At its core the Assassin’s Creed games have been about experiencing a point in history as an assassin; finding and eliminating targets, open-world exploration, and parkour shenanigans. While liberties have always been taken with the factual elements of the historical setting, the developers have always attempted to make the world feel authentic and somewhat grounded to the timeframe in which the story is based. Yet there a very sci-fi side narrative that has existed in the AC universe that I really like – one that has allowed the game in recent entries to do some fun stuff, and by fun, I mean get weird.
lets videogames do what they do best, allow us to explore unseen worlds.
In case you haven’t played any of the games, I will avoid spoiling narrative elements where possible, but the key thing to know is that there are two secret factions at war, the Assassins and Templars. These two rival groups have gone by other names or incarnations, but ultimately the most games play out with the Assassins trying to thwart Templar attempts to control mankind. Then there’s the other story, the really sci-fi one, regarding an ancient race of highly advanced beings and the end of the world. This is the weird that I enjoy, and it in later games it created opportunities that lets videogames do what they do best, allow us to explore unseen worlds.
In Assassin’s Creed Origins players would experience the origins of the Assassins while exploring ancient Egypt, which in itself is great to explore, but in the release of The Curse of the Pharaohs DLC the game got do the weird. Players were taken to the realms of the afterlife based on Egyptian beliefs and battle giant Egyptian Gods in the desert. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was built around ancient Greece and again through DLC, took us to an even more exciting locations including the lost city of Atlantis. The latest title, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, dived heavily into the weird by including the realm of Asgard and Jotunheim from Norse mythology in the main experience, and then Svartalfheim in a later expansion. So, while the core games are cool and have interesting locations and historical settings to explore, it’s the weird that really just adds to the fun – and I love it.
