Assassin's Creed III is a third-person action-adventure title set in an open world in which the player uses a combination of stealth, parkour, and combat to complete various missions. The player takes the role of three characters during the course of the game. The main character is Desmond Miles, a 21st-century Assassin, working to uncover the secrets of a mysterious Precursor Vault that will protect the Earth from an upcoming solar flare on . To uncover the secrets, Desmond uses the Animus to live out memories of two of his ancestors which the player controls during these sequences, both set at the time of the . The first briefly played at the start of the game, is Haytham Kenway, a British Templar who seeks the location of the Vault. The second and the primary character for the game is Ratonhnhaké:ton, the result of a brief liaison between Kenway and a Native American woman. Ratonhnhaké:ton takes on the name Connor to blend in better with colonial society. When playing as Connor, the player has access to a huge wilderness known as the Frontier (which is 1.5 times bigger than in ), the cities of and . Portions of the and can be explored via the flagship of the Assassins' navy, the Aquila, captained by Connor Kenway himself, with Robert Faulkner his first-mate advising and teaching him in the ways of the sea
- Assassin's Creed III features new weather simulations such as , , and .
- The seasons can also change i.e., Summer and Winter, which not only affect visuals but also gameplay,
- as the player will find that they run slower in deep snow.
- Snowfall can reduce visibility for the player and enemies, aiding stealth.