Assassin’s Creed II – Unlock Bonus Content

The way to unlock bonus content in Assassin’s Creed II after Ubisoft servers’ shutdown.

Sad Day of June 1st, 2021

Note: Credit goes to Troprzem

On June 1st, 2021, Ubisoft closed servers of Assassin’s Creed II.

This decision led to the inability to unlock bonus content such as Ubisoft Connect rewards or Deluxe Edition add-ons. The only way to access them was to load an old save with unlocked content.

However, after some research, I found a way to unlock this content in new saves.

Save Types

First of all, the saves are located in:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames[Ubisoft account ID]\4

There are two save types in Assassin’s Creed II. One is responsible for settings and unlocking content, and the other has data about game progress, Ezio’s location and your session’s name.

Depending on what you do, these saves may have different numbers. If you start by changing some settings, the first type will be number 1. However, if you start a new session without changing anything, the second type will be number 1.

You can identify your save type by size of the file. Second save type is much bigger and grows as you progress through the game. First save type is around 3 KB and doesn’t change much later.

The one that interests us is the first type.

Unlocking Content

First, you need to create a save file of the first type. You can do this by simple launching the game and turning subtitles on, which are turned off by default. You don’t even have to create a new session.

Then, you need to open the save file with hex editor. I used HxD. You have to scroll down the offset to “000005F0” in hexadecimal system with 16 bytes per line. This is where the values that interest us begin.

You need to change “00” values to “01” in addresses listed below to activate content.

1. 000005F0x02 – Palazzo Medici Templar lair
2. 00000600x04 – Santa Maria dei Frari Templar lair
3. 00000610x06 – Arsenale di Venezia Templar lair
4. 00000630x0A – Bonus outfit dye
5. 00000690x04 – Throwing knives capacity upgrade
6. 000006A0x06 – Altaïr’s outfit
7. 000006B0x08 – Auditore Family Crypt

After modifying and saving the file, the content should be unlocked. Now all you have to do is progress enough in the game’s plot to access it.

Summary

Battle of Forlì and Bonfire of the Vanities dlcs are already integrated into the game and do not need to be unlocked. They activate by themselves after Sequence 11.

Well, that would be it. This all shows how lazy Ubisoft is. Because come on, it’s just about turning zeros into ones. Really, Ubisoft could do better.

It’s a pity the same thing will happen to Brotherhood and Revelations soon (or already, depending on when you read this). However, it seems to me that activating bonus content may work similarly there, so maybe we can find a solution for these games as well.