Altair – TOM CLEMENT | GAME PRODUCER

Altair Ibn La Ahad: A Character Study

October 19, 2024October 26, 2025Posted in ArticlesTagged Altair, Altair Ibn La Ahad, Assassins Creed, Best Assassin, Best Story, Brotherhood, Character Study, Design, Desmond Miles, Ezio, Ezio Auditore, Games, gaming, Revelations, Review, Ubisoft, Video Games, Writing1 Comment

He started a franchise, was a standout for the start of the seventh generation, and defined an entire series…yet he’s only appeared in one game.

Over a decade and half after his first and only major role in video games, Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad is still referenced and idolised in the Assassin’s Creed series.

Yet as I mentioned above, he only got one major game to himself, with only short extra chapters in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations tying him in with the more famous Assassin, Ezio Auditore.

So who is this man? How did he start this franchise, and does he deserve more accolades for his action? I want to study him.

“Nothing is True. Everything Is Permitted” – What Makes Altaïr a Great Character

As with any character study, there are points of contention that must be addressed. Firstly, the game is not just about Altaïr during the Third Crusade in 1191, but about his descendant Desmond Miles in the modern day.

Not all memories available to the player (and Desmond) flow in a sequential order. At many points the Animus, the machine Desmond is using to relive his ancestor’s memories, skips forward to a more recent one.

For the most part the skip ahead is during travel or resting periods at the Assassin Bureau, it is something to keep in mind as it leaves sections of Altaïr’s life out of the picture.

Second, at the start of the game Altaïr loses all of his Assassin abilities and gear, having to earn his rank back over the course of the game. While this is to facilitate the gameplay loop, it is something to keep in mind, no matter how silly it is.

Finally, the Animus adapts speech for Desmond and the player to aid communication. The first AC is set during the Crusades in the Levant, comprising of modern day Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, meaning that Arabic, English, German, and French would have been spoken.

Not only are translations to be made, but also updating the language from 12th Century to modern day, as the Animus is known to do. Some languages don’t have exact word-for-word translations, so it’s something to keep in mind when thinking of meaning.

But with that out of the way, let’s begin.

The first thing to come to mind when discussing characters is their names. Names can tell us so much about a character from their meaning to their social status to the etymology, it’s quite fascinating.

For example, from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the main character, Eivor, last name changes depending on the gender picked by the player, between Varinsson or Varinsdottir, based on Icelandic and Viking tradition.

Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, translated from Arabic means, “The Bird, Son of No-One”. Birds are a well-known trope in Assassin’s Creed. “Altaïr” is the name of the brightest star in the Aquila constellation, which means “eagle” in Latin. Despite being Latin, a lot of stars have Arabic names, with one of them being Altaïr.

I believe though that Altaïr is not a given name, but rather a nickname that has been given to him by the Assassins around him. As mentioned in his Revelations database entry, the other Assassins knew of his “sixth sense” and had dubbed it “Eagle Vision”.

It would seem serendipitous that Altaïr’s name literally matches up with the name that his fellow Assassin’s would name it, but I believe the clue to “Altaïr” being a nickname or chosen name can be found in his last name.

“Ibn-La’Ahad”, literally translated as “Son of No-One”. Altaïr’s parents are only briefly mentioned in-game, during his Codex pages. But in the companion book, The Secret Crusade, we learn more about Altaïr’s life before and after the events of the first AC.

His mother, Maud, an English Assassin, died after childbirth, leading Altaïr to be raised solely by his father, but this was short-lived.

_{Maud, Altaïr’s mother, in one of only a few images of her, in Assassin’s Creed Initiates. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom)}

***

When Altaïr was only eleven years old, the Saracen leader Salah Al’din laid a siege on the Assassin stronghold of Masyaf. Umar, Altaïr’s father, was sent to deliver a threat stealthily to Salah Al’din, but was spotted and had to kill a nobleman to escape.

Salah Al’din’s uncle, Šihab, was sent to broker peace, demanding the Assassin that killed the nobleman to be executed. Umar agreed and was beheaded in front of the Assassin stronghold, with Altaïr watching on.

While Al Mualim in the first game says that Assassins “do not fear death, they welcome it!” (3:12), it could be still thought that some sort of honour system exists during the time period or location. When Altaïr is stripped of his rank, Al Muslim refers to it as “lost honour” (18:40).

Other instances of honour include when Altaïr flees Masyaf thirty years after liberating it from Al-Mualim. His Assassin rival, Abbas scream after him, “I will have your head for the dishonour you brought upon my family.” (25:00). Altaïr comments later that Abbas feels, “shamed by his family’s legacy.” (26:23)

Even so, if it wasn’t a strict hierarchical honour system, the fact Umar had to kill to escape rather than slip into shadows may have made others think that he wasn’t a gifted Assassin, and had to die to restore his honour.

As one Assassin says to Altaïr in the memory “The Mentor’s Keeper”, “He was a fine man your father. He lived just as he died, with honour.” (0:38).

_{Concept art with Altaïr and eagle imagery. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

***

If others made callous remarks about Umar, these jabs would have eventually comes to rest on Altaïr. So with the death of both his parents and trying to escape his disgraced father’s shadow, a name which translates to “Son of No-One” would make sense.

There is another theory however, as according to Altaïr’s Codex Entires found in ACII, his parents weren’t the most caring. He writes in #24,

“Some days I miss my family… Or at least the thought of them. I never knew my parents well, despite them both having lived within these walls. It was our way. Perhaps they were sad, though they showed no sign—it was not allowed.”

So “Son of No-One” could just be a reflection on his parents distance to him, biologically his parents but in no way crossing into social parentage. In the same Codex entry, Altaïr muses,

“Some day I will have a child—such is the way of our Order,” which also makes it sound as if there used to be no real love or companionship when deciding to become a parent, just having a child so they too can be inducted into the Order.

This is further compounded by Altaïr in AC: Revelations, when Al Mualim compares his excellent skills to his father, Altaïr responds, “I did not know him as a father…he was an Assassin above all.” (9:32).

Just before his death, Umar calls out to Al Mualim to take guard over Altaïr and induct him into the Brotherhood. Al Mualim accepts and guides Altaïr into adulthood and it is hinted that Altaïr sees Al Mualim as the father figure that is always there for him when he needed him most.

Indeed, twice in his Codex from ACII, Altaïr refers to Al Mualim as his “father”(#24) or “like a father” (#1).

It’s a hope of a father figure, but even at a young age knowing the boundaries of the Order does not allow anything, leading to a coldness later on.

Even when Al Mualim asks if Altaïr regrest living as an Assassin, Altaïr shrugs it off saying, “How can I regret the only life I’ve ever known?” (9:40). He response is nonchalant, not bitter at a possible other life, resigned that his skills are suited to being an Assassin.

_{Wise and powerful, Al Mualim is a cunning adversary, whose treachery is found only too late. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

***

Altaïr grows into a gifted fighter and Assassin, the youngest person in the Order to reach the rank of Master, and proves himself worthy time and time again to wear the hood and hidden blade.

By the start of the first game though, he is cold, arrogant, and foolish. The earliest memory in-game that we see of Altaïr is “The Mentor’s Keeper” (set in 1189, two years before the start of the first AC) where he directs other Assassin’s to drive the Templars back and saves Al Mualim’s life.

However, during his talk with Al Mualim after the siege, Altaïr doesn’t strike me as arrogant or aloof. When directing the other Assassins, sure he is brash, but not the “my way is better” approach in the original AC. What changed?

Answers can be found in the Nintendo DS game, Altaïr’s Chronicles. Set a year before the original game, Altaïr is sent by Al-Mualim to retrieve another fabled artifact, this one called The Chalice, before the Templars reach it first.

Altaïr’s investigation leads him to find that the Chalice is not an object, but in fact a woman called Adha. After freeing her from the Templars and escaping together, the two fell in love and planned to run away together. Altaïr even assassinated an Assassin spy to safeguard their flight, even though he knew it would mean being outcast by the brotherhood.

This did not go to plan however. Adha was once again captured by the Templars and taken aboard a ship, sailing away from Altaïr even as he called out to her that he would find her. He pursued the Templars across the sea, but Adha was executed not long afterwards.

As mentioned in #7 his Codex in ACII, Altaïr writes;

“I had thought Adha would be the one to lead me to rest, that I might lay down my blade and live as a normal man. But now I know such dreams are best left to sleep…

…I hunted each man—one by one—until all responsible were gone from the world. But there was joy in this. No satisfaction or release. Their deaths did not bring her back. Did not heal my wounds. After that I was certain I would never again feel for a woman as I had for her.

I am fortunate to have been wrong.”

_{Adha (in the middle) as she is shipped away at the end of Altaïr’s Chronicles. (Source: YouTube, Assassin’s Creed Series).}

***

Up until meeting Adha, Altaïr would have been the model Assassin student, but on encountering love and romance for the first time, his resolve in the Creed fails. He finds it limits him, denying him a true and powerful feeling.

