Assassin’s Creed, a Look Back to its Roots
Assassin’s Creed is a series that has lost its way. What started as a wholly unique premise quickly became a drab, yearly retread of the same tired formula. It’s a real shame, Assassin’s Creed remains very special to me, and I remember waiting for weeks and weeks to get my hands on a copy of the very first Assassin’s Creed game back in 2007. I sat and I watched the same launch trailer over and over again and I couldn’t wait to roam around the Holy Land as a master assassin, traveling from city to city and repelling the Templar order. My excitement quickly overwhelmed me, and I am ashamed to admit that I did eventually dig through my poorly hidden Christmas presents to find a copy of the game that I ended up playing under the cover of darkness in the hours leading up to Christmas Day (sorry Mum).
Over the past few years, the Assassin’s Creed series has seemingly run out of steam, Ubisoft has made some critical mistakes with their handling of the last few titles, resulting in series being put on hiatus in 2016 while Ubisoft, as they put it “took a step back and re-examined the franchise”. Having recently picked up a copy of 2015’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and with the arrival of a remastered ‘Ezio Collection’ release for the 8th generation of consoles in late November of last year, I felt this would be an ideal time to do a bit of re-examining of my own.
Assassin’s Creed is a game that is forgotten by many. It had plenty of problems of course, and these problems have only been further increased by the passage of time. Despite these issues, though, Assassin’s Creed remains an important game as it kick-started a franchise that remained strong for many years, and is still regarded as one of Ubisoft’s biggest successes.
