequences. It follows the life of Clay Kaczmarek, also known as Subject 16 of the Animus Project, and was released on 28 February 2012.

The content was first hinted at when a set of achievements was leaked on 14 February 2012, which were later added to Revelations via the 1.03 patch.

Plot

During his time in the Black Room, Desmond Miles relived the memories passed to him by a virtual construct of Clay Kaczmarek, his predecessor in the Animus Project. The memories related to Clay becoming a member of the Assassins, being assigned to infiltrate Abstergo Industries' Animus Project laboratory in Italy, and discovering what Warren Vidic hoped to achieve by exploring the genetic memories of various Assassin figures.

Lucy Stillman, an Assassin herself, had been placed within the facilty to rescue Clay when his mission was complete. In his memories, Clay recalled his father's disregard for his career goals, demanding that Clay should instead become an engineer to provide for his family. Clay believed that his father's focus on wealth pushed his mother away from the family.

Clay eventually realised that Vidic was using these genetic memories to discover the locations of the Pieces of Eden in the modern era. In particular, Vidic focused on locating an Apple of Eden, which was meant to be launched aboard a satellite to control the minds of humanity across the Earth. Clay also discovered Lucy discussing her true loyalty to the Templars with Vidic, and revealed her actual motives, which were to remove Desmond from the Abstergo facility and transport him to a more comfortable environment, where she would use the Assassins' resources to allow Desmond to discover the location of the Apple and recover it for the Templars.

Lucy, having sworn to protect Clay, wiped the security feed showing that he had seen their discussion, but did not let him leave the facility, to prevent her true allegiances from being discovered. The memories continued in a loop, until Desmond collected the scattered memory fragments, which revealed Clay emailing his father and telling him not to worry about his disappearance, because he had found a greater purpose to serve, foreshadowing his suicide.

Memories

1. The End Is Only the Beginning
2. The Order
3. Abstergo
4. The Mole
5. Bleeding Effect
6. The Truth
7. The End of the Line

Additional content

Aside from the story missions, The Lost Archive includes ten achievements, and various single-player and multiplayer features.

Single-player

• Turkish Assassin Armor - outfit
• Altaïr's robes - outfit
• Armor of Brutus - outfit
• Vlad the Impaler's Prison - secret location
• Capacity upgrades for the Hidden Gun, crossbow, and bombs

Multiplayer

• Crusader
• Ottoman Jester
• Ottoman Doctor

Trivia

• Starting up The Lost Archive seemed to shut down the game and launch a new application, in the same manner as Desmond's Journey did.
  • Similarly, before the memory began, a screen with access code would flash by.
• Each memory flowed from the one preceding it.
• Throughout the memories, 'hallucinations' of other memories would occasionally occur.
• The visuals within the memories changed, being sometimes sharp, sometimes possessing noise akin to film grain. The visuals would also occasionally glitch or gain effects, color variation being the most common.

Gallery

• 
  The doorway and the stone with the words "Fragments are the exit"
• 
  Clay's funeral
• 
  The binary message
• 
  Abstergo
• 
  The corridor
• 
  The circumpunct and the Morse code
• 
  The wall displaying the braille for "The truth is constructed of lies."
• 
  Project Siren revealed