This editorial contains spoilers that stretch throughout the entire Assassin’s Creed franchise. If you have not played all of the Assassin’s Creed games and are planning to play them, you might want to wait on reading this article. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
In November of 2007, Ubisoft released the first Assassin’s Creed game after it had garnered much anticipation in the way of multiple awards at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo. The game was a fresh face as more games started taking stabs at the open world sandbox style of gameplay. The most powerful point that Assassin’s Creed had going for it, was its unique and interesting storyline.
A company called Abstergo Industries, which happens to be a front for a secret order call the Knights Templar, kidnaps a young man named Desmond Miles. Unbeknownst to Desmond, his bloodline is the culmination of several legendary Assassins, rivals to the Knights Templar. Abstergo then uses Desmond in an experimental machine to dive back into the memories of one of his ancestors (Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad) in order to locate precious artifacts called the “Pieces of Eden” that yield Godlike powers.
So when I first played this game, I thought, “oh man this is great! Each game is going to feature a new ancestor with Desmond reliving their lives to learn of a new “Piece of Eden” to get to them before the Templars and help the Assassins.” Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, Ubisoft decided to take things in a different route. Assassin’s Creed II released in 2009, and continues the story of Desmond Miles, who escapes captivity with the help of an undercover Assassin. However, when he then goes back into another animus to relive a different ancestor’s (Ezio Auditore da Firenze) memories, the reason is not to find a new “Piece of Eden” mind you, but to train as an Assassin.
Ezio’s story then falls along the typical, uninspired, stereotype of lone protagonist finding himself whilst seeking vengeance for the death of his family members, which eventually leads him to the man ultimately responsible for their deaths. This man coincidentally had The Apple of Eden, but the series then continues without ever explaining or even addressing the fact that this particular Piece of Eden is not the same as the one Altair wielded. In fact, this Apple is the sixth of five known “Apples of Eden.” Not the mention that the Staff that Rodrigo Borgia combines the Apple with, is actually the “Staff of Eden”; as a matter of fact,although a few have been destroyed, there are eleven (known and confirmed) “Pieces of Eden.”
Almost all of these artifacts are mentioned in the first Assassin’s Creed game either in unlockable e-mails, or in puzzle pieces left by Subject 16. The multiple different Apples are even inferred in Assassin’s Creed II throughout “The Truth” puzzles, but there is no mention of any of this in Brotherhood or Revelations. Since the debut of the franchise five years ago, there have been four Assassin’s Creed console releases, with the conclusion of Desmond’s story set to release in 2012, but none of them officially introduced any additional “Pieces of Eden” to the franchise.
Where are Desmond’s other ancestors? Why have we not experienced wielding the Sword of Eden? Why was there absolutely no mention of the fact that Ezio’s Uncle Mario lost his right eye retrieving the “Shroud of Eden” (labeled POE 66 by Abstergo Industries by the way) out of the secret chamber under the Monteriggioni? The map that Altair discovers at the end of the first Assassin’s Creed game displays forty-eight different locations, each of which refer to an individual “Piece of Eden.” There is a disgustingly detailed canon in the Assassin’s Creed franchise and the majority of it is not reaching the audience that it should.
For some reason Ubisoft felt that we needed closure to characters that we know have been dead for hundreds of years. News flash Ubisoft: we did not. Nor did we ever want to see or play as a a 97 year old ancestor in glorious high definition; keep those stories to the books, social games, hand held games, comics, live action web-shorts, and any other medium I may have left out. Give us the console games that allow us to experience the battle between Altair and his family against Genghis Khan.
Allow us to play as Joan of Arc while she wielded the Sword of Eden during the Hundred Years’ War. Just give us something that does not feel like you slapped together some crap, such as inducing a coma, in order to keep interest in the series alive while you work on the next real installment. You have a great thing here, and as a fan, trust me when I say we are not going anywhere, unless you keep feeding us the kind of filler content that was in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.