Coupled with the knowledge of his parents’ relationship, he obviously believed that being in love and being an Assassin are antithetical.

So at the sight of a new and exciting life ahead that was snatched away, you can see Altaïr becoming disillusioned with the Creed, leading him to break all the tenets during the raid on Solomon’s Temple. It’s not a rebellion in an edgy “I-don’t-play-by-the-rules” way, but cynicism and almost a nihilistic approach to life.

And so after fleeing Solomon’s Temple, Altaïr head back to Masyaf and inadvertently leads the Templars straight to the gates. Despite this, Altaïr is one of the Assassins tasked with trapping the Templars after performing a Leap of Faith.

Just as a sidenote, it’s interesting that Altaïr is placed almost in the same way as his father was twenty years previously. Both lead a foreign army to their door and both symbolically die to drive the forces back, the only difference being Altaïr physically survives his ‘fall from grace’.

After stopping the Templars, Altaïr is sentenced to death and Al Mualim stabs him with a dagger, only later to be revelled as a ruse to warn other wayward Assassins. Again, it’s another marker of Altaïr being symbolically cutting him off from his old life, allowing him to be reborn, with Al Muslim literally saying, “…you slept the sleep of the dead, of the womb.” (6:24).

And it really does seem like this wakes Altaïr from his nihilism. Reduced to a novice rank and given a list of nine targets across the Holy Land, Altaïr throws himself into his assignment, systematically taking down those that profit from the war without a hint of the arrogance or nihilism of before.

However, in being ‘reborn’, it is almost as if this has washed away the mental supports of the Creed, leaving a belief system that only needs a few choice pressures to fall apart, but also freed Altaïr from its confines as well.

After every assassination, Altaïr extracts a last confession from his targets. And while they try and moralise their work to Altaïr, they also begin to sow the seeds of doubt within his mind. About why these particular men and their intentions, so much that Altaïr begins to ask Al Mualim about it.

_{Altaïr extracting a confession from Sibrand in the “Memory Corridor” (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com).}

***

Despite these invasive thoughts, Altaïr does seem to develop as a character, and it can be seen in the confessions. At the start of nearly every assassination Altaïr tells the target to be at peace, laying them down and letting them slip without judgement into the void.

In “The Mentor’s Keeper” he relfected with Al Mulaim that, “No man should pass from this world without knowing some kindess.” (9:07), and he seems to have found it within himself again.

With Abul Nu’qoud, scarred and deformed, and who killed other nobles for their cruel mockery of him, Altaïr says, “Be at peace now. Their words can no longer do harm.”

When talking with Sibrand, Altaïr tries to connect on a spiritual level during the dialogue;

Sibrand: Please, don't do this.

Altaïr: You are afraid.

Sibrand: Of course I am afraid!

Altaïr: But you'll be safe now. Held in the arms of your God.

When speaking with Majd Addin, Altaïr finally seems to have developed a conscience, reflecting on his former viewpoint;

Addin: I killed because I could, because it was fun! Do you know what it feels like, to determine another man's fate? And did you see the way the people cheered? The way they feared me? I was like a God! You'd have done the same if you could. Such power!

Altaïr: Once perhaps. But then I learned what becomes of those who lift themselves above others.

And when Altaïr learns of the Templar Grand Master Robert de Sablé’s plan to unite the Holy Land against the Assassins, he argues the case to strike before permission with Bureau Leader Malik.

Malik: Look, Brother. Things have changed. You must return to Masyaf. We cannot act without our Master’s permission. It could compromise the Brotherhood. I thought... I thought you had learned this.

Altaïr: Stop hiding behind word, Malik! You wield the Creed and its tenets like some shield. He's keeping things from us, important things!

_{Malik is another integral character to Altaïr’s story, with Malik losing an arm and his brother due to Altaïr’s mistakes. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

***

Alongside the development of skepticism on Assassin ritual, Altaïr has learned to take a moment with his targets, seeing them not as enemies but as humans, with their own fears and ambitions.

All of this develops into a greater understanding of the world, which then brings Altaïr into direct conflict with Al Mualim.

While the master and student do finally face-off, the downward spiral can be seen throughout their interactions with every Templar Altaïr hunts.

At first Altaïr comes back to Al Mualim with curiosity of the seeds of doubt the Templars sowed, but towards the end he begins to demand answers, confronting Al Mualim for speaking cryptically.

In the end, when the two meet for the last time in the Masyaf Garden, Al Mualim chastises Altaïr, demeaning him for his supposed failures as an Assassin, of being blind to the bigger picture, and falling to emotion rather than logic.

Al Mualim then reveals the Piece of Eden’s power and explains that he tried to force Altaïr to bend to his will, yet couldn’t.

‘Who you are and what you do are twined too tight together. To rob you of one would have deprived me of the other.”

Altaïr strikes back with words every time Al Mulaim tries to lecture him and I believe this is how he eventually bests his former Master.

Al Mualim could have easily stabbed Altaïr as he did at the start of the game, but Altaïr goads him into a fight, and Altaïr, now quietly confident in his required abilities, quickly dispatches his teacher.

He fights both with steel and his wits, learning that a closer emotional resonance with the world around him will lead to greater things, and so takes this facet with him from the garden and applies it now that he is Grand Master of the Assassin Order.

_{“…and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.” Altaïr sees through his master’s hypocrisy cynicism and vows to undo the damage caused. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com).}

***

This development of a greater pastoral care can also be seen in his Codex. First in #4, Altaïr tries to break down the Creed and the Order on a moral level, but every time he thinks he has found justification, there is always one nagging doubt at the back of his head that they cause more chaos than peace.

Later on in #14, Altaïr resolves himself that they must continue to do violence, but only when the time is right. He views domestic abuse and children sold in war and slavery and writes;

“…On these days, I do not think that dialogue will make a difference. On these days, I can think only of how the perpetrators need to die.”

And in #6, Altaïr resolves to remake the Order, abandoning the rituals but not the Creed, seeking ways previously thought unwise, and in his own words, “We will be born anew…”

In #27 he realises that the Order is growing, and to teach those that seek understanding. He writes;

“More make their way to our fortresses every day…Each tells a similar story—of having discovered the first part of our creed: that nothing is true.

Too often, though, the revelation undoes them. They lose their morality, certainty, security. Many are driven mad. We must guide them. Help them heal.”

It is a development of mellowing and maturing with age, very similar to Ezio in Revelations compared to Brotherhood.

And while some of it comes from Altaïr’s self-discovery over the course of the first game, I believe two people helped him on this course.

One was Malik, the previously mentioned Bureau Leader in Jerusalem. Malik and his brother Kadar were alongside Altaïr in Solomon’s Temple. During the ensuing battle Malik lost an arm and Kadar was killed, leading Malik to foster a grudge against Altaïr.

As Altaïr rises through the ranks again during the story, the connection between him and Malik softens. Malik helps Altaïr infiltrate Masyaf to assassinate Al Mualim, and becomes Altaïr’s right-hand-man as Mentor, and is mentioned many times in the Codex.

The other person that helps Altaïr develop his inner self is the “templar Tomboy” Maria Thorpe. Their first interaction lasts no more than a minute, yet it sends ripples throughout Altaïr’s life and the Order of Assassins.

_{“I sense you expected someone else…” Maria acts as a decoy for Altaïr’s true target. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

***

The pair meet when Altaïr is sent to kill the Templar Grand Master Robert de Sablé, who is attending a funeral for the Saracen Regent Majid Addin (a nice connection between a previous target).

When Altaïr finally defeats Robert, the Assassin demands to see the latter’s face before striking the killer blow but he is shocked to see a woman underneath the helmet. Maria taunts him and explains Robert’s plan to unite the Holy Land, before Altaïr lets her go.

Maria is confused at this, she thought he would take her life as he had done to the last eight targets. He says she was never a target, so she is allowed to go.

It’s a long way from Altaïr at the beginning of the game, killing an innocent without a second thought, or even Altaïr during his Hunt for the Nine, who would kill any street preacher that he interrogated.

The two meet not long after though, in the PlayStation Portable game, Altaïr’s Chronicles. Set one month after the main game, the Templars have been weakened after Altaïr’s assassinations and flee Acre. They leave to Cyprus, so Altaïr follows them to eradicate them and uncover the Templar Archive rumoured to exist on the island.

Maria is with the Templars at the start, but without Robert vouching for her, she is now at their mercy. She is not trusted, thought to be a trickster and harlot, with the new Templar Grand Master saying that, “…it is through women that the Devil weaves his strongest web.”

As the Templars begin to turn on Maria, Altaïr repeatedly rescues her. And over time, Maria slowly warms to him as they make and break alliances against the Templars.

_When _{Maria and Altaïr travel to Cyprus together, the first hints of romance begin to blossom (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

***

During their first conversation in Altaïr’s Chronicles, Maria remarks, “the man who spared my neck but ruined my life”. It could be a sense of honour that binds Maria to not strike back against Altaïr, despite many chances to do so, instead fleeing each time.

