What fictional company serves as the modern-day antagonist in Assassin’s Creed?

Abstergo Industries is the fictional company that serves as the modern-day antagonist in Assassin’s Creed.

Abstergo is presented as a huge multinational corporation secretly controlled by the modern Templar Order. Its public businesses include pharmaceuticals, technology, and entertainment, while its hidden operations pursue ancient artifacts and control over human society.

In the first game, Desmond Miles is held by Abstergo and forced to use the Animus to relive Altaïr’s memories. The company’s research team, including Warren Vidic and Lucy Stillman, uses ancestral memories to locate powerful Pieces of Eden.

Abstergo is not the same thing as the Templar Order, although the two are closely connected. Abstergo is the corporation and institutional cover; the Templars are the ideological organization operating behind it. Later games also show Abstergo Entertainment producing commercialized versions of genetic memories.