Throwback | Assassin's Creed 2007

Seeing as the new Assassin's Creed Origins is soon to be realised, James suggested I do a Throwback Thursday on the first Assassin's Creed, so I thought why the hell not? Except this won't be posted on a Thursday I'm posting it early as I want to get it up before I stay at my parents for a few days to cat sit. I might not have been the biggest fan of the first game it but it's still a really good game, The first Assassins Creed was released 10 years ago now, how fast have those years gone by? Within that time we have seen a lot of AC game releases which I will be talking about at the end of this post, for now, let's talk about the first AC, So what's it all about? AC is a franchise (a very big one at that) action adventure game from the developers at Ubisoft, the game took inspiration from the novel Alamut as well as Prince of Persia, when I first played AC I noticed how similar it actually was to Prince of Persia: The Sands of time, which is a golden oldie and a must play. I later found out that AC was actually meant to be a spin-off to the Prince of Persia game which was a big surprise to me even though I knew how similar they were. It was originally just a concept called Prince of Persia; Assassins, they decided to scrap it in the end and focus on Assassin's Creed as a whole new game, you can see the concept here:

The first Assassin's Creed was set around the times of the Crusades, for those who aren't aware of what the Crusades are they were a series of wars started by Europeans who called themselves the Crusaders, they took part in the religious wars against the enemies of the Latin church. The main character in the game, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad has become a master Assassin at the age of 25 and was tasked with fighting against the Knights Templer within the first AC game which took place in the year 1191 the same year as the third Crusade when Richard Lionheart (who is in this game) was on the throne. Desmond, a young man who is a descendant of a prominent line of Assassins is kidnapped by the Abstergo who know all about his heritage line and he is forced into the Animus (a machine which can take Desmond back in time to the days of his ancestors and relive the past) he is revealed as subject 17, he is 1 of 17 subjects who have been used for the heritage by the Abstergo, but 16 subjects have died as a result of animus overexposure. Desmond is a descendant of Altaïr and is able to go into his memories and live the events from the Third crusade as Altaïr, which he is Altaïr, Desmond ends up breaking all three tenets of the Assassin's Brotherhood all whilst trying his best to stop Robert De Sable from taking a piece of Eden, the leader of the Brotherhood later shames Altaïr and demotes him from master Assassin to novice. He is given the task in assassinating the Nine King Templars which he eventually does but later learns that the leader of the Brotherhood, Al Mualim is, in fact, a Tenth King Templar and had betrayed the brotherhood, he also now holds the piece of Eden. 

Eventually (after a struggle) Altaïr manages to kill Al Mualim whilst struggling with visions the piece of the Eden keeps creating, we learn that Desmond's sole purpose was to recover the missing piece which then shows a map to where the rest of the artifacts are located across the world. The Abstergo pull Desmond from the Animus and are going to kill him as they have all the information they needed in order to find the rest of the pieces for the apple of Eden, lucky for Desmond, Lucy Stillman helps save his life, she is a mole within the company (which they don't know) and convinces the Abstergo they might still need Desmond for more information, I personally see the first Assassin's Creed as a window of information to what comes in the sequels that take place with Ezio. It's a great way to start off a sequel so we can later put the pieces together whilst playing the Assassin's Creed sequels. Desmond plays a very important role within the AC games as he ends up exploring the memories of Altaïr, Ezio (Assassin's Creed 2) and Connor (Assassin's Creed black flag) all with the help of the animus.

The game itself is from a third person perspective and is within an open-world, I love the free running within it but always found myself running up walls and building without meaning too, I absolutely hate fighting from horses so I was awful at this in AC but even worse when I played Red Dead Redemption (hilarious I know). If you try to go into an area you haven't found yet or you die you get desynchronized from the Animus, it's pretty easy to avoid at times but once this happens you will find yourself starting back at your last checkpoint or save. What I enjoy most about the game is that I don't have to just follow a story line, I can also do side missions which also help open the restricted areas which I haven't opened yet. Eagle vision will always be my favourite feature, it shows friend from foe in different colours and even marks the main target who you must assassinate in gold. Thanks to the Animus you as a player are able to go back to each mission and play them back through which I did a lot in AC 2 in order to get perfect synchronization. Although Assassin's Creed was based on Prince of Persia I feel like Assassin's Creed Origins it's much closer to in terms of similarity to Prince of Persia, it would be cool of the eventually incorporated the games one day.

Assassin's Creed 2 takes place five centuries after the first AC and was one of the biggest-selling sequels in gaming, I know most of you know this but AC 2 is one of my favourite video games to date, it took place in the Italian Renaissance and was used mainly on Ezio's character, his character went on to two more games; Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations (which I enjoyed the least). here is a list of all the Assassin's Creed games which have been released so far, not including the DLC:

• Assassin's Creed (2007)
• Assassin's Creed II (2009)
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2010)
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011)
• Assassin's Creed III (2012)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013)
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (2014)
• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (2015)
• Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017)

As well as the AC games a number of spin-off games, books, cinematic movies and as of late the AC movie has been released, AC is well and truly a huge franchise that I hope to see grow even bigger in the next 10 years and see it continue the success it deserves. If you liked this post why not check out Olly's guest post all about the history of the murder mysteries within Assassin's Creed Unity. What is your favourite AC game?

Elle May