10 Obscure Gaming Clues That Explained Confusing Moments
8. Why Does King Richard Have A French Accent? - Assassin's Creed
The Confusing Moment
The first Assassin's Creed features an appearance from King Richard I of England - aka Richard the Lionheart - in the Animus, and ever since release some fans have expressed bemusement at the fact that Richard speaks with a French accent rather than the expectedly plummy English one.
Is this simply a case of Ubisoft hiring local French-Canadian voice actors for the job, or could there be another, more sensible explanation hiding in plain sight?
The Clue
There are two explanations for this, one a clue suggested within the game itself, the other bore out by real world history.
In the game, Lucy explains to Desmond that the Animus' translation system attempts to update older language to more contemporary speech, though it's also fundamentally imperfect and so doesn't always deliver fully satisfactory results with regard to accents. Assassin's Creed II also mentions the Animus having "laggy translation software."
The other reasoning is that, in real life, Richard I most likely had a French accent, having spent his childhood in England but most of his life in the southwest of France.
Basically, Ubisoft had all their bases covered with this one, as strange as it sounds to hear the King of England speaking this way.