Watch Dogs Assassin's Creed Far Cry symbols

As far as their main narratives go, Ubisoft's various action franchises all seem to exist happily independent of one another, even their Tom Clancy-branded games - that is, until you start peering very closely. Players of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag who explored the modern-day setting and hacked Abstergo Entertainment's computers (which use the patented Frogger security system) can unearth an e-mail concerning Abstergo's potential interest in ctOS, the central operating system used to control the alternate version of Chicago in Ubisoft's upcoming open world game Watch Dogs.

More recently, Watch Dogs returned the favor by including an Assassin's Creed Easter egg in one of the game's screenshots. Those who played the Lost Expeditions DLC in Ubisoft's island adventure Far Cry 3 will also have encountered an Assassin's Creed Easter egg in that game. These three franchises are all very incestuous.

The references don't stop there. One of the character trailers for Watch Dogs actually contains Easter eggs for both Assassin's Creed and Far Cry in the same frame, the eagle eyes over at Dual Shockers have discovered. In this trailer, Aiden Pearce's hacker associate T-Bone is shown seated at his desk with a healthy collection of CD cases. Only two of them have exposed covers, and you'll never guess what's on those covers.

CLICK TO VIEW FULL SIZE IMAGE

Since Assassin's Creed IV went radically meta by making the Assassin's Creed games an in-universe franchise, the presence of Assassin's Creed II on T-Bone's shelf could be considered yet another indicator that Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed take place in the same universe. However, in a market analysis video that can be found in Assassin's Creed IV, it is revealed that Abstergo found Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the historical protagonist of Assassin's Creed II, to be an unacceptable choice for their game's hero. Trivia fact of the day: the voiceover for this market analysis video was provided by Ezio's voice actor, Roger Craig Smith, who deliberately mispronounces his name as "Enzio."

Does this mean that the appearance of Assassin's Creed II is just a fun, meaningless Easter egg? Perhaps, though it's also a possibility that Abstergo released a version of the game in which Rodrigo Borgia or one of the other Templars was the hero. Or perhaps they simply skewed history to make Ezio seem more deplorable. Apparently Templars are good at that sort of thing.

Are all these winks and nods just for fun, or is Ubisoft deliberately trying to establish Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs as existing in a shared universe?

Watch Dogs releases May 27, 2014 for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The Wii U version will hit some time after that.

_____

Source: Dual Shockers