Assassin's Creed II/Side Missions

There are four types of side-missions, which can be completed for extra florins and better synchronization between Desmond and Ezio. Each mission type has its icon on the map, so they are easy to locate. Side-missions are unlocked by completing memories in the DNA sequences.

Races
For races, you simply have to run through a series of location markers within a certain time limit. Only the next marker is shown – as a green target icon on the map, and as a small white whirlwind in your normal view. These races consist mainly of free-running and may take more than one attempt to figure out the proper route or even to know where the next marker is, as they're hard to spot sometimes. Guards will still act normally during races, and your route is over rooftops many times, so take their actions into account.

Courier assignments
These missions require you to take letters to people in the city. These are fairly simple with generous time limits.

Beat-up events
Beat-up missions have you locating a woman's cheating spouse or boyfriend and melee fighting him until he submits. In later missions you'll only be given the general area of the target, so use eagle vision and look in out-of-the-way places where an adulterer might be able to find some privacy with his mistress.

Assassination contracts
By far the largest portion of side-missions, Lorenzo de Medici will task you with various assignments to spoil his enemies' plans. Assassination contracts can be started from pigeon coops on rooftops, and there are usually two or three in a city. The missions are the same regardless of where you start them. In general, you'll need to locate and kill the targets, although sometimes there will be special provisions like not using weapons or not being seen.

Assassin's tombs and seals
Underneath your villa, accessible from the room with the codex pages, you'll find the Sanctuary, which houses Altaïr's tomb and statues of previous legendary Assassins. You can read bios on each of the statues, and you'll see some armor atop Altaïr's sarcophagus behind a locked gate. Your uncle tells you that each of the six locks on the gate corresponds to six Assassins' tombs located throughout Italy. If you find the tombs and acquire the seals, you can bring them back to the Sanctuary to open the gate and get Altaïr's armor. Though it has the same combined stats as the Missaglias armor, it has a different look and never needs to be repaired.

Once you meet up with Volpe during the game, you'll learn how to spot and open the secret entrances to the Assassins' tombs. At this point, all the entrances will be marked on your map when you get to that area. All Assassins' tombs are restricted areas, so your alert status will be permanently notorious while you're in there and guards will attack upon seeing you. Although the tombs often contain some guards, they are mainly lengthy exercises in platforming. When you find the Assassin's sarcophagus, you can open it to get the seal and the memory ends when you take a secret exit out of the tomb. The tombs may also contain secret areas that have an extra treasure chest or two in them.

Templar lairs
The Templar lairs are not part of the basic game and only come with special editions or certain downloadable content. For console versions, the White edition comes with the Templar lair in Florence, and the Black and Master's Assassin versions come with all three lairs available. If the normal or White version was purchased, you can also gain access to all three lairs by downloading the enhanced version of Sequence 13. For the Windows version, you get access to all three lairs by purchasing the Black edition of the game. The lairs are also included in the Ezio Collection.

Templar lairs are much like Assassin's tombs, as you have to find your way through a large structure with a lot of platforming and you'll sometimes have to deal with guards. As in tombs, there are secret areas to find that contain treasure chests. At the end of the lair, instead of opening a sarcophagus, you get to open a Templar treasure, worth thousands of florins.