| Edward Kenway | |
|---|---|
| Assassin's Creed character | |
 | |
| First appearance | Assassin's Creed: Forsaken (2012) |
| First game | Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013) |
| Created by | Ubisoft |
| Adapted by | Oliver Bowden |
| Portrayed by | Matt Ryan |
| In-universe information | |
| Origin | Swansea, Wales, Great Britain |
| Nationality | Welsh |
Edward James Kenway is a fictional character in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed video game franchise. He was introduced as a supporting character in Assassin's Creed: Forsaken, a companion novel to the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed III. He subsequently appeared as the protagonist of the 2013 video game, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and its novelization, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. In the former, he is portrayed by Welsh actor Matt Ryan through performance capture. Since Black Flag's release, the character has made further appearances in several other works within the franchise.
Within the series' alternate historical setting, Edward was born in 1693 into a family of Welsh farmers, but his ambitions to improve his lifestyle eventually prompt him to become a privateer and later a pirate, operating in the Caribbean during the final decades of the Golden Age of Piracy. During this time, he plays an important role in the establishment of a short-lived Pirate Republic, and inadvertently becomes caught in the conflict between the Assassin Brotherhood (inspired by the real-life Order of Assassins) and the Templar Order (inspired by the Knights Templar military order). Initially helping both sides for personal gain, he eventually has a change of heart and joins the Assassins following his retirement from piracy. Later in life, he settles down in London, becoming one of the co-leaders of the local branch of the Brotherhood, until his murder by the Templars in 1735. Edward is the father of Haytham Kenway, who would go on to become a high-ranking Templar and the main antagonist of Assassin's Creed III; the grandfather of Ratonhnhaké꞉ton / Connor, Haytham's son and the protagonist of Assassin's Creed III; and an ancestor of Desmond Miles, the protagonist of the modern-day sequences of the first five main games in the series.
Edward has received a positive reception for his charm and characterization as a morally ambiguous protagonist and self-made man and is considered to be one of the series' most popular characters. Various merchandise for the character, as with other of the series' protagonists, has been released.