| Assassin's Creed | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Ubisoft Montreal |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Designer(s) | Patrice Desilets (creative director), Jade Raymond (producer) |
| Writer(s) | Corey May |
| Composer(s) | Jesper Kyd |
| Series | Assassin's Creed |
| Version | Windows 1.02 (May 13, 2008), PS3 1.10 (October 16, 2008) |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows |
| Release date(s) | PlayStation 3, Xbox 360:
|
| Genre(s) | Third person action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) |
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| Media | Blu-ray Disc, DVD-DL, download |
| System requirements See System requirements | |
Assassin's Creed is a historical fantasy/science fiction third person action-adventure video game. The game is developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide in November 2007 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360,and April 2008 for PCs. The bulk of the game takes place during the Third Crusade, and is based upon the Hashshashin, a Muslim sect known as the Secret Order of Assassins. The player is in reality playing as a modern-day man named Desmond Miles, who through the use of a machine named the "Animus", is allowed the viewing and controlling of the protagonist's genetic memories of his ancestors, in this case, Altair, a member of the Hashshashin.
Through this plot device, details emerge of a struggle between two factions, the Knights Templar and the Assassins, over an artifact known as a "Piece of Eden" and the game primarily takes place during the Third Crusade in the Holy Land in 1191. The game received generally positive reviews, and won several awards at E3 in 2006. A sequel, Assassin's Creed II, was released in November 2009.
Plot
Plot
Desmond Miles is not accurately characterized as simply a barman despite his initial protestations and bewilderment. He is an estranged member of the modern-day Assassin’s Brotherhood. He attempted to live anonymously under an assumed name after escaping from a secret Brotherhood compound known as the “Farm” at age sixteen, avoiding all contact with technology and agencies that might reveal his identity and location. His sole mistake was to acquire a license for a motorcycle that required a photo and a fingerprint.
Abstergo (Latin for “cleanse,” or “wipe away”) is a corporation run by modern-day Templars, who still wage a secret crusade to protect mankind by restricting free will, while the Brotherhood still fight to preserve humanity’s right to self-determination. Through the exploration of Desmond’s genetic memories of Altaïr ibn La-Ahad (Arabic for “The Flying One Son of None”) by using the Animus (Latin for “soul”), the Templars hope to discover the location of all existing “Pieces of Eden,” mystical devices that enable its holders to manipulate the minds of others. The Templars plan to broadcast a Piece of Eden’s power by subsequently launching it into orbit onboard a satellite, enslaving all but a few with innate resistance to the control each device exerts.
In the sterile confines of the Abstergo laboratory, Desmond interacts with only two of the company’s employees: Warren Vidic (who, in a broad sense, invented the Animus), and his assistant, Lucy Stillman. Warren is officious, driven and arrogant; a Templar with little regard for Desmond’s well-being. Lucy is more pragmatic, and is quick to rebuke Warren on his treatment of Desmond. The relationship between the two scientists is complex. Lucy reveals to Desmond that Abstergo hired her as a graduate, having taken a special interest in her studies. Three company employees were sent to execute her once the Animus was complete despite her vital contributions to the project. Only the timely intervention of Warren saved her life. Tolerating Warren’s brusque manner and assorted foibles is a small price for Lucy. She too is a prisoner of the company like Desmond however, unable to leave the premises.
Over the course of several days, Desmond enters the Animus for hours at a time, before spending his evenings locked in a suite adjacent to the laboratory. He gradually learns more of Abstergo’s activities and intentions through conversations with Warren and Lucy, and his experiences as Altaïr.
Desmond relives key moments in the life of his ancestor while installed in the Animus. Altaïr is a senior member of the Assassin’s Brotherhood during the Third Crusade. The memory begins with the Assassin, joined by two Assassin brothers Malik and Kadar Al-Sayf, attempting to secure an artifact from the Temple of Solomon.
