Assassin’s Creed
Publisher Ubisoft Developer Ubisoft Montreal Format PC, PS3, 360 Release 2007
History records, with a questionable level of accuracy, that Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad hated the water. Poke even one of his toes into the Barada River, and the synchronisation bar that measures your commitment to recreating the events of his life drops straight to zero. The man would stick a blade into a English crusader in public, but a bracing swim in the waterways of Damascus? Far outside the bounds of