

Level design, voice acting, and animations stood out as being worthy of a next-generation game title.ĭevelopers at Ubisoft worked hard to create large crowds in which the protagonist, Assassin Altair Ibn-La’Ahad could mingle and hide in, a huge departure from past stealth games that encouraged hiding in the shadows.

The game hooked gamers with many layers of authenticity. Setting: Holy Land During the Third Crusade (Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus)Īssassin’s Creed gained plenty of attention after an impressive 2006 E3 demo with the game release coming in 2007. Let’s take a look through some highlights over the 13 years the franchise has been around. There are 12 main Assassin’s Creed games and 12 spin-off games, spanning almost every platform and three console generations. Story aspects were inspired by a novel from the 1930s titled Alamut by Vladimir Bartol including the spoken creed of the Assassin Order: “nothing is true, everything is permitted.” However, the free-running open-world gameplay was an evolution from the popular Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an action-adventure game with platforming elements that inspired a movie of its own. The series tells these stories across different timelines thanks to a device called the Animus which lets users experience the memories of their ancestors and thus, characters in this long-running Assassin-Templar war. Although the locations and periods are rooted in reality, the stories are fictional. These settings help tell an epic story that revolves around two competing factions: the Assassins that fight for free will, and the Templar’s who fight to maintain order through mind control.

Not only that, but these settings depicted important eras in time, including the Holy Crusades, Italian Renaissance, the American Revolution, Victorian Era England, the Age of Piracy, and the Viking conquests. Thirteen years later, Assassin’s Creed has developed into a franchise that transcends gaming, expanding into movies, novels, comics, anime and even an upcoming Netflix series.Īssassin's Creed has taken players to exotic locations including Syria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Paris, and England. Who would have guessed that stealthily scaling a building with a trusty hidden blade would become an annual tradition, but back in 2007, the exploits of Altair in Assassin’s Creed were practically revolutionary.
