10 Places Assassin's Creed Could Go After Valhalla
Ubisoft has all of human history to play with. What's next?
Assassin's Creed is an interesting franchise. The first game, though generally well-received, wasn't the critical darling that Assassin's Creed 2 was. Assassin's Creed 3 saw positive reviews but fans were torn, then Black Flag was spectacular, but things started to go downhill afterwards until Origins reinvented everything.
Despite any ups and downs in hype, anticipation or quality, the Assassin's Creed games have always excelled in one regard: each game lovingly and painstakingly recreates historical locales. Be it Florence, Alexandria, Havana or Paris, these games always take care to craft these worlds with immaculate detail. Walking through the streets of a city that has been all but lost to modernity is a gift that Assassin's Creed gives us better than any other developer.
They also try to fold in some of the social and political history of a place. Some people -- certainly not the author of this list, but SOME PEOPLE -- passed their high school history tests about the Italian Renaissance because they skipped school to play Assassin's Creed 2 for 11 hours straight, picking up some historical knowledge in the process. SOME people...
Now that the franchise has found its footing though, where -- and when -- else might be in store?
10. The American Civil War
Cool! This isn't going to be controversial at all!
A lot of people drag Assassin's Creed 3, arguing that it wasn't the AC we knew and loved, because it lacked big, ornate cities. That's a perfectly reasonable argument, but consider this: maybe, just maybe, the game was simply made too soon.
The way the original games handled didn't really lend themselves to forest and mountain exploration, which made up the bulk of AC3. But imagine the game with the mechanics of an RPG, like Origins and Odyssey. Doesn't that seem like a much better fit?
Unless Ubisoft completely remasters AC3, the only way we'll get to explore the historic U.S. is if we go to the Civil War, which, thematically, wouldn't be a bad setting. The battle between the Assassins and the Templars has always been about freedom vs. control, and whether or not you want to believe it, the Civil War WAS about slavery (not states' rights), at least on the part of the Confederacy. That's a perfect point of contention for Assassins. John Brown, anyone?
Throw in groups like the Redeemers and the Knights of the Golden Circle, and you've got yourself some of AC's signature secret society intrigue.