Assassin’s Creed and the Power of Rewriting History

Video game adaptations have been given a fresh life in recent years with several high-profile successes that were previously thought impossible due to the general public’s distaste for films or TV shows based on games. With this renewed interest in stories set within the fictional gaming worlds that many love, Assassin’s Creed, the franchise, finally finds the green light to proceed with its big-budget live-action series.

Long in development hell, Netflix had been preparing to move forward on the live-action Assassin’s Creed since at least 2020, when the project was first announced. The first trailer for the new series has now officially premiered, and the two main showrunners have been named and are eager to get things underway at last.

Meet the New Showrunners for Assassin’s Creed on Netflix

The producers named to guide this project through its first season are two veteran creators from both inside and outside the games industry: Roberto Patino and David Wiener. Patino has previously worked on series like Sons of Anarchy and Westworld. Wiener was in charge of the Halo series live-action series for Paramount+ and served as an executive producer on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. Both producers are now hard at work to start shaping the show into a worthy version of Assassin’s Creed that will be a hit for Netflix.

“We are huge fans of the Assassin’s Creed franchise and have been since 2007, when the first game came out,” Patino and Wiener said. “Every day on this show is a little bit surreal. We’re constantly awestruck by the enormity of the world and the storytelling possibilities the franchise allows us. It’s not all about high-speed action and historical shenanigans. There is a very human story at the heart of the series. It’s a story about identity, purpose, faith, and the threads that connect us through the centuries.”

Stay focused on more than just big action in the upcoming adaptation.

The showrunners also stressed that the theme of human connection will be part of the upcoming series. “This is, at its heart, a story about the value of the human connection–through time, across cultures–and the cost of losing that connection,” they added. “We have a fantastic team at Ubisoft, and with strong support from Netflix, we’re ready to make something that we’re proud of and that will engage fans all over the world.”

Assassin’s Creed on Netflix has not been given a set release date at this time. The live-action series does not seem to be based on any one game in particular, though this could change with further development. Elements of the story, like the combination of a modern-day thread alongside a historical reenactment of the battle between the Assassins and the Templars using genetic memories, will likely be part of it in some form.

One of the previous books, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, introduced a new mechanic to the series with a multiple-perspective narrative that followed a pair of siblings as they traversed Ancient Greece in separate adventures. That kind of storytelling seems like it could be adapted for a live-action television series with a few smaller spin-off stories.

Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed Series May Finally Take Flight

The Assassin’s Creed video game franchise has had a long history from its first release in 2007 through over a dozen more mainline entries to this very day. The first game released, Assassin’s Creed, was a proof of concept sort of game that pitted the Crusades in the Holy Land and the earliest beginnings of the Assassins and Templars against one another in a now original “social stealth” gameplay. The Assassin’s Creed franchise got its biggest boost with the next three games, which featured the Italian Renaissance as the backdrop. These included Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations. From there, more recent games like Valhalla, Odyssey, and Origins have seen the main gameplay evolve into an open-world RPG style with a different setting and protagonist each time, from the American Revolution to the Caribbean, to Ancient Greece, and beyond.

The latest major game from the series, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, takes place in a feudal Japan setting that was highly anticipated among fans. Ubisoft was able to deliver on this following Shadows with a title that has been well received, thanks in part to Ubisoft’s decision to delay the game’s release to give more time for quality polish. Assassin’s Creed Netflix may also get a boost if more care and time can be put into that version of the franchise as well.

Game shows an expansive history that is still largely unexplored.

While there are currently a ton of possible settings, characters, and storylines to consider for a Netflix series, the specifics of the show remain a closely guarded secret at this time. The premise is likely to remain relatively the same for new fans and old: some kind of modern-day main character or characters use genetic memory to relive the lives of their ancestors as they are forced to fight in the conflict between Assassins and Templars. It is not known yet if the Netflix Assassin’s Creed series will have any connection to the recent Assassin’s Creed film that came out in 2016 and starred Michael Fassbender.

Fans are still in the dark about who will play which role or what specific stories or settings the show will tackle first or at all. The Netflix series is coming at a time that is ripe for such a story to connect with an audience, however. Video game adaptations are at a high point, following on the heels of HBO’s The Last of Us, which has already proven that some games can and will be adapted to the screen with high-quality results. Netflix is already behind some of the most engaging genre-based storytelling in TV right now, from The Witcher to Bojack Horseman, so Assassin’s Creed is likely to have a fighting chance of succeeding, too.

Fans are hoping that while Netflix and the new showrunners try to adapt the series to a different medium, the essence of what made the games so successful for so long won’t get lost in translation, however. With the two showrunners leading the way and full support from both Ubisoft and Netflix, Assassin’s Creed may finally have the chance to be the blockbuster television adaptation that fans have been waiting for it to be.