PARIS – Since its release in 2007, “Assassin’s Creed” has grown to be a video game juggernaut with more than 200 million copies sold, a star-studded spin-off movie, and a Grammy Award.
In anticipation of “Assassin’s Creed Mirage”‘s release on Thursday, AFP examines the game’s distinctive plot.
Violence in the past
The “Assassin’s Creed” series has taken players on a wild journey through time and space, taking them from the bazaars of the Holy Land during the Crusades to revolutionary France via the frigid Nordic coastlines of the Viking Age.
The game returns to its Middle Eastern origins for the most recent release from its publisher Ubisoft, this time to Baghdad in the ninth century.
However, the core gameplay always involves a lot of killing, regardless of the era.
Anyone who stands in their path is hacked with swords, killed with arrows, beheaded with shields, strangled, bombed, and beaten to death by players.
The main character, who is frequently a cloaked assassin, conveniently has a device that lets him access the DNA of long-dead ancestors, which means the potential for mayhem is not constrained by history or science.
instant jackpot
The first game in the series, released in 2007, sold more than eight million copies worldwide before the second episode, which debuted in 2009, was released.
And as time has passed, it has grown in popularity.
According to France-based Ubisoft, “Valhalla,” the series’ final release in 2020, was the most profitable thus far, bringing in more over one billion euros ($1.05 billion).
“Valhalla” also pioneered in other ways.
Its American composer Stephanie Economou received the first Grammy music industry award specifically for video game scores in February 2023.
To be chopped!
The historical perspective of the game has not exactly gained widespread acclaim.
The creators of 2014’s “Assassin’s Creed Unity” were accused of “propaganda against the people” by French leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon for portraying the nobles of the French Revolution as “poor little people.”
“And the man who was our liberator at one point during the revolution, Robespierre, is presented as a monster,” he added.
Ubisoft claimed that in order to maintain its historical accuracy, “dozens of historians, sociologists, and other social science researchers” were employed.
One-star reviews and a starry cast
With the debut of a film by the same name in 2016, the “Assassin’s Creed” series followed the well-worn road of popular video games into the cinema.
Although the cast was excellent, with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard leading the way, the reviews weren’t as positive, and there have been no official announcements of a sequel for the big screen.
Though unfazed, Ubisoft signed an agreement with Netflix in 2020 to create a number of programs based on the IP.
The saga features ancillary comics and podcasts as well.
Chinese heritage
The future of the game is likely to include a lot of mobile gameplay.
For mobile gaming rights, Ubisoft has previously agreed to a contract worth an initial 370 million euros with a unit of Chinese juggernaut Tencent, the uncontested leader in the industry.
Ubisoft, which has furthermore received major investments from Tencent, referred to the agreement as “one of the largest” in the business’ history.
The first game is already under development; it’s called “Assassin’s Creed Jade” and it’s an open-world mobile game that, as might be expected, is set in imperial China.
