With hype for Assassin's Creed Valhalla growing, fans are beginning to wonder which of the many remaining mysteries surrounding the Assassins might be answered. As it turns out, Valhalla's time period and setting has interesting implications, not only for the game's Viking aesthetic, but for the aspects of the Assassin Brotherhood that it might reveal.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla takes place several hundred years after Origins, and a couple hundred years before the original Assassin's Creed. That means players might just gain a better understanding of how the Hidden Ones of Origins became the Assassin Brotherhood - something that we've never seen before.

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The Hidden Ones

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As those who've played Assassin's Creed Origins know, the Hidden Ones are the first official incarnation of the Assassin Brotherhood to actually exist. Founded by Bayek and Aya, the main characters of Origins, the Hidden Ones were dedicated to safeguarding free will and protecting people from the shadows. Naturally, as the Assassins are a response to the Templars, the Hidden Ones were created as a response to the Order of the Ancients, which manipulated rulers in Egypt during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Bayek developed the Creed that the Assassins would one day base themselves around, and the pair of them established operational networks of Hidden Ones in Egypt and the Roman Empire. Aya, who renamed herself Amunet, headed up operations in Rome, while Bayek headed the Hidden Ones of Egypt.  While "assassin" wasn't technically in the name of the Hidden Ones, they did use assassination as a primary tool for achieving their goals - although they forbade the harming of innocents.

This all happened in 47 B.C. By 1191 C.E., the organization had regrouped under the name of the Assassin Brotherhood. Of course, that's when Altair Ibn-La'Ahad comes into the picture and players became familiar with the Assassins as they're currently known.

The Assassins

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By the time Assassin's Creed begins, the ideology of the Assassin Brotherhood has shifted, and not for the better. The game follows Altair as he uncovers corruption within the ranks and eventually reforms the ideals of the Brotherhood to closer reflect those of the original Hidden Ones. The Assassins fight an unending war with the Templars; where the Templars seek to control all free will on order to guide humanity, Assassins seek to defend free will, and thwart the Templars at every turn.

So, let's talk about the thing that really makes the Assassins: their Creed. The first part of the Creed decares that "nothing is true, everything is permitted." This is the part of the Creed that emphasizes rationalism, the opposite of blind faith: don't trust something that hasn't been seen, because the truth can be manipulated.

That's where Altair has a big impact on the organization in the first Assassin's Creed, as many of his peers have grown complacent, killing whomever their leader Al Mualim orders without questioning why that person has to die. Al Mualim becomes an almost godly figure to the Assassins and the common people, and uses his influence to control much in the same way that the Templars do - by the end of the game, he's the main villain. When Altair takes the reigns and guides the Assassins down a different path, it represents a major shift in ideology from that the Assassins had become.

So the question is: how did the Assassins get there? We know that their predecessors, the Hidden Ones, shared Altair's ideals; they questioned, they operated in the shadows, and they harmed no innocents. So, when did this change to the practices that Al Mualim advoceated? Fans have never quite known what changed for the Assassins during the time between Origins and Assassin's Creed, but Valhalla falls right smack dab in that mysterious grey area of Brotherhood history.

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The Time In-Between

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Now, let's talk about Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The game's exact year hasn't been formally announced yet, but based on the Golden Age of the Vikings that the fact that King Alfred rules England in the game, we know that it'll take place sometime between the years of 886 to 899.

At some point during this time, Valhalla's protagonist Eivor also encountered the Hidden Ones and was given a hidden blade to use. But are they still the corrupted Hidden Ones, or will they be more like the unreformed Assassin's Brotherhood when Eivor encounters them? We still don't know exactly how entwined Eivor's story will be with that of the Assassins, or if like the protagonist of Odyssey Eivor will be relatively uninvolved. It'll be interesting to see Eivor's impact on the Assassins, and whether that contributes to any change in their ideology of the time.

The rest of the Assassins' Creed emphasizes harming no innocents, hiding in plain sight, and never compromising the Brotherhood. Seeing as social stealth is a mechanic coming back to the games after a sizeable break, it's clear that at least some of the Creed will still be in effect. Perhaps the Brotherhood that appears in Valhalla will still very much be in line with the Hidden Ones, or perhaps the plot of the game will be tied with a change in the Brotherhood. It's certainly evident alreay that there'll be plenty of conflict between the Vikings and the ruling class of England; that means plenty of opportunities for the Assassins to strike in the name of creating peace.

Whatever the case, Assassin's Creed Valhalla is shaping up to be an exciting foray into Assassin lore. Time will tell just what the game reveals about the history of the Assassin's Brotherhood.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is expected to release during the holiday season of 2020 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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