Altaïr is a flawed character, defined by his arrogance and an almost contemptuous disregard for the central tenets of the Brotherhood. Altaïr is thrown aside by Robert de Sablé – Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who are also seeking the same object – when he rashly confronts him, cutting him off from the melee that ensues by a collapsing wall, and escapes alone.
Altaïr meets with Assassin leader Al Mualim (Arabic for “The Teacher”) on his return to the Brotherhood stronghold at Masyaf in Syria, and is shamed by the account offered by Malik, who barely survived with the cost of losing his left arm, and successfully retrieved the strange golden object. Altaïr is subjected to a mock execution despite his bravery during a subsequent Templar siege of the fortress led by Robert. He awakes to learn that he has been demoted to a mere Initiate, losing all weapons and privileges unique to his previous high rank. Al Mualim castigates Altaïr savagely, but offers a path of redemption. To be restored to his former standing, he must assassinate nine targets:
- Tamir of Damascus
- Garnier de Naplouse
- Talal of Jerusalem
- Abu’l Nuqoud
- William of Montferrat
- Majd Addin
- Sibrand
- Jubair al Hakim
- Robert de Sable
Altaïr begins to question the motivation for the killings as he tracks down each target in turn. Many of the nine insist that their actions were necessary to achieve a higher purpose, even though the majority of them are ostensibly guilty of great cruelty or venality. Altaïr learns that the object retrieved from Solomon’s Temple is a Piece of Eden. The Templars would use it to bring peace to the region and, ultimately the world, but at a more questionable price: the enforced sacrifice of free will by all who fall under its spell.
Robert de Sablé reveals to Altaïr that only one other now knows the device’s power: Al Mualim, who seeks to possess it exclusively for his own ends. Desmond is then abruptly pulled from the Animus due to an unsuccessful attempt by the Brotherhood to storm the facility. Lucy then subtly reveals that she too is an Assassin, a sleeper agent sent to infiltrate the Templar ranks.
Back in the Animus, Desmond unlocks the memory of Altaïr returning to Masyaf to confront Al Mualim, finally comprehending the full import of his tutor’s manipulation. Al Mualim reveals to Altaïr that he is susceptible to the Piece of Eden unlike others, yet he still manages to overcome its illusions during their climactic battle. Altaïr watches in wonder as the Piece of Eden opens once Al Mualim falls to his blade, projecting the location of other devices throughout the world.
The people at Abstergo obtain the locations of the Pieces of Eden with the completion of the memory. Desmond hears Warren confirm the existence of at least six of these to an unseen male colleague as he lies on the Animus, with teams poised to explore each location to retrieve them. Warren intends to execute Desmond, but refrains from doing so when Lucy insists that he may yet still be of value. Desmond realizes that something is seriously amiss as Warren and Lucy depart. His vision is blurred yet augmented in a way that resembles Altaïr’s Eagle Vision, his uncanny ability to discern the unseen and differentiate between friend and foe. Warren appears highlighted in an angry red hue, and Lucy, a reassuring blue.
The Abstergo employees exit the laboratory, leaving Desmond to discover that the walls and the floors are somehow covered in arcane symbols and coded, cryptic texts apparently written in several languages
Characters1191 A.D.
Muslim Assassins
Characters1191 A.D.
Muslim Assassins
- Altaïr ibn La-Ahad - an agent of the Assassin Brotherhood. The primary player character.
- Al Mualim - the Master Assassin of Masyaf, later Altaïr's last target.
