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Ezio Auditore

January 26, 2017 | By Errex More

It took me quite a while to track down this version of Ezio Auditore from the second Assassin’s Creed game, published by Ubi Soft a few years ago.

NECA made this action figure in 2010 as part of their Player Select line, and it portrays Ezio at a rather early stage in his career as an assassin running around and jumping from rooftops in the Italian City States during the Rennaissance.

Young Ezio here wears the iconic hood from the Assassin’s order, adapted to Renaissance Italian fashion. The attire is quite colorful and insanely detailed, full of stitching and ornamental patterns complemented with very realistic textures to differentiate between materials.

The hood mostly covers Ezio’s face, but you can tell the resemblance to the digital model from the game, including the scar on the right side of his lip.

Being a NECA figure, Ezio has a quite impressive articulation design, consisting of:

• Ball mounted head.

• Pin & disk shoulders.

• Pin & disk elbows.

• Ball jointed wrists.

• Barbell mounted waist.

• Pin & disk hips.

• Upper thigh swivels.

• Pin & disk knees.

• Pin & disk ankles.

All of the joints feel quite sturdy and do their job as best as the character design allows, which is quite enough considering the use of very soft plastic for most of the overlapping costume elements.

A lot of the joints are painted over though, so it is advisable to free them carefully to minimize paint chipping, as these joint pieces are made from a light cream-colored plastic that can be rather conspicuous at times.

The color palette on Ezio is quite pleasing to the eye. The hooded tunic is not actually white, but a very light gray, while the sleeves are painted in a warmer, creamy color. There are a number of decorative patterns printed all around the lower edges of the “skirt” piece, as well as on the red lining on the tunic.

The brown leathery bits look nicely weathered with a shading wash that really enhances the textures and enhances the appearance of the metallic details on the leatherwear.

Ezio’s face under the hood has a nice, Mediterranean skin color that matches his bare left hand. Considering how little of the face is actually exposed, the painters at NECA did a pretty good job of bringing it to life by applying a very discrete lip color and clean, straight eyes.

There are a few paint splotches, here and there, as well as the occasional fuzzy edge on the embroidery but the overall appearance is so rich and complex that these small mishaps are hardly noticeable.

If there is something I can criticize this particular version of Ezio for, is that he comes very lightly armed with only a couple of wrist blades at his disposal.

One is a regular hidden blade that can be slid in and out of the left bracer, while the one on the right is simply meant to be removable.

Both blades are identical and made from rigid plastic, so it is advisable to pay attention when pushing them in place, as these pieces are sharp enough to pierce skin (as I discovered).

In the end, while this is an awesome action figure, you can tell NECA at his point was still expanding their repertoire to produce the excellent action figures that would come later. Nonetheless, this is a version of Ezio Auditore that will stand proudly amidst the rest of my assassins.