8 Historical Eras Assassin's Creed Could Still Visit

What periods should be explored next?

Assassins Creed Aztec
Flickr/Ubisoft

Assassin’s Creed quickly became one of Ubisoft’s signature properties following the 2007 release of the original game, which attracted major plaudits for its gameplay innovation and storyline blend of history and fiction. Since that year, there have been just three (2008, 2016 and 2019) where a new entry in the series hasn’t been released.

This has attracted fair criticism for oversaturation but has allowed the ongoing narrative to visit a vast range of interesting periods across history, letting players explore vast landscapes and interact with all manner of historical figures.

It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but the next game in the franchise seems set to take players to the Viking Age. Takes on Denmark, Norway and various territorial conquests (such as parts of Britain, Iceland, Greenland and Finland) will likely be explorable.

Add this to the world-spanning settings of the ten previous main titles and possibilities for interesting future settings are starting to look a bit slim. This applies even if ones that have only been touched upon in side games (of which there have been a lot) are acceptable for re-use on a grander scale.

Here are eight eras and locations that would certainly help the franchise successfully reach its twentieth anniversary later in the decade.

8. World War II

Assassins Creed Aztec
Ubisoft/Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1969-054-16 / Hoffmann, Heinrich / CC-BY-SA [CC BY-SA 3.0 DE (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)]

Aside from Chronicles: Russia and one sequence of Syndicate, no game in the franchise has yet set foot in the 20th Century. Relatively advanced weaponry and vehicles wouldn’t sit well with the series’ ‘parkour and blades’ mechanics, whilst the use of settings and real figures that are still in living memory for some (or were for those that have only died recently) would likely attract controversy.

The possibilities posed by World War II are intriguing enough to dismiss both of these, however. The most notable and documented conflict of recent history has thousands of captivating stories to explore, many of which could easily be related to the series’ lore.

Notable assassinations, such as those of Holocaust architect Reinhard Heydrich, could form the basis of gameplay sequences, the last of which could even be the infiltration of the Fuhrerbunker to kill Hitler himself (with poison to mimic his real-life suicide). Notable operations on both sides could become Templar or Assassin plots, whilst the likes of the July 20th plotters or the Duke of Windsor could easily be written as members of the two organisations playing on the opposite side to their national leaders.

One downside would be that there is no logical city to use a base, but a huge upside would be the sheer amount of notable characters to interact with, from Monty and Rommel to Turing and Von Braun.

It’d be preferable to yet another CoD take on the conflict at least…

Contributor
Contributor

Alex was about to write a short biography, but he got distracted by something shiny instead.