- Malik Al-Sayf - the Assassin Bureau leader in Jerusalem
- Salah al-Din - a military and political leader, Richard the Lionheart's adversary
- Tamir - a black market merchant based in Damascus' poor district, Altaïr's first target
- Talal - a slave trader based in Jerusalem's rich district, Altaïr's third target
- Abu'l Nuqoud - the merchant king of Damascus, Altaïr's fourth target
- Majd Addin - Salah al-Din's regent of Old Jerusalem, Altaïr's sixth target
- Jubair al Hakim - chief scholar of Damascus, Altaïr's eighth target
Christian Crusaders
- Richard the Lionheart - the "absent king," Salah al-Din's adversary
- Garnier de Naplouse - the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier, Altaïr's second target
- William of Montferrat - Acre's Crusader regent, Altaïr's fifth target
- Sibrand - the Grand Master of the Knights Teutonic, Altaïr's seventh target
- Maria Thorpe - Robert de Sablé's steward, spared by Altaïr
- Robert de Sablé - the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Altaïr's ninth target
Assassins
- Desmond Miles - a bartender and an estranged Assassin, Altaïr's descendant
- Lucy Stillman - an Assassin sleeper agent at Abstergo Industries
Abstergo Industries
- Warren Vidic - a disgraced scientist and a former Ivy League professor of ill repute
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed is an action-adventure video game in which the player primarily assumes the role of Altaïr as experienced by Desmond Miles. The primary goal of the game is to carry out a series of assassinations ordered by Al Mualim, the leader of the Assassins. To achieve this goal, the player must travel from the Brotherhood's headquarters in Masyaf, across the terrain of the Holy Land known as the Kingdom to one of three cities, Jerusalem, Acre, or Damascus, to find the Brotherhood agent in that city. There, the agent, in addition to providing a safe house, gives the player minimal knowledge about the target, and requires them to perform additional intelligence gathering missions before attempting the assassination. These missions include eavesdropping, interrogation, pickpocketing and completing tasks for informers and fellow assassins. Additionally, the player may take part in any number of side objectives in these open world environments, including climbing tall towers to map out the city, and saving citizens who are being threatened or harassed by the city guards. There are also various side quests that do not advance the plot such as hunting down and killing Templars and flag collecting. After completing each set of assassinations, the player is returned back to the Brotherhood and rewarded with a better weapon and then given another set of targets, with the player free to select the order of their targets.
The player is made aware of how noticeable Altaïr is to enemy guards as well as the current state of alert in the local area via an alertness level meter. To perform many of the assassinations and other tasks, the player must consider the use of commands distinguished by its type of profile. Low profile commands allow Altaïr to blend into nearby crowds, pass by other citizens, or other non-threatening tasks that can be used to hide and reduce the alertness level; the player can also use Altaïr's retractable blade to attempt low profile assassinations. High profile commands are more noticeable, and include running, scaling the sides of buildings to climb to higher vantage points, and attacking foes; performing these actions at certain times may raise the local area's awareness level. Once the area is at high alert, the crowds run and scatter while guards attempt to chase and bring down Altaïr; to reduce the alert level, the player must control Altaïr as to break the guards' line of sight and then find a hiding space such as a haystack or rooftop garden, or blend in with the citizens sitting on benches or wandering scholars. Should the player be unable to escape the guards, they can fight back using swordplay maneuvers.
The player's health is described as the level of synchronization between Desmond and Altaïr's memories; should Altaïr suffer injury, it is represented as deviation from the actual events of the memory, rather than physical damage. If all synchronization is lost, the current memory that Desmond is experiencing will be restarted at the last checkpoint. When the synchronization bar is full, the player has the additional option to use "eagle vision" which allows the computer-rendered memory to highlight all visible characters in colors corresponding to whether they are friend or foe or even the target of their assassination. Due to Altaïr's memories being rendered by the computer of the Animus project, the player may experience "glitches" in the rendering of the historical world, which may help the player to identify targets, or can be used to alter the viewpoint during in-game scripted scenes should the player react fast enough when they appear.
Development
Development
On September 28, 2006, in an interview with IGN, producer Jade Raymond confirmed that Altaïr is "a medieval hitman with a mysterious past" and that he is not a time traveler. In a later interview on December 13, 2006, with IGN, Kristen Bell (who lent her voice and likeness to the game) talked about the plot. According to the interview, the plot centers on genetic memory and a corporation looking for descendants of an assassin.
