Video game publisher Ubisoft has announced a competition called Unlock the Animus, which is linked to the launch of the new Assassin's Creed: Revelations, with the grand prize being a trip with all expenses paid to Istanbul.


Interestingly the official site of the Unlock the Animus competition is separate from that of the Assassin's Creed franchise and asks players to solve a number of puzzles of increasing difficulty, with the toughest one set to be offered on November 8.

The first puzzle involves a video that needs to be closely watched and then the gamer is asked to select items from a list of words in order to identify the 12 elements seen in the video and arrange them correctly.

Each registered player gets five attempts, with the initial video getting harder to actually watch each successive time.

On October 11 Ubisoft will introduce a new puzzle.

Those who perform best in the puzzles will get pre-paid flights, accommodation for four nights and 500 British Pounds (about 771 dollars and 560 Euro at the current exchange rates) to spend in the city.

Unlock the Animus is clearly designed to drum up interest in Assassin's Creed: Revelations before its launch date on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 home consoles.

It seems to be part of a wider trend which has seen other publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard launch competitions that involve big franchises like Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and FIFA 12.

Revelations will see Ezio travel to Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, in order to follow the footsteps of Altair, his ancestor.

The stories of the two characters will be combined with the story of Desmond, in the Assassin's Creed present time, and the developers are promising that by the end of the game fans of the series will have the answers to their biggest questions.