Assassin's Creed III is an action-adventure, stealth game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The main narrative of the game follows Ratonhnaké:ton, also known as Connor, an 18th-century Assassin from Colonial America, and his involvement in various events during the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. In the game's prologue, consisting of the first three main sequences, players control Connor's father Haytham Kenway, the leader of the Colonial Templars, while in the modern-day sequences, the player character is series protagonist Desmond Miles, who searches for a way to protect the Earth from an upcoming solar flare on December 21, 2012. The game world consists of three main areas: Boston, New York City, and a large wilderness known as the Frontier. Portions of the Eastern Seaboard and Caribbean Sea can be explored during the naval side missions.
Free running has been simplified to allow for more fluid parkour in the cities and wilderness, such as climbing and running on trees, mountains, cliffs, etc. Close combat has been modified, allowing Connor to dual-wield weapons and take down multiple opponents at once and players no longer need to manage the lock-on mechanic. Connor has access to a wide range of weapons which include muskets, swords, pistols, native weapons such as the tomahawk and bow and arrow, the Rope Dart (used to pull foes or hang them from above) and the Assassins' signature Hidden Blades. Human shields can be used against firing lines of enemies. Medicine is no longer used as health recovers automatically. Stealth is revamped, allowing players to use natural elements such as tall grass and trees to hide, along with the ability to blend between any two people.