Maria tries to make it back into the Templar’s favour, but when she Altaïr discusses the philosophy of the Assassins and Templars, Maria starts to become disillusioned.

When she confronts the twin ruling Templars of Kyrenia, Shalim and Shahar about their oppressive methods, she asks;

Maria: But our Order was created to protect the people, not rob them of their liberty.

Shahar: The Templars put no stock in liberty, Maria. We seek order, nothing more.

Maria: Liberty? Or enslavement?

Shahar: You can call it whatever you like, my dear.

Shahar went to subdue Maria, but Altaïr rescued her again, and she dispatched two of Altaïr’s pursuers before fleeing again. This was the turning point for the duo, as Maria now began to actively fight against the Templars, with and without Altaïr.

Once the duo had defeated the Templars upon Cyprus and buried the Archive, the two reflect with each other on the docks, preparing to leave the island.

Maria says, “Everything I worked for in the Holy Land, I no longer want. And everything I have up to join the Templars…I wonder where all that went, and if I should try to find it again.”

It’s the same revelations that the people coming to the Masyaf fortress discovered, the first line of the creed, that “nothing is true.”

Altaïr bonds with Maria, telling her that;

“For a long time under Al Mualim, I thought my life had reached its limit, and that my sole duty was to show others the same precipice I had discovered.”

Altaïr asks what she will do now, and Maria says she wants to travel, possibly to the East. She returns the question and Altaïr ponders while looking at the Apple of Eden. He too wants to travel to satiate his newly developed curiosity.

And when Maria asks where he wants to go first, Altaïr thinks for a second before saying, “East”. As the final cutscene plays with Altaïr writing in his journal, Maria moves close to his shoulder, reading over his notes.

It’s such a small touch, one word and a closeness that wasn’t there before, but it implies the start of a romance. And in the Codex page relating to the story of his love for Adha, Altaïr finishes writing with the line;

“I am fortunate to have been wrong.”

Again, it’s a small touch, both his previous mentions of Adha and not even mentioning Maria by name. Maria doesn’t even get named until ACII, by Desmond when he experiences the Bleeding Effect outside the Animus.

Speaking of, the vision Desmond has is the first indication of Maria and Altaïr together in the main games.

The vision starts with Altair chasing after a hooded “target” across the rooftops of Acre. Only when the target is cornered at the top of a tower that she pulls down her hood, revealing her face, and beckoning Altaïr towards her. It hints at a playfulness that has developed between the two, followed by a night of passionate lovemaking beneath the stars.

_{Altaïr and Maria, having just conceived Sef. The player perspective enters Maria’s womb when the scene ends. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com).}

***

In the novelisation The Secret Crusade, the narrator Niccolò Polo says to his brother,

“This [time with Maria] represented a mainly peaceful and fruitful period for the Master. He talks of it little, as though it is too precious to bring out into the light.”

It could be read as a continuation of Altaïr’s parents, something which isn’t discussed or important to the Order, something to be held inside. It could also be Maria’s background. Being the first Templar to switch sides to the Assassins, a lot of the Order would have held her in suspicion.

But Maria proves herself, helping Altaïr and their two sons Darim and Sef in learning the ways of the Assassins, aiding Darim in his assassination of Genghis Khan, mentioned in #29 of Altaïr’s Codex.

However, tragedy strikes when they arrive back to Masyaf after the family’s time working in the field. When Altaïr and Maria come back through the gates, they find Abbas, another Assassin Master having taken over the Order, killing Malik and Altaïr’s son Sef.

Abbas wants the Apple and sends the other Assassin’s to take it, but in the struggle Maria is killed and Altaïr has to flee for his life. In the novelisation of the events, Altaïr leaps once again from the platform that allowed him to defeat Robert, another “fall from grace”.

We do not see or hear of Altaïr for another twenty years. Nothing has been even speculated as to what he has been doing, only that he returns to Masyaf first to talk with Abbas, and leading a full-on revolt as more Assassin’s join his side.

There are whispers in the village of an old man saving a merchant in the next valley over, and using a hidden blade. Even at over 80 years old, Altaïr is still protecting the innocent, but in the novelisation, he is almost killed, his age slowly his reflexes. At first I thought this was a relapse of his nihilism drawn from losing his lover again, but its actually Maria’s memory that keeps him going.

Before Altaïr fled Masyaf, Maria tells him, “Resist your desire for revenge…speak truth and they will see their error…speak reasonably, and reasonable men will listen.” As they continue into the Masyaf Garden, Altaïr says they may be walking to their doom, and Maria replies. “We may. But we walk together.”

When Altaïr returns it is this message that emboldens him, to fight the honourable fight and if it is his time to die then he will face it.

As the Assassins turn to his side and face off against their former brothers, Altaïr shows that pastoral care that he developed when he took over as Mentor. He says only those that have, “…raised their blade against an innocent,” should die for they have comprised the Order and the creed.

When fighting against Abbas’ minions, he orders the Assassins to, “…spill no blood if [they] can help it,” calling back to Maria’s final words to him.

_{Many in the Assassin Order do not trust Maria, no matter her actions for the Brotherhood. (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

***

Once he frees Masyaf from Abbas’ grip, Altaïr disbands the entire Order in its current form. He sends the townspeople away and empties the castle. Ezio remarks when he visit the castle with Sofia Sartor, “[Altaïr] built us up, then set us free. He saw the folly of keeping a castle like this. It had become a symbol of arrogance and a beacon for all our enemies.”

Altaïr alone stays in Masyaf with the Apple. As opposed to Ezio who earned comfort in leaving the Piece of Eden, Altaïr still yearns to seek truth even in his dying days.

He says to his son Darim, “When I was very young, I was foolish enough to believe that our Creed would bring an end to all these conflicts. If only I had possessed the humility to say to myself, I have seen enough for one life. I have done my part. Then again, there is no greater glory than fighting to find truth.” (36:23).

In his final Codex entry, Altaïr ponders about what will happen to him once he dies, what of his consciousness and identity. He thinks back on his time with the Apple and there was no greater force stopping him from abusing its power. He is even tempted to look back into it to see if there is some way to extend his time on Earth.

These two sections are a perfect distillation of Altaïr’s entire persona; a life of contradictions and internal struggle, a journey of finding the secrets of the world, yet conflicted by his connection to the Order and his life.

And so he looks one last time into the Apple, before heading to his library vault, cleared out of all his possessions. He douses the fire in the brackets, and hears Maria’s voice calling out to him, telling him to abandon the Apple, and him regretting not listening to her. (38:25).

A man once known for his cold and calculating air, with his final thoughts, remembering those he loved, a departure from the Creed he grew up with.

_{“No books. No wisdom. Only you…fratello mio.” (Source: assassinscreed.fandom.com)}

Conclusion

It’s been interesting to look back on Altaïr, especially for the shadow he has cast long after his one game.

I think he got forgotten quite quickly due to his follow-up, Ezio (who I’ve also written a character study about).

And I get it. Ezio is a lot of players’ entry point to the series. He’s fun, he’s cool, his story is better. There were a few nods to Altaïr in ACII but they could be brushed aside if you hadn’t played it.

I remember at the time of Revelations that there was a sense of fatigue in the air surrounding the game. It was another Ezio game, another Desmond game…and then also partly an Altaïr game.

I think he got lost again, a call back to something players had already forgotten about too, with the audience ready for Edward to sweep them off their feet again like Ezio had done at the beginning of his trilogy.

Yet I feel Altaïr has made his way back into the pantheon. His outfit has been an unlock able in Unity, Syndicate, Origins and Mirage. There have even been talks about a remake of the first game.

And while Ezio may have the accolades and the high praise, it doesn’t take away the fact that an entire franchise started around this quiet and unassuming man in a white hood.

Altaïr is still one of the prominent figures of Assassin’s Creed, influencing countless others along the way, and that’s why he deserves to be remembered.

_{Banner Photo Source: alphacoders.com}

Assassin’s Creed II: 10 Years Later

December 19, 2019November 21, 2024Posted in ArticlesTagged 10 Years Later, Altair, Assassins Creed, Best Assassin, Borgias, Connor Kenway, Design, Embers, Ezio, Ezio Auditore, Ezio's Family, Film, Games, Hidden Blade, Italy, Jade Raymond, Jesper Kyd, Online, Patrice Desilets, Rennaisance, Templars, Video Games, Writing, Years LaterLeave a comment

The first Assassin’s Creed broke all sorts of records. What started as a spin-off of the then still popular Prince Of Persia series sold over eight million copies in 2007-2008, an impressive feat for a new IP even at a major AAA studio.

According to MCV, it debuted at No.1 in the UK charts, snatching the position from under probably the most influential game of the 2000s, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

In November 2008, CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, announced as part of Ubisoft’s financial report that the sequel was in development.

