User blog comment:D. Cello/Assassinews 09/23 -- Videos and cinematics/@comment-2.109.175.114-20110924104428/@comment-68.200.157.141-20110925043822

The Animus in AC1 was the Animus 1.0. 1. It's not as advanced as the AC2 Animus which was the 2.0. 2. Because of the first reason, Altair had Desmond's FACE and ACCENT. What they did was literally have Desmond be in Altair's place. 3. Since the Animus 2.0 was better than Animus 1.0, they were able to allow Ezio to have more of his own appearance (although he still looked a lot like Desmond) and he was able to have his own voice/accent. 4. Revelations takes place in Desmond's mind still plugged into the Animus 2.0. There's two good reasons why Altair looks the way he looks and sounds the way he sounds. The first reason is because it's through the Animus 2.0's programming so his accent and looks are more accurate to the original. The second reason is because the memories of Altair are probably viewed through EZIO's eyes when he acquires the seals. Since that would be from Ezio's LITERAL memories, it's a DIRECT thing between Ezio and Altair with the Animus programming probably having little to do with it.

Altair's new face and voice is what he LITERALLY looked like and sounded like in history. There wasn't any change when it comes to Revelations. The Animus 1.0 from AC1 just wasn't hardcore enough to capture Altair in all his originality. The American Accent and Desmond's face on Altair in contrast with everyone else in the game having strong foreign accents? Blame it on the Animus 1.0 for you making you think that's REALLY what Altair was like when it wasn't.

I like the Revelations "change" to Altair if you can even consider it a "change". More like they fixed the problem. I'm honestly so relieved that I didn't have to hear Altair's American Accent.