It would be putting it lightly to say that the fiction of the Assassin's Creed series has gotten somewhat complex over the past few releases. The original story line of a modern man forced to re-live the actions of his ancestors has exploded, now encompassing a centuries-long war between two ancient factions, reality-bending mental psychic abilities, and an apocalyptic twist with religious overtones.
While three Assassin's Creed games filled with that level of fiction might intimidate some game writers, Ubisoft is claiming that they've got the rest of the series almost totally mapped out.
It's fortunate that Assassin's Creed 2 turned out to be even more of a success both critically and financially than the original, and the two additional games following protagonist Ezio might seem like the developers were straying from the original plan. Now Assassin's Creed: Revelations is set to take the series to a whole new level, but bringing even original protagonist Altair into the mix as well.
With two past protagonists set to return, and a promise from the developers to finally pull back the curtain on the story's real main character Desmond, the writing team has more than a few plot threads to bring together before Assassin's Creed 3 pushes fans beyond confusion.
Lead Writer Darby McDevitt isn't sweating the challenge though, claiming that the overall story of the games is almost completely in place. Barring some unforeseen sparks of genius, that is:
"We have about - to give it a rough estimate - 85 percent of the Assassin's Creed lore mapped out, but new things always happen along the way... if a writer comes up with a cool new story which sits deep within the narrative, this might end up changing things. But we do have things planned out.
"Altair's complete story arc has been mapped out for two years, and Ezio's story in Revelations was being conceived and planned when the team started working on Brotherhood... So we've known the end of Ezio's story for some time - it's just a matter of working out how we present that: do we do it in a game? In a comic book? In a handheld game? In a facebook game?"
It's nice to know that Altair hasn't been forgotten by the developers, especially with Ezio owning the spotlight. With the writing team planning out story beats for games still years away from release, it's a miracle that the games produced in the meantime haven't been watered-down and unsatisfying. Of course, those who view both Brotherhood and Revelations as 'expansions' as opposed to full titles will likely take these words as proof.
We do know that Revelations will be bringing some serious plot twists, and AC3 can't be too far off. As for the end of Ezio's story alluded to by McDevitt, we now know that his last days will be explored in the recently-announced Assassin's Creed: Embers. At the very least, we should all breathe a sigh of relief that at least for now, the writers know exactly what they're doing.
Where do you think the various story lines are leading to? Will AC3 be exclusive to Desmond, or bring back all of the characters and some brand new ones? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.
We'll have a look at where the games are headed when Assassin's Creed: Revelations releases for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on November 15, 2011.
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Source: CVG