Five months later on April 16^th, Assassin’s Creed II was officially announced.

Pre-Production

With Assassin’s Creed being one of the biggest-selling new IPs in history (it is currently 18^th of all time), Ubisoft knew they needed to have a sure-fire hit follow-up. This seems to have been the intention from the beginning, with AC1’s producer Jade Raymond stating in an interview,

“We did ask ourselves the question, you know if we do create a game that is successful, how do we make sure there is a structure, an overarching kind of meta-story that can continue to play out…that was one of our aspirations…” (2:03)

Tripling the size of the team in Ubisoft Montreal, with 75% of the original creators working on the sequel, Ubisoft sure had the pedigree. And with so many features that were missing in AC1 due to development times, the team now had the ability to implement them. Raymond mentioned this in the same interview,

“…we didn’t succeed on all of the fronts and we realised some of the things some of the ideas we tried turned out great and some of the ideas we tried didn’t turn out, and because we were trying to innovate so much we kind of ran out of time to do some of the things we wanted to do.” (4:16)

You have to remember, Assassin’s Creed 1 was built with an entirely new engine, and Raymond said Ubisoft were looking to, “…redefine gameplay…” (1:43). Possibly overly ambitious, but that’s why a sequel seems perfect. Ubisoft wanted a sequel soon, with only two years of development time given compared to the four that the original had got. The first major change would be started with Assassin’s Creed 3, whose production ran concurrently with a second team in Montreal.

But the developers didn’t need a grand vision. They had the perfect base, and now the time and the resources to nail the formula down.

Gameplay and Missions

Even though I just said Ubisoft had the perfect base to create a sequel from, all of it pretty much went out the window from the start. Creative Director Patrice Désilets said in an interview that,

“…we got rid of the entire structure of the first one where we had the investigation part and then the assassination parts. That’s gone.” (0:57).

AC1 Missions — The missions were scrapped and revamped for the sequel (Source: mobygames.com).

What the team kept were the missions. The five or six different missions types in AC1 were taken and expanded upon, with Désilets saying there would be around sixteen different mission types for the sequel (0:39). He expanded upon this by saying that missions would be knitted together to create unique scenarios, such as starting with an escort, then a chase, followed by an assassination.

What helped was that in theory they were working from scratch again. Ezio at the start is not an Assassin. Desmond is the exact same. When Lucy breaks him out of Abstergo and takes him to the Assassin hideout, she says,

“We’re going to train you. Turn you into one of us…if you can follow in [Ezio’s] footsteps, you’ll learn everything he did…years of training absorbed in a matter of days. (8:30).

Instead of starting with a Master Assassin like with AC1 before having all your powers taken away, this time the gameplay and the story would work in tandem. The missions evolve as the game goes on.

In Sequence 1 we have a bit of fighting, a bit of chasing, hiding, and climbing. Each mission is self-contained, focusing on a single aspect of gameplay, maybe two. Most of the missions in Sequence 1 are also in service to the narrative. The gameplay is wrapped around either setting up the wider narrative or adding something to the supporting cast e.g. delivering a letter to disguised Assassin spies, or beating up your sister’s unfaithful fiancée.

The first three sequences follow this learning template, only opening up until Sequence 4. The world is shrunk, but not distilled. Sequence 2 (the first sequence with an assassination mission) gives you everything you would need; weapons training, social stealth, traversal, and lets you play. Even if you muck up your inaugural assassination the target does not flee or fight back, allowing you to take the kill without being overwhelmed like if you messed up the first assassination in AC1.

As the game goes on we find more and more intricate missions, just like Désilets mentioned, with several styles of play weaving between each other.

Assassins-Creed-in-Venice — One of Venice’s memorable missions; flying into the Doge’s Palace, followed by an assassination, then having to flee. Three unique structures to create a greater whole. (Source: wandering free.co.za).

Along with these new mission types, AC2 has added several new moves to the assassin’s repertoire. I believed that AC1’s gameplay state was one of flow, using timing and precision to effectively play the game. AC2’s mission statement has changed to one of speed.

Most of the new moves are directed at making Ezio as nimble as possible. In low profile mode, the previous ‘blend’ button became a fast walk, allowing Ezio to gain ground without sacrificing exposure. In a similar vein, the crowd systems were overhauled, allowing Ezio to blend with any gathering of NPCs and not just specific groups.

Climbing and traversal were also beefed up with Ezio now able to sprint across beams and scale walls quicker with a jump grab ability.

During combat, the A button, previously the dodge button, now allows Ezio to pirouette around his adversaries, allowing him to stab them in the back for a one-hit kill.

The biggest change was to combat, speaking of which…

Combat

AC1 had five weapons, four of which were of any use (what was the point of using fists aside from the occasional interrogation?). AC2 expanded with not just new weapons but new fighting styles.

Using the R1/RB button would bring up the weapon wheel, with the four directions of the D-Pad allowing for quick selection. The throwing knives, previously a sub category of the dagger, were given their own slots, as well as new additions of smoke bombs (useful for escaping sticky situations) and a moneybag (for drawing crowds and stalling enemies).

The fists became useful during earlier missions, where Ezio was without a sword or blade. Using a similar counter to the first game, Ezio could now disarm enemies, using their own weapons against them. This extended out to all weapons, allowing Ezio to pick up battleaxes, lances, and, err…sweeping brooms. Any of these larger weapons could be bought from stores across the land, each one with stats making them quicker or more deadly.

Assassin,s-creed-II-Screenshots — The lance and battle-axe came with their now unique finishers (Source: wikinut.com).

The former battleaxes and lances could also be upgraded, allowing Ezio to throw the axe or sweep enemy legs with the lances. Throwing knives were also given a boost, allowing three knives to be thrown simultaneously to disperse crowds of enemies. In a similar vein the fists can be upgraded to throw sand.

More ranged options were developed, with one of the later sequences giving Ezio a hidden gun. While a little preposterous, the dev team balanced it well. It takes a long time to aim a shot, with a long reload time and loud gunshot. This meant it could only be used at the most important moments, rather than a squad-devouring machine like it became in ACB.

The signature Hidden Blades were buffed for the sequel (the most noticeable being that they are now plural). Gone was the counter-only method, allowing the blades to counter, parry and combo into gruesome kills. A poison blade was also added as a distraction method.

But the greatest change were the opportunities now offered to the player. Air assassinations (now helpfully explained in a tutorial), haystack drags, bench reversals, they gave players a large opportunity to experiment and play stealthily.

But with the Hidden Blades becoming top dog, everything else felt like an afterthought. Swords and daggers, so important in the first game, became useless. Hidden Blades could counter kill in one hit whereas other weapons could take two or three counter hits to kill an enemy.

There were times in AC1 where you had to run. In certain sections of the city such as Acre’s Arsenal, it was nearly impossible to clear all enemies from your sight (that’s why the Sibrand assassination mission in the Arsenal was great). AC2 has the opposite issue; it is easier to kill everyone before moving on. Even in the only mission where it is encouraged to flee (Sequence 1, Memory 12), when you are disarmed and cornered after your family have been murdered, you can still fight back using your fists and actually win.

With new weapons came new enemies. While AC1 had different rankings and skills (such as Captains being able to grab the player and throw them), AC2 made these changes more distinct. Agile guards who could out-run Ezio, Brutes with heavy weapons and would not retreat, seekers with the lances and checked haystacks for Ezio hiding in them, these would throw some x-factor into the sequence, making a carefully laid plan have to adapt.

In response to the enemies, Ezio had helpers in the cities he visited. Courtesans who could act as mobile cover and distract guards, thieves that could follow him across roofs and distract guards, and mercenaries that could remove unwanted guards, these became valuable assets that could aid in granting greater access to a target. In the sequel the factions were added to with the Brotherhood coming to assist Ezio in battle, but it is cool to see the germ of an idea here in only the second game.

Overall, the combat was buffed enough to make combat a little more forward. It would be for another game, the next one, where combat went from an advantage to an absurdity.

AC2 Combat — Ezio could even call upon some mercenaries, thieves, or courtesans to assist him in combat or stealth, obviously gearing up for *Brotherhood*. (Source: true achievements.com)

The Cities

The setting of Renaissance Italy was a stroke of genius.

Similar to AC1, the game takes place in several cities the player can travel between. These include big cities like Florence and Venice, smaller outposts like Forli and Monteriggioni, and the countryside such as Tuscany, San Gimignano and the Apennine Mountains.

I have previously written about how each place in AC1 has a different tone to them, such as Damascus being bright and cheerful and Acre being grey and depressing. A few of the cities do have this feeling, with Florence (the opening city of the game) having a sense of warmth to it, and Forli looking like Acre 2.0. But I think the cities have moved beyond tone and focus more on player traversal.

