Haytham Kenway

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Haytham Kenway" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Haytham E. Kenway
Assassin's Creed character
First game	Assassin's Creed III (2012)
Created by	Ubisoft Montreal
Portrayed by	Adrian Hough
In-universe information
Origin	London, England, Kingdom of Great Britain
Nationality	British

Haytham E. Kenway is a character in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed video game franchise. He is introduced as the false protagonist of Assassin's Creed III (2012), in which players control him for the game's initial chapters, before being revealed as the true antagonist. Haytham also serves as a supporting character in Assassin's Creed Rogue (2014), which takes place between his playable chapters in Assassin's Creed III and the latter part of the game, and his backstory is further explored in the novel Assassin's Creed: Forsaken. In the games, he is portrayed by actor Adrian Hough through performance capture.

Within the series' alternate historical setting, Haytham was born in 1725 as the son of Edward Kenway, one of the leading members of the British Brotherhood of Assassins and the protagonist of the prequel game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013). Following his father's murder in 1735, he is manipulated into joining the Templar Order, the Assassins' arch-enemies, and eventually becomes one of the Order's leading members as the Grand Master of the North American colonial rite. Under Haytham's leadership, the Templars exterminate most of the Colonial Assassins, becoming the dominant force on the continent, and later attempt to build a new nation under their rule by influencing the American Revolution. During this time, Haytham sires a son, Ratonhnaké:ton / Connor, with a Native American woman, who in turn joins the Assassins and undoes most of his father's work. Though Haytham and Connor briefly become allies and consider unifying their orders, they both ultimately realise that peace between the Assassins and Templars is impossible, and their conflict culminates with Haytham's death at Connor's hands in 1781.

Prior to Assassin's Creed III's release, Haytham was not advertised as a playable character in order to surprise players. The twist that players were actually controlling a Templar during the first third of the game was praised for its cleverness and for being the first time in the series that players got to experience the Templars' point of view in the storyline, although some criticized the inclusion of Haytham's sequences for hurting the game's pacing. Unlike his son Connor, who had a divisive reception, Haytham was well-received for his charm and complexity, and is considered one of the best villains in the franchise.