"It's actually really interesting to me. It's sort of based on the research that's sort of happening now, about the fact that your genes might be able to hold memory. And you could argue semantics and say it's instinct, but how does a baby bird know to eat a worm, as opposed to a cockroach, if its parents don't show it? And it's about this science company trying to, Matrix-style, go into people's brains and find out an ancestor who used to be an assassin, and sort of locate who that person is."
—Kristen Bell
Raymond also stated in an interview that the game takes inspiration from Bartol's novel Alamut.
On October 22, 2007, in an IGN Australia interview with Patrice Desilets mentioned that the lead character's climbing and running were done by "Alex and Richard – the same guys from Prince of Persia".
Altaïr is voiced by actor Philip Shahbaz,and his face is modeled on Francisco Randez, a model from Montréal. Al Mualim's character is roughly based on Rashid ad-Din Sinan, who was the leader of the Syrian branch of the Hashshashin in 1191 and was nicknamed "The Old Man of the Mountain".
Windows version
Windows version
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It was made public in April 2008 that Assassin's Creed would be sold electronically and available for pre-order through Valve's software distribution program, Steam. The PC version of Assassin's Creed was released on April 8, 2008, in North America. Four bonus mission types, not seen in the console version, are included. These 4 new missions are archer assassination, rooftop race challenge, merchant stand destruction challenge and escort challenge.
A pirated version of the game has been in existence since late February 2008. According to Ubisoft, a Computer bug, was purposely inserted into the pre-release version of the game by the publisher itself to unpredictably crash the game and prevent completion as a security measure, though players were able to use extra content available on the Internet to bypass it. The pirated version of Assassin's Creed was one of the most popular titles for piracy during the first week of March 2008. The presence of the bug and performance of the pirated version of the game was believed by Ubisoft to lead to "irreparable harm" for the game and resulted in low retail sales; NPD Group reports that 40,000 copies of the PC title were sold in United States in July, while more than 700,000 copies were illegally downloaded according to Ubisoft.In July 2008, Ubisoft sued disc manufacturer Optical Experts Manufacturing, believing the company to be the source of the leak, citing poor security procedures that allowed an employee to leave with a copy of the game.
Demos
Demos
On July 10, 2007, during Microsoft's E3 press conference, a demo was shown using a previously unseen city, Jerusalem. Features that were demonstrated included improved crowd mechanics, the "chase" system (chasing after a target trying to flee), as well as deeper aspects of parkour. This was the first time when Altaïr could be heard speaking. It was again showcased for 20 minutes on July 11, 2007. The video showed an extended version of the E3 demo, and included Altaïr trying to escape after his assassination of Talal the Slave Trader.
On August 26, 2007, an 11-minute demo of Assassin's Creed was shown at the Penny Arcade Expo. The level that was shown was the same as in the E3 demo; however, a different path was taken to reach the target. At the end of the demo, a conversation between Altaïr and Malik, the head of the Assassin's bureau in Jerusalem, was shown.
Limited edition
Limited edition
The North American limited edition on Xbox 360 and PS3 contained: the game, a 3-inch Altair figurine, Penny Arcade comics, a miniature strategy guide and DVD bonus disc featuring the winners of an Assassin’s Creed short film contest, behind-the-scenes videos, developer diaries, trailers, producer interviews, and downloads.
There were three European limited edition packages on Xbox 360 and PS3. The first contained: the game and a 8-inch painted resin Altaïr figure. The second contained the game and 4 bonus postcards, housed within steel case packaging. The third contained the game, a PC DVD-ROM bonus disc, and a 17-page comic book, housed within steel case packaging.
The European limited edition on Windows PC contained the Director's Cut game housed within steel case packaging.
References
- Assassin's Creed UK website
- Wikipedia
Assassin's Creed
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