While each city in AC1 was distinct, their traversal was very similar. In AC2, each city feels unique in how the player works their way through it. Venice has many tight-knit alleyways. Tuscany and San Gimignano focus on extreme verticality. Forli is flat and low. Florence is the only one that seems so generic, but in a good way. It has a bit of everything, teaching us the mechanics before sending us out into the world.

AC2 Venice Dive — Venice’s verticality and abundance of canals was something unique in the open-world genre. (Source: archdaily.com).

In a piece written for The Guardian, journalist Keith Stuart highlighted Ubisoft’s dedication to recreating the locations,

“Unsurprisingly, the design team talk of long field trips to each location, with artists taking thousands of photos and hours of video footage.”

The designers were so dedicated to representing the cities that they hired Maria Elisa Navarro, a Professor of Architectural History and Theory, as a historical consultant. In a great interview with architect Manuel Saga, Navarro explains how she was brought on board to help not only with architectural inaccuracies, but also with wardrobe and hair styling.

In AC1 the narrative had Altair heading between the three cities and his base in Masyaf, with new parts of the city unlocked as the game progressed. This was to aid non-mini-map design (read the ‘Visual Signifiers and the Mini Map’ section in the AC1 retrospective for more details). From the start of the game, the entire map of the city is open to the player.

While AC2 still included the mini map, the want for accuracy feeds back into the original idea for AC1 to be played without the need for a mini-map. Now with recognisible landmarks such as St. Mark’s Square in Venice or the Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo) and Giotto’s Campanile in Florence (along with the brilliant database that lists buildings, people and documents), players were able to guide themselves around the city without needing a map.

One of the odd map’s inclusions of AC1 was the Kingdom, a crossroad between the four main cities. AC2 has some countryside, but it is linked with the main cities. It becomes an integral part of the locations (such as the assassination mission of Jacapo De’ Pazzi at the isolated Anitco Teatro Romano, a Roman theatre in the Tuscan countryside), rather than feeling like a timewasting slog during the previous game.

Monteriggioni would take the place of Masyaf, owned by Ezio’s uncle Mario, (yes, they did make a “It’s-a me, Mario!” joke). A safe place outside of Florence, the villa and surrounding town has a few nooks and crannies for curious players, whereas ones who just want to get back to the stabbing can spend as little time there as possible.

AC2 Monteriggioni.png — Monteriggioni started the series mini-game of buying and upgrading property, creating a unique outpost for the player (Source: assassins creed.fandom.com).

The cities were magnificent, each with their own unique quirks and feels. But one thing made them feel extra special…Jepser Kyd. And so it is probably time to turn to his contribution to Assassin’s Creed.

The Music

Eight minim notes in 4/4 time in F Major. D, F, G, A, D, F, G, F.

That sequence is imprinted on thousands of gamer’s minds.

Jesper Kyd had worked on quite a few games, notably the Hitman series by IO Interactive. He worked on the soundtrack for first Assassin’s Creed, creating music that evoked the location, using Middle Eastern instruments, percussion, and singing styles, with a hint of synthesizers and reverb to hint at the modern aspect of the game.

With Assassin’s Creed II, he emboldened the score with sweeping strings and operatic style vocals, meshed in with electric guitars and remixes…and in the process created one of the most iconic (real iconic, not Ubisoft iconic) musical scores in gaming.

Just like with the architectural styles are different, each city has its own soundtrack. Florence’s soundtrack is usually light and melodic (reflecting the warm notes in the level design). Even with tracks such as ‘Darkness Falls in Florence,’ it still uses richer instruments that the rest of the OST.

Tuscany is stripped back, with fewer instruments and focusing on small bursts of melody, which feels reminiscent of how the location is wide-open spaces with a few noteworthy constructions dotted in between. Forli is heavy on percussion and deeper notes, evoking the drab and grey surroundings of the wetlands and industry.

And Venice likes to focus on minor keys, starting small in stature before building up with more instruments and higher notes, very much like starting a climb in the city. And ‘Venice Rooftops’ is a kicker of a track, effortlessly rising and falling, feeling almost like the ups and downs of parkour.

But there is one track that stands above them all.

Even now, ten years after AC2 came out, ‘Ezio’s Family’, the track I alluded to at the beginning of the section, is the de-facto theme for the entire series. It is continually referenced in later games in the series, such as Rogue’s ‘Main Theme’, Unity’s ‘Le Roi Est Mort’, Syndicate’s “Frye’s Family” or Origins’ aptly titled ‘Ezio’s Family (Origins Version)’. It’s a beautiful canon style track, effortlessly building, adding anachronistic instruments, getting higher and louder until it quietly returns to the opening notes, simultaneously changing and unchanging at the same time.

Just…if you have never heard this piece before, here it is. Have a listen. And if you are an AC fan, prepare to fall in love again.

This piece opened up the game. Ezio and his brother Frederico admiring the night-sky of Florence from the top of a church, then the camera pulls back, the music swells and the logo indents itself. I think this also started the trend of the series indenting the title with the characters perched somewhere high. Seriously, every game up until Syndicate had the characters looking out over the landscape as the logo popped up.

Anyway, back to ‘Ezio’s Family’…it’s perfect. And while AC1 had some good tracks, none of them have stuck with me like AC2. Every subsequent game’s OST, created by talented composers like Lorne Balfe, Elitsa Alexandrova, Brian Tyler, Austin Wintory, Sarah Schachner, and most recently the composing duo The Flight, is compared to Kyd and his revolutionary work.

I realise writing this section, it is pretty short, but I feel it doesn’t need any more discussion. This is one of the greatest soundtracks that gaming has ever and will ever produce and Jesper Kyd is such a talent.

The Story & The Characters

The story of AC2 is still considered one of the best narratives of the seventh generation and of the series as a whole. Part of that comes down to the main character, Ezio Auditore.

Where previous main character Altair was sour and serious, Ezio was fun and playful. Where we were thrown straight into Altair’s story, we followed Ezio from birth to middle age, filled with both victories and losses. And while Altair’s motives were understandable, Ezio’s connected on a deeper emotional channel.

Aside from an odd birth scene where we control Ezio as he is brought naked and screaming into the world, the narrative really starts on the Ponte Vecchio, with a now 17-year old Ezio before he becomes an Assassin. He is a privileged noble kid, getting into fistfights, boasting of nights spent with wine and women. It’s been thirty seconds and we have learnt the basics of the character; he is charming, he likes a laugh, and when it gets violent he can hold his own.

He is a pastiche of classical literature, part Zorro, part Casanova, and part Monte Cristo, containing all the endearing qualities why we love those characters without any of the downsides.

AC2 Ezio — Ezio giving one of his trademark smirks (Source: theshortgamer.wordpress.com).

The narrative drives like a bullet, none of the fluff or side-quests of a latter day Ubisoft game, and I think that’s another reason why the game is loved. Even with fourteen sequences (two as DLC), Ezio only takes until the finale of Sequence 1 to get his hood and Hidden Blade, and is driven to make the men who killed his father and brothers pay. Even though Ezio starts the narrative worried and alone, facing off against a threat too big to comprehend, he gains friends and allies; mercenaries, thieves, and courtesans, who all believe the same creed. The scene at the end of Sequence 11 where all previous allies come to Ezio’s aid and fight alongside him is one of the high points for the level of fan service.

Another of Ezio’s friends is Leonardo Da Vinci. While later games would sometimes bash the player of the head with historical figures here it feels restrained, using the name but not having Ezio comment on the Mona Lisa or reference certain codes involving Jesus’ descendants. Leonardo starts as a lowly painter who Ezio’s mother is patroning, but eventually he turns into something like a quartermaster by supplying our hero with weapons and equipment. He even takes Ezio in when the Auditores are fugitives, seeing it as a sense of duty to help out the lost and scared Ezio. His ever-jovial nature and wide-eyed wonder is always endearing, giving a lot of the early story points levity, and many of the late-game plot points a sense of satisfied contentment.

With Ezio doing most of the heavy lifting narratively, the modern day plot and Desmond got to grow a litter more. Gone are the sterile hallways of Abstergo and monologues of bad guy Warren Vidic, here Desmond is supported by a relatively warm cast of Abstergo turncoat Lucy, tech support Rebecca, and historical consultant and professional sarcasm champion Shaun Hastings, the latter voiced impeccably by Danny Wallace. Apart from one scene halfway through the game showing that Desmond has started to learn the skills passed through the Animus, we don’t really get much else on the main man. Yet the moments where he gets to interact with his Mystery Machine assortment of chums, either in person or through voicemail in the Animus, never fail to bring a smile to my face.

Another modern day addition were the Glyphs. Hidden around the architecture of Italy were symbols (much like those on Desmond’s floor in Abstergo), left in the Animus by a previous Abstergo test subject, #16. Finding all of these Glyphs and deciphering their codes focusing on everything from Tesla to Milton, unlocked a hidden video featuring the Apple and the Ones That Came Before, adding more to the modern day plot line before it became a main thread in the sequel Brotherhood.

