You might have noticed that things have been a little quiet on here. Well, I suppose it's because the dayjob takes a lot out of me and I like to unwind with gaming.
As a writer of historical fiction, I've had a particular fondness of the Assassin's Creed series of video games. Even though I'm way behind on the series, I'm still often curious about where and when the next game takes place. Over the past couple of months, I've been working my through The Ezio Collection, a PS4 re-release of three of the past games, featuring one of the franchise's iconic protagonists. Since the Writer's Block has been a little bare this year, I thought I'd write some posts about the individual games in the collection: Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
I'll post about those games in due course, but first I'll look at some background. Assassin's Creed combines platforming and stealth in a third-person open world, serving as a spiritual successor to Ubisoft's Prince of Persia franchise. The overall story revolves around an almost eternal conflict between two secret societies: The Assassins, who seek to preserve free will and the growth of knowledge; and the Templars, who seek peace through dominion. Both groups often find themselves fighting over technology from an ancient civilisation. In a near-future setting, characters from both sides use a device known as The Animus to re-live the genetic memories of their ancestors who fought in such conflicts. This serves as the framing story for the games.
The first Assassin's Creed - released in 2007 - follows Desmond Miles as he's abducted by the megacorporation Abstergo (later revealed to be the modern-day front for the Templars). He's forced to use the Animus to re-live the memories of his ancestor Altair Ibn-la-ahad, a Syrian Assassin who rose to prominence in the Levant during the Third Crusade. In Altair's story, he's disgraced after failing a mission due to his arrogance and forced to rise up the brotherhood's ranks by assassinating nine prominent figures across the Holy Land (in Damascus, Acre, and Jerusalem).
It's been a while since I played the original Assassin's Creed. I recall that the game had some cool ideas, most notably the free-running and stealth elements, but the experience was marred by repetitive sidequests and dialogue-heavy cutscenes that can't be skipped. Anyway, I don't want to go too deep into that, but I'm mentioning it here because I'll likely come back to it later.
Despite the game's flaws, somebody in Ubisoft saw potential in it and Assassin's Creed II saw its release in 2009. I'll talk about that one soon.
