How Assassin’s Creed Reflects Cultural Conflicts Across Time

A live-action series based on the Assassin’s Creed franchise is finally officially moving forward at Netflix. The project was first announced back in 2020, and its development has since been placed in some limbo for the past couple of years. However, it seems as though the highly anticipated series is actually getting the green light and is now headed to production at Netflix.

Roberto Patino and David Wiener have been announced as the showrunners of the Assassin’s Creed television series.

Netflix has assigned two showrunners to lead the way in the television adaptation: Roberto Patino and David Wiener. Patino is a television veteran who has been behind series like Sons of Anarchy and Westworld. He comes to the series after working as a writer for Loki and another Amazon show called The Wilds. On the other hand, Wiener has more of a Sci-Fi background. In particular, he had been previously showrunning the live-action Halo adaptation for Paramount+ and spent three seasons writing on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead.

The two showrunners have made a statement regarding the television series, offering some insight on how they plan to approach Assassin’s Creed.

“We’ve been fans of Assassin’s Creed since its release in 2007. Each day that we work on this show, we’re constantly reminded of the enormity of the world and the incredible storytelling opportunity that is on display,” they wrote. “Beneath all the spectacle and the excitement of the assassins and Templars duking it out through history is a deeply human story about identity and purpose, faith and doubt, and the threads that connect us through the ages.”

As for what fans can expect from the show, the showrunners stated that Assassin’s Creed is a “show about the value of human connection—across time, across culture—and the danger of severing those connections.”

“We’re looking forward to bringing a piece of this world to the screen, to digging into this deep vein of storytelling with a passionate group of people at Ubisoft, and with the support of our colleagues at Netflix, to make something we can be proud of,” the pair concluded.

An Unsurprising Yet Welcome Decision

Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed has long held a significant place in the hearts of gamers across the globe. Its first game was a huge success for Ubisoft, and it became clear that the franchise had some legs to it when it was later renewed for a second outing.

Since the very first Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft has managed to get 14 individual installments out under the title. However, more than half of them were part of a massive modern-day arc that had our modern-day protagonist, Desmond Miles, use a machine to relive the lives of his Assassin ancestors, whom we got to play as in full. However, from then on, Ubisoft decided to move away from the modern-day narrative for the most part and solely focus on historical-based stories about our Assassin heroes.

Assassin’s Creed has become a global franchise, having taken players all over the world. Although its roots began with a Crusades-influenced setting in the Holy Land, the franchise found its groove in the Italian Renaissance with its sequels Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations. Assassin’s Creed II became one of the biggest-selling games of its generation and firmly established our favorite Italian protagonist, Ezio Auditore, as the franchise’s go-to character.

From there, the Assassin’s Creed series has spent time in Revolutionary America, the oceans of the Caribbean Sea, Victorian London, the African plains, the urban jungle of Concrete Canyons (New York), Greece, Ancient Egypt, and in recent years in Victoria 3.

The franchise’s latest title is Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The latest adventure in the Assassin’s Creed series takes players to Japan during its feudal era, one of the most requested settings in the game’s history.

Although the game itself has not been massively critically acclaimed, it has been given some praise by fans and critics for being a more focused experience, thanks to Ubisoft’s decision to hold back the game’s release date to iron out some of its gameplay issues.

Netflix’s live-action series’ adaptation itself remains as mysterious as ever. While it will likely employ the traditional storytelling arc that many fans of the series are well-acquainted with—a modern-day character who then gets to relive their ancestors’ experiences during their prime in a game between Assassins and Templars (historical secret societies)—Netflix has yet to reveal anything when it comes to the series’ casting and which particular settings in history it will pick.

A Little Hope For A Movie-Showing Series

It was in 2016 when Assassin’s Creed first got an actual adaptation, albeit in the form of a feature film starring Michael Fassbender. In the feature, a modern-day test subject named Callum Lynch is placed into a machine that will let him relive the memory of his ancestor, Aguilar de Najera, as he travels the world in a heavily Spanish-influenced Assassin’s Creed world. The movie was a moderate success but did not really do much to help Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series since it failed to earn much love from either fans or critics of the franchise.

Will Netflix’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed series directly involve itself with the events of the 2016 feature film? We do not know just yet, and it does not seem too likely at this time. A live-action television series would require a very different set of tools for its particular success. Netflix has proven that it can bring big-budget, quality productions to television for years now.

In recent years, Hollywood has warmed up to video game adaptations. Most recently, HBO’s The Last of Us put the early steps for a new era of video game to television adaptations, and in such an era, Assassin’s Creed would fit in nicely. Netflix, in particular, has been working hard to add more Sci-Fi and fantasy to its stable, and Assassin’s Creed can become one of Netflix’s most celebrated series if it is worked on the right way.

Although the adaptation has finally found some substantial grounding, a lot can still change in the months and years to come. In particular, the Assassin’s Creed television series has a lot to consider. A modern-day character will be balanced with a set of different Assassins from different ages in history. Balancing that act will be necessary to tell the stories that Assassin’s Creed is known for.

For now, all fans of the franchise can do is sit tight and watch as the television series’ production hopefully moves forward. With Netflix’s new showrunners in place, who have both expressed their love for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and with Ubisoft’s current support on the series, Assassin’s Creed could have a good run in live-action television.