ACB Shaun & Rebecca — From L to R: Rebecca, Desmond, Shaun, and Lucy. Rebecca and Shaun have almost become secondary mascots for the series, turning up in subsequent titles. (Source: cityboygeekiness.com)

While the baddies of AC1 are varied and well-acted during their scenes on screen, many are simple outlines, with stories hinted at in their mannerisms and through half-told whispers in the investigation leading up to the assassination. Most are kept to their occupations; a Slave Trader, a Doctor, a Scribe, a Merchant King. In AC2 we get to spend time with the new bad guys, both in cutscenes well before their assassinations and through the database entries voiced by Danny Wallace. It helps keep us involved by knowing who we are killing and why, a problem that I feel has plagued my enjoyment of other AC games. Here you learn about these characters, how they conduct themselves, how they got to their positions of power, which makes it all the more satisfying to finally take them down.

Speaking of the assassinations, I previously praised the first game’s assassination sequences and said AC2’s are as linear as possible. Nearly every major assassination up until Sequence 7 (when Ezio arrives in Venice) has Ezio chasing his target rather than waiting for the right moment. Even later missions like Sequence 9, set during Carnevale, has only one way to complete it. But I forgive the game because of its uniqueness; having you kill a target during Carnevale using a handcannon, throwing a monk from the tallest tower in San Gimignano, jumping onto a bonfire to ease a target’s suffering, using a hang-glider to enter a target’s palace, these are all completely original ideas that help make the sometimes standard and linear assassinations feel grand in scope and spectacle.

Legacy

Ezio has had the longest run of all AC series leads, fronting two/three major release (Revelations is different in that he shares it with Altair) as well as featuring in smaller titles like Discovery on Nintendo DS and Rebellion for mobile devices. His legacy spans not just across games, but books and animated short films. As Associate Producer Julien Laferrière said in an interview with Eurogamer,

“We made three games with Ezio because people loved Ezio.”

It was nice to see the Renaissance hunk return after AC2 to stalk his way around Rome and then Constantinople, and during that time see a marked change on the man. We’ve had characters get older as games have gone on, Joel from The Last Of Us and Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid are two that come to mind, but I think AC was different in showing Ezio before and after the change into the hooded killer. He starts as simple spoilt noble kid having to mature beyond his years before becoming an Assassin, then graduating to Master and Mentor, and achieving the rank of Assassin General in Revelations.

Looking back at AC2’s ending, before we knew if we would ever see Ezio again, the final moments in the Vatican Vault are oddly chilling. The Assassins have told Ezio that he is the Prophet, the Chosen One, yet when he enters the First Civilization Vault the goddess Minerva greets him then dismisses him, talking instead to Desmond. Here is a man who has spent his whole life dismantling corruption and evil in the name of a higher cause, finding out that he is merely a pawn, with no greater significance.

The-ending-to-assasins-creed-II — The finale follows *AC1*‘s formula, reinforcing Demond’s story to the detriment of the historical assassin (Source: definition.co.uk).

Imagine if Ezio’s story stopped here, and the next entry was Connor in AC3. We’ve spent 20+ hours with this character, only to find at the end that he isn’t destined for greatness. At the same time this realisation dawns on him we are pulled away, leaving him in the dark. He has spent over twenty years with one goal in mind and now at what should be the apotheosis of his life, he is scared and alone, just as he was in Sequence 1. That image is haunting.

Altair’s ending in AC1 was much the same, realising there was a world and a story greater than his own. This can be seen by reading in his Codex, unlockable text files hidden throughout AC2. Yet Altair understood his ending, Ezio does not, literally saying to Minerva that he has “so many questions.”

I hated this ending when I first played it, only seeing it as a cliffhanger, rather than the gut-punch existential dread I now see it as ten years on. Many of the games in the series follow this thread, with Connor and the Temple, Edward and the Observatory, Arno and the Sage and the Fryes with the Shroud. These men and women, spanning centuries, who glimpse a story bigger than heaven itself, only to realise that their goal in the grand scheme is to procreate enough so that hopefully one of their descendants becomes the mythical ‘Desmond’. It is only by Revelations, when Ezio is into his fifties that he finally understands that he is nothing but a conduit, a lightning rod that allows Minerva to speak to Desmond.

The last media appearance of Ezio is in Assassin’s Creed: Embers, a short animated film detailing the last days of Ezio’s life. In the film it shows a man withered by old age, trying to aid both his family and Chinese Assassin Shao Jun, who has come to speak with the famous Italian Batman. The ending reinforces Ezio’s final words in Revelations, showing that with time he has settled as a man who knows too much but can never do enough.

AC2 Minerva.png — Minerva’s introduction was a new direction for the series, bringing the Ones Who Came Before a major part of the canon after *AC1* (Source: eskipaper.com).

One other aspect must be mentioned when it comes to the legacy of AC2, one that still lives to this day. The original run on PC is ‘protected’ by DRM software (digital rights management), an attempt to stop people pirating the game. In an effort to stop this, AC2 was only playable when connected online. No internet connection…you won’t be able to play the product you bought (leading to many frustrated consumers when the company servers go down). Ubisoft still uses these practices today, with AC: Origins doubling-up with two different DRM products. I thankfully never came across these with the console version, but it still needs to be mentioned as it is a very important point of the game’s history.

Conclusion

I will admit, coming back to this game was hard. I had fallen in love with game series before, most notably Timesplitters and the early Lego games. Assassin’s Creed was one of the first major series I played on the seventh generation, and I saw the remarkable jump from AC1 to AC2 in the span of switching out one disc for the other. When I returned after ten years to the first game there was an odd feeling of comfort, settling back in with ease.

I was a little worried that with AC2 I was going to have the reverse. Several games I loved when I was younger have not got better with time. And while I noticed a lot more hand-holding and linearity with the recent playthrough, it still has that charm almost ten years later.

Ezio is one of the biggest draws to replay. I think he is one of the best examples of “people want be him, or people want to be with him”, an all-round top lad whose sense of honour and personal drive keeps us engaged. Another highlight to returning are the locations. The cities are also so much fun to move through and completely different to the Holy Land Of AC1, or the other big-budget open world games like GTAIV‘s Liberty City the previous year, or war-torn Paris in The Saboteur the same year.

The villains are fun, the soundtrack is awe-inspiring, and even poor old Desmond gets to flex his protagonist muscles both in and outside of the Animus. Most of my grumbles are nitpicks; DLC disrupting narrative flow, overpowered attacks, and only a few instances of linear design. None of these spoil the game to any large degree, they can even be a benefit for those more casually inclined, with DLC only being an issue for those that played it in chronological order (I’ve written more about that here).

When I played AC1 for a retrospective I said it felt a lot like a blueprint of games to come. AC2 could almost be the opposite side of the coin, refinement while also laying foundations for later games. While we still have the upgrades and items available for purchase, they don’t swamp out the gameplay.

Assassin’s Creed II took what worked in the first, added its own flavours and tone, and became one of the most adored games of the seventh generation and the series as a whole. It’s a beautiful game and still deserves to be played today.

Banner Photo Source: youtube.com

Assassin’s Creed: 10 Years Later

September 17, 2018November 21, 2024Posted in ArticlesTagged 10 Years Later, AC Odyssey, Altair, Assassin, Assassins Creed, Best Assassin, Brotherhood, Design, Ezio, Games, Hidden Blade, Kassandra, Memory, Origins, Patrice Desilets, Play, Portfolio, Prince Of Persia, Revelations, Story, Syndicate, Theory, tomclement1, Ubisoft, Unity, Video Games, Writing, Years Later2 Comments

Introduction

When players of the future will look back on games that could be part of the ludo-canon there will be a whole host of different styles and genres, from indie games to AAA releases.

Some games, such as Grand Theft Auto III, won’t be the best in their series, but will indicate the start of something bigger. Some, like Bioshock, show a more thoughtful, provocative, and literate attempt at the art form. And some, like Minecraft, are, well…revolutionary.

The list will go on and on as more games and platforms are released, but today I want to focus on one game. This game, much like GTAIII before it, was the start of not just a best-selling franchise, but managed to blend genres, brought a completely revolutionary idea of multiplayer to our screens, and kick-started a whole slew of imitators. Today, I’ll be talking about Assassin’s Creed, all the way back from 2007.

At the time of writing the series has been going for eleven years with nine games so far. Its most recent release, Origins, came out in late 2017, ten years after the first game. So, with over a decade of gaming to look back over let’s dive in.

This isn’t going to be a simple re-review of the game, but more a sort of breakdown and rethinking of the game. Enjoy!

Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted – A Look Back at Assassin’s Creed (2007)

Origins (no, not that Origins)

At the tale end of 2003, Ubisoft Montreal had just released Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time. Sands Of Time was the reboot of the series and would go on to spawn two sequels, Warrior Within in 2004, and Two Thrones in 2005. It was from this creative team that Assassin’s Creed would be born.

