The Assassin's Creed franchise has grown immensely since its beginnings with Altair in the first game. There are now a ton of different assassins that have all held the spotlight at one point or another throughout various games, and an expansive overarching story involving the First Civilization and Abstergo that looms above the conflict between the Assassins and Templars. All of that stands to grow even more as Assassin's Creed: Valhalla brings the series to the world of the Vikings, setting up even more characters and in-depth back stories. As the franchise grows, so too does the potential for a spin off series featuring all the Assassins, similar to Dissidia Final Fantasy.
This idea is a bit bizarre, but it actually isn't too far-fetched. For those that don't know, Dissidia Final Fantasy takes the main characters of all the main entry Final Fantasy games and places them together in one world. At its core, it's a fighting game with recognizable and beloved characters, but digging deeper reveals some interesting interactions between characters as well as a hidden story that connects every single Final Fantasy game into one narrative. Assassin's Creed has the tools to do this, and now it has a great deal of characters it could use as well.
Dissidia Assassin's Creed
The most important thing to consider when imagining a Dissidia-style Assassin's Creed game is the sheer number of characters. From Altair to Eivor, there have been a ton of playable Assassins and even Templars that could make appearances in the game. Notable enemies that the Assassins fight could also show up as antagonists, and even the modern day protagonists and antagonists could make appearances in the game. What's more, there's already a reasonable in world explanation for how something like this could happen.
The animus is almost solely responsible for making the story of Assassin's Creed possible, but even it has changed a lot over the years. Though when it made its debut in the original Assassin's Creed it seemed like a novel idea, that first animus is honestly primitive now when compared to what is being used in more recent games. There's no reason another change couldn't be made to the animus to accommodate a cross-over game such as this, and there's even some ways a game like this could tie into the overarching story of Assassin's Creed in a believable way.
History of the Animus
As was previously mentioned, the animus has gone through a series of changes. During the first game, the Animus 1.0 allowed Desmond to relive the memories of his ancestors, but it was very dangerous to use. Staying in it for too long would cause Desmond to experience the bleeding effect, in which fragments of memory and reality would blend together. Since then, there have been nine different incarnations of the animus, each with improvements from the last to enhance their capabilities and safety of the user.
Some of the more notable improvements to the animus include the limiting of the bleeding effect, allowing users to stay in the animus for longer, increased portability, and allowing more interaction with the simulated world. By far the most impressive change, though, is that users are now able to access memories of those that aren't their direct ancestors, so long as they have genetic information of that person. The latest model is the Animus HR-8.5, an extremely portable, efficient, and powerful version of the device. With all this in mind, there's no reason an Animus 9.0 couldn't expand on these improvements, allowing users to take control of infamous characters throughout history in other settings.
An Assassin's Creed Fighting Game?
Dissidia Final Fantasy is a fighting game by all rights, and it would be a fair assessment to assume that wouldn't fit well in the Assassin's Creed formula. While Ezio has appeared in the likes of Soul Calibur 5 as a playable character in a fighting game, creating an entire roster of assassins in that style and making them all diverse would be difficult. Instead, it seems more likely that Ubisoft would use some other form of multiplayer while still keeping the core idea of allowing these characters from different time periods to interact with each other.
There are a number of ways that this could take form. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood introduced a new form of multiplayer where players would try to assassinate a target while avoiding assassination themselves. In game this was billed as a training program developed by Abstergo to prepare its employees for the coming war with the Assassins. Each of the characters available for play in that game were "harvested" from the memories of a historical figure. This shows that the animus is capable of doing more than just allow someone to relive memories, it can also simulate the appearance and abilities of someone in scenarios they were never a part of.
Potential Story of a Dissidia-like Assassin's Creed
In Dissidia Final Fantasy, the story revolved around each of the characters obtaining a crystal of light in order to defeat the evil god, Chaos. Of course, for an Assassin's Creed take on something like this, it would need to be a bit more subtle than that. Perhaps the most interesting potential story would be that the war between the templars and assassins plays out in a digital space, in which the participants fight via proxy.
In this way, modern day Templars and Assassins would jack into the same network and do battle using the DNA and memories of various famous assassins and templars. Outside of the game, it would be an excuse for fans to see Ezio duke it out with Eivor, or Haytham have a fight to the death with Evie Frye. Since these characters still have their memories, there would be a lot of cool interactions between some of them, perhaps allowing certain characters to experience technology they would never have seen, or get to know each other despite their differing time periods. Of course, Ubisoft hasn't made any announcements that would hint towards something like this happening, but it is a unique and surprisingly viable idea.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla releases November 10th for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.