The Assassin’s Creed franchise is gearing up for its twelfth main game release in November with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The months leading up to its release, however, has brought to light how Ubisoft has mistreated its female characters and employees.
Enter the Assassin’s Creed Sisterhood, founded by Assassin’s Creed fan Kulpreet Virdi. The Sisterhood is a safe space for women in gaming who are fans of the franchise and want to see things at Ubisoft improve in the future. In an interview with Game Rant, Virdi spoke about her experiences with the Assassin’s Creed games and what changes she hopes to see in the franchise.
How the Assassin's Creed Games Have Changed
When speaking about the very first Assassin’s Creed game in the series, Virdi mentioned not enjoying the first installment in the series.
“...it was so repetitive. I just thought, right, a master assassin can't even swim!”
She’s not alone in this opinion though, as many players, including Virdi, didn’t find their footing and solid enjoyment in the franchise until Assassin’s Creed 2. The introduction of Italy and fan-favorite Ezio Auditore da Firenze set the sequel apart from the original game, so much so that Virdi said, “it’s one of my favorite games, I think ever.”
Regarding how far the games have come and improved since the first title, Virdi calls it a “massive jump”—one that’s even clear when switching between Origins and Odyssey. Besides her playthrough of Origins, she’s also been playing Black Flag on her Switch. She describes it as a “good port,” but even playing those titles at the same time can really show how much the games have changed with each installment.
As for her favorite character, besides Ezio, Virdi adores Syndicate’s Evie Frye. She calls her “the woman assassin of dreams” and enjoyed Evie’s witty, funny personality and interactions with Jacob throughout the game.
How the AC Games Still Need to Improve
As much as the graphics and controls have improved in the Assassin’s Creed games, there’s still a lot of work to be done as far as equality goes. It’s recently come to light that female assassin protagonists have not been introduced in main franchise games because of the belief that “women don’t sell,” a clearly offensive and sexist notion.
For Virdi, there are a few ways Ubisoft can improve its treatment of female characters in the Assassin’s Creed universe. Releasing a game that introduces a female assassin as the protagonist, without the RPG choice introduced in Odyssey, would be a great step in the right direction. Again, the Sisterhood doesn’t want to replace male assassins with females, they just want an equal representation of both.
“...it's always been a choice, it's never been like, we've never had a female version of Ezio. And it's not until you kind of like, break down the facts and only in two of them the woman is a choice. Just a choice.”
Having a female-centered assassin story would also provide unique storytelling that players haven’t gotten to see so far in the Assassin’s Creed games. In Origins, Virdi points out that having the game centered on Aya could have led to an in-depth, incredibly interesting narrative of a mother mourning the loss of her child and becoming the Mother of the Creed. But that’s not what players got.
“And I just really hope that one day they do commit to a woman and explore her character development, explore themes you maybe wouldn't explore when you played as a male.”
If Ubisoft did decide to release a game with Aya as its protagonist, Virdi says she’d love to see Aya in Rome. Much of Aya and Cleopatra’s work in Rome has only been disclosed in the companion comics and novels, which was “a bit of a cop out” as not everyone devotes time to items outside of the main games.
It’s especially frustrating to see Aya diminished in such a fashion because, in Assassin’s Creed 2, there was a statue of Amunet/Aya in the basement of the Monteriggioni Villa. She was the mother and founder of The Hidden Ones, which later became the Brotherhood and lead to the Creed, and yet players don’t get to see her work. Aya’s “narrative was quite choppy” to Virdi, and now with everything that’s come out, “it probably explains quite a lot,” including the disconnect she felt from Aya.
Another way the Assassin’s Creed franchise can improve in its treatment of female characters lies in their marketing campaigns. Even when Syndicate was released, Evie Frye got significantly less marketing than Jacob—and for a game with dual protagonists, got significantly less playtime than her counterpart. Kassandra, who was originally supposed to be the only protagonist in Odyssey, was largely left out of the marketing for the game, and it seems Lady Eivor has unfortunately seen a similar trend. Even her reveal trailer was the same as the launch trailer for Valhalla, with little marketing since then.
To its credit, however, Virdi knows that the marketing for Valhalla was “probably all sorted and done prior to the Sisterhood movement and months in advance,” so hopefully Ubisoft improves its marketing for female characters come the next Assassin’s Creed release. However, this didn’t stop devs from showing support for the Sisterhood movement by adding its logo to Valhalla as a tattoo for Eivor.
“I was hoping to see more of her throughout the marketing campaign, because I think that it was the same mistake they made with Odyssey where they didn't showcase Kassandra as much as Alexios.”
The Assassin’s Creed Sisterhood hopes to be around for a long time. It has started to bring attention to the treatment of employees within Ubisoft and advocates for justice for female assassins and characters within the Assassin’s Creed universe, but it also acts as a safe space for new or returning fans of the franchise. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to use the hashtag #ACSisterhood to keep the movement alive and help it grow even more than it already has.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is available for pre-order now and releases on November 10 for PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It releases on November 12 for PlayStation 5.
Credit: Original Assassin's Creed Sisterhood Logo Created by Sebastian Dell'Aria