In a surprisingly detailed feature in Edge Magazine (Note: This is a second-hand account of the work, as all links to the original revert back to GamesRadar’s homepage), Creative Director Patrice Désilets talked about how the idea grew from the PoP series, where the player would be an assassin bodyguard protecting the child version of the Prince. Long after the game was released, this test footage of the game was leaked. (Source: Felipe Orion).

You can see the building blocks of the series; the crowd mechanics, the ominous white hoods, and hidden blades. There is a lot of stuff in that trailer that would take several games to be brought back into the series, with the main ones being co-op and bows and arrows being used.

You can easily see how PoP was the precursor. The free-running mechanics are obviously the key influence, but in a much larger way. The fun of a PoP game, even the more open ended-style like the 2008 reboot, the free running is in more of a linear sequence. The game world is an assault course; you see the path and you have to hit the buttons at the correct time to move through the land. It’s not experimental or improvisational; the path forward is set. Assassin’s Creed is more open with a world full of opportunities and pathways. In the feature Désilets remarks the freerunning was meant to be similar to the use of vehicles in GTA, “The pleasure of driving a car in Liberty City should be the same as a main character in Assassin’s Creed.” (para. 19).

The Arabian aesthetic would be another key factor. While PoP would feature expansive areas, the game is limited mostly to palaces and corridors to feature the prince’s wall-hopping acrobatics. Assassin’s Creed builds on that by opening up the world, not just into outdoor areas, but three different cities and a huge countryside to explore.

So with the building blocks of the game set let’s look into how Assassin’s Creed actually works.

“The World is a Stage” – The City and Lands of Assassin’s Creed

Assassin’s Creed is set in the Holy Land and the bulk of gameplay is divided between three cities in the region; Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre. Despite all being in relative proximity to each other they all have different design and artwork.

Damascus is bright and tan, with minarets and spires stretching high into the sky. Jerusalem is has muted shades of brown, with mosques sitting beside churches and synagogues. And Acre, well, Acre is a warzone; cold, dark, and grey, with most houses reduced to smouldering ash and rubble.

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The three cities are distinct and each tell a different facet of the Crusades. For example, the Teutonic Crusaders were the invaders of Acre, so while they want to be seen as the saviours of the city’s Christian inhabitants, the scars of war show them to also be invaders and destroyers. The cities are split between three districts; poor, middle and rich. While this helps design variety, it’s also meant to be a visual signifier for player interaction and gameplay (which we will talk about later in this retrospective).

The only part of the world that seems a bit pointless is the Kingdom. It boils down to a really big set of crossroads with a single path leading to each city and to the Assassin’s mountain top castle, Masyaf. There is nothing to do here, apart from collect flags (for no benefit besides 100% completion) and annoy roaming Saracens and Templars (although according to Désilets, this was an effort for an “improv” sense of gameplay, where each player’s story is different (para. 24-26)).

Masyaf is, again, different to any of the other cities. Having the game unceremoniously start there in a weird dream sequence and also end there with the fight against the shape-shifting Al Mualim has a nice cyclical nature to it. Again, like the Kingdom, there isn’t really a need to explore aside from flag collecting, so they majority of the gameplay will be spent in the targets hometowns.

I mentioned that visual significance of the districts allowing for greater player clarity in traversing the city, so let’s explore that idea. The problem of the city comes down to the inclusion of the mini map.

“In the Kingdom of the Blind, The Man with Eagle Vision is King” – Visual Signifiers and the Mini Map (and also the side missions)

One of the biggest faults many people find with Assassin’s Creed is its repetitive nature. Receive a target, go to the city, talk to the Assassin Bureau, do three tasks such as eavesdrop, pickpocket, or beat up a public speaker, return to the Bureau and then assassinate your target. Rinse and repeat nine times, game over. But that is a shallow experience of the game, and I would expect 98% of that comes from the mini-map.

Back in May 2017 on Twitter I got into a conversation with Stanislav Costiuc, a developer at Ubisoft, who wrote a fantastic essay on how Assassin’s Creed was designed for HUD-less gameplay and no mini-map. Costiuc explains that the levels and districts were designed in such a way to aid player exploration but also player interaction with the world.

Going back and playing Assassin’s Creed without the HUD makes playing the game a much different experience. You have to be in tune with your surroundings and recognise patterns. Costiuc shows this with a running commentary of how he played through one of the assassinations without the HUD.

Without the map telling him where to go, Costiuc had to find markers in the world that would help him find the Bureau and his targets. Each Bureau leader tells the player where to start their investigations; the north markets, the west gardens, the south gates, each one filling in the world. All these dialogues are meant to help the player rather than just fill for time. That’s why the different sections of the maps and specific locations are needed in AC1 because they were originally used for player education, without the mini-map as a crutch.

This is one thing I wish had been carried over to the rest of the games. With the more detailed world and the inclusion of a database helping identify actual buildings, this type of landmark guidance would have worked wonders. For example, after getting back one holiday from Florence I booted up AC2 and was able to find my hotel just by going to the buildings I recognised.

This makes me think the original game was meant to be much slower paced, almost similar to IO-Interactive’s Hitman, with the player finding pieces of information that could help or hinder them with their assassination attempt.

For those assassination attempts the player needs to get close to the target and then attack them with a weapon. So, let’s talk about traversal and combat.

“He’s Going to Hurt Himself” – Freerunning, Movement, and Killing Targets

I previously talked about the freerunning aspect in comparison with Prince Of Persia, but Assassin’s Creed has a more dynamic movement system than its ancestor. Each of the face buttons is a part of the body; A/X is legs, B/Circle is empty hand, X/Square is weapon hand, and Y/Triangle is for the head. All of these are then modified with the use of RT/R2 into high-profile moves. In the Edge feature Désilets mentioned how it was based on puppets (para. 21), and the system is simple enough that you don’t have to spend several hours getting to grips with the control layout.

Again, AC1 is slower than its sequels; there is no jump climb ability and you can’t sprint across beams, but the central mechanics are solid. Swimming is also absent (there is a debate over whether it’s historical accuracy since we are covered in armour, or a technical feat since swimming mechanics were still in their infancy, only appearing a few years prior in Rockstar’s GTA: San Andreas), but this is offset by only having a few water sections in the game. This does come to the fore during the assassination of Sibrand in Acre, where the stealthiest way to his ship is via jumping precariously around the harbour.

Still from Jerusalem of Altair in “flight”. Source: AC Wikia

Freerunning is especially well defined for such an early game. Apart from PoP I can’t think of many games before the first Assassin’s Creed that had a smooth freerunning mechanic. It also feels like there is small amount of auto-guiding in terms of chasing targets. Many times in AC sequels I would find myself chasing a target and instead of following them through an archway, Ezio or Connor would instead get stuck to the doorframe or run up a wall. I’ve never had that problem during my playthroughs with Altair.

The combat of AC1 is my favourite of the entire series. I’ve written previously about the feeling of the combat, how the sword has weight behind it, but there is so much more than that. It feels like a multi-tiered system with different moves for skill levels and play-styles. For those just wanting to kill enemies with brute strength there is the charge up sword. For those with patience there is the counter mechanic. And for those with good timing there is the combo kill and the break defence, which are rewarding for being the quickest kills.

None of the skill-based attacks have the same depth as in later games and merely reduced to a single button presses (AC2 was concered more on movement, but because the Hidden Blades were perfect counters and the sword/short blade took two or three counters and are slower in general, there is no reason to use them).

The revamped combat in the sequels was due to the supposed stalling enemies, crowding around you and staring you down for several seconds before attacking. But that is simply not true in AC1. Sure, if all you are using are counters then yes there is a lot of dead air when it comes to battles. But using the break defence and combo kills, or the Short Blade and Throwing Knives, and again, recognising the visual signifiers of scared/taunting soldiers (which leaves them open to a quick hidden blade or throwing knife kill) the combat is far from static.

You get these moves through the game so you are meant to up your strategy. The problem is that the counter is way too powerful leading to players defaulting to that, making the battles seems stilted. These was “rectified” in later games by having enemies that could stop counters (here is a video by Extra Credits talking about this problem, calling them FOO strategies), but made combat even more stilted by having to perform these actions several times to defeat one enemy.

The weapons feed into the aspect of upping strategy alongside the moveset. The sword is good for defence and strong attacks but is slow. The short blade/knives are faster, and the hidden blade (which we will get onto next) is a one-hit kill. They allow for a sense of personalisation when it comes to combat.

The Hidden Blade is the best weapon in the game. The blade only kills in low profile situations (or as a counter), otherwise the target can block your attack and force you into open combat. Knowing this feeds back into the world and those visual signifiers, trying to find a way to get close to your target without raising the alarm.

For example, the assassination of Majd Addin in Jerusalem has the target on a platform surrounded by guards. There is no way to break through the guards and get a clean kill with the hidden blade. You have to look at your surroundings; should you take the ladder to the side of you to climb up and around to the platform, or should you hide among the scholars to try and pass through the crowds? The limits of the blade make you work for the best kills, but then the sequels turned them into insta-kill spree-delivering devices.

The only problems with combat in Assassin’s Creed are in hindsight of the sequels. Things like Air Assassinations and Haystack Drags that debuted in AC2 are sorely missing. And while the throwing knives are a good ranged weapon, certain guards seem invincible to them which breaks immersion. AC1 also has the odd habit of making you a wanted man just for locking onto a guard.

Edit: Thank you to Stanislav Costiuc, again on Twitter, explaining there is an Air Assassination mechanic in AC1, but there isn’t a tutorial for it.

Now that I’ve talked about most of the design and gameplay aspects that I wanted to mention, let’s move onto the story and narrative.

“Sit Down and I Will Tell you a Tale Like None You Have Ever Heard!” – The Dual Narrative

I remember when I first played Assassin’s Creed I thought, “This is so cool, I get to run around fighting medieval knights, run across rooftops like a high-wire trapeze artist, and there is even some conspiracies and intrigue. I love this!” Then the game would wrench me out the experience, taking me away from the badass Altair and replacing him with bland bartender Desmond Miles.

AC1Des — The “very special boy” Desmond Miles, who seems to be a descendant of EVERY single Assassin ever. Source: giantbomb.com.

I think the overarching, modern day narrative was the part that lost a lot of players. Because we don’t spend enough time with dear old Desmond we have no reason to care about him or his trials. Even when the games tried to jazz up his role such as learning the skills of the Assassin’s in Brotherhood, learning about his past in Revelations, or making him the most super special person in the world in III, Desmond still felt like an afterthought. Even next to Connor “What-Would-You-Have-Me-Do” Kenway (honestly the worst protagonist I’ve ever played as), Desmond was a poorly defined character. Another problem with the wider narrative is that it never got a satisfying ending. Every game would end with Desmond and his posse running from the Templars to another safe haven, meaning we would have to buy the next instalment to get a follow up.

I’m not sure how I feel about Desmond’s departure after III and Abstergo basically turning into Ubisoft and selling genetic memories as games, but it seems a rather silly hold over. The modern aspect is only in there for the game to have overt gamey-aspects not break narrative cohesion by saying “we’re in the Animus”. It should just be ditched; I think gamers would understand that their game has to have some anachronisms. The fact that both Subject 16 and Desmond both started hallucinating outside of Animus shows that humans can experience genetic memories without a wacky machine. Why not focus on that; a character that has learnt to go into a zen-like trance to relive their memories?

The reveals of the wider story, especially the surprise ending where the Apple Of Eden presents us with several Precursor Temple sites, would have worked a lot better without the pre-knowledge of technology and conspiracy. That reveal of a story much wider than the one being presented to you would have been a gut-punch of a reveal, possibly similar to the world of Columbia and “swimming in different oceans but landing on the same shores”. It still sets up the possibility of other Assassins around the globe and without Desmond’s genes limiting the range of Assassins for sequels to mostly European white guys.

One thing I do like about the Holy Land story of Assassin’s Creed is that it takes some risks. It brings ideas about religion, secularism, hypocrisy, and violence to the table, and explores them with each target during the confessions sequences. It’s interesting and I can’t think of another game bar the AC sequels that tries to shine a torch on some of the not-too-pleasant aspects of mankind. While the splash screen at the front of the game, with the now infamous “various different religions and cultures” was meant to be a failsafe against typecasting most of the Arab characters as cutthroat murderers, I think the Templars are portrayed much worse. They are already the invaders, destroying Acre pre-game, and just from my own play sessions, they are always seem more aggressive.

Legacy (no, not that Legacy)

The first Assassin’s Creed is seen as an important stepping-stone in the way open-world games are developed nowadays. While more people find AC2 to be the high point of the series (including me until this final play session, where I think AC1 just pips it), AC1 is remarkable in how if you updated the graphics it could still stand somewhat with its contemporaries.

Let’s count them off;

Open world, check.
Collectables that are pretty meaningless, check.
Map that opens up when you scale towers, even Ubisoft made a joke about how much of a trope it had become in their games.

This idea of AC1 as being more of a proof-of-concept is so ingrained that it has become shorthand for other similarly repetitive games. Mafia 3 was unfavourably compared to AC1 by it being a mostly empty map with the same few side missions.

Looking at Assassin’s Creed nowadays, you can see how it influenced the later games. Characters like Ezio, Edward, and the Frye twins were obviously created in response to Altair and his other sour brothers, Connor and Arno. The setting influenced later games locations, with Revelations obviously taking inspiration from AC1 with its Eastern location and design after having two games of classical European architecture in the form of AC2 and Brotherhood.

In my experience though I feel the later games fall prey to trying to compensate for the somewhat spartan presentation of AC1. This came to the forefront when I recently played AC: Unity. When I first brought the map up I said to myself, “What is this?!” The map was full of stuff, just stuff, that had very little bearing on the main narrative; chests, cockades, underground systems, side quests, murder mysteries, cryptic puzzles, hours upon hours of nebulous content. For the longest time I didn’t synchronise viewpoints and turned all the collectables off, because I knew the game was screwing with my completionist tendencies.

ACUnityMap — This is a picture from a forum post called “Is Assassin’s Creed Unity Just A Bit Too Much?” Seems that a lot of people have been thinking the same idea. Source: gamespot.com

Altair is also a major factor in AC2. Thinking back to 2009 before we knew that he would come back in Revelations, Altair does share brief moments with us again. First and most notably, Altair returns in the Codex pages. As we read his notes we see an older and more cynical Altair, testing out the Apple of Eden, creating new mechanics for the Assassins such as the Poison Blade, and writing about the upcoming Mongol threat. Then we see him in a flashback getting busy with Maria Thorpe, with the player staying with Maria and entering her womb once Altair has deposited his seed. While the descendant aspect of the series had been explained at this point in the series this was the first time it was “shown” to an extent.

And just talking numbers, Assassin’s Creed was a hit. In Ubisoft’s own words it, “greatly outstripped” their expectations. It became the fastest-selling new IP at the time, projected to sell five million copies for 2007-2008. This was enough to send what was originally a spinoff of Ubisoft’s popular wall-crawler into a multi-million dollar franchising spanning books, comics, and even films.

Conclusion

After going back to the first Assassin’s Creed my views on it have changed quite a bit. I played AC1 and AC2 back-to-back, with only a few hours between finishing AC1 and starting AC2. And now having played all the way up until AC: Unity, what I used to see as a nice blueprint feels much more like a refined experience.

The brilliant open-ended assassinations are obviously a high point especially as soon as AC2, the assassinations were distilled and streamlined (mainly for narrative sense). For reference even now in Unity I play the “levantine” approach to combat; sneak until within a few metres, high-profile assassination, then flee into the crowds. It’s a classic set of moves that AC1 instilled into me, highlighted with its “Chase Cam”.

The repetitive grinding of missions is the takeaway most people get from the gameplay with the assassinations only being a sliver of the content on offer. That obviously wasn’t the intention, with the side quests meaning to be information on how to approach your target, but the mini-map turns them into chores.

The combat suffers from the same aspect of having good intentions, but it not being found when first playing. The combat arena where you learn new moves doesn’t do a great job at telling you how to fight and so we revert to what we know; hold RT/R2, pressing X/Square when hit.

The open world, especially the Kingdom, feels like needless padding and is only really there for the first feeling of odyssey-like wonder at riding off into unknown lands. The cities though are a fantastic if not realistic portrayal, having rooftops close enough that endless running is a delight. This is where the freerunning in III didn’t work, with cities that might be historically accurate but aren’t fun to parkour around due to the wide gaps between buildings.

Looking at it eleven years later, it’s obvious that Assassin’s Creed grabbed people because it was fresh and exciting. We had seen open-worlds before and we had seen historical action combat before. But together they were a match made in heaven, a license to go to whatever historical setting Ubisoft wanted and print money to set up new IPs with.

That same sense of freshness is why I think we all got on board for the modern day aspect. While Desmond’s story did get little payoff in the grand scheme of things, that new blend for gaming was novel. While we had seen the same beats in media such as The Matrix or Ghost In The Shell, in gaming it hadn’t really been explored before apart from maybe David Cage’s debut, Omnikron: The Nomad Soul.

With the new game AC: Origins, the series seemed to be travelling back to its roots. With a revamped modern day aspect that is moving away from the memories-as-games plot thread as well as bringing back a more branching style to combat, Origins was seen as a return to form to what many thought to be a dying and withered franchise.

Many have been quick to dismiss the new Assassin’s Creeds as not true AC experiences. I understand their criticisms, but don’t necessarily agree with them. Assassin’s Creed 1 shows us that you can pretty much take a whole new spin on a well known trope and make it its own thing, and that’s pretty much the defining theme of the series;

“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”.

Banner Photo Source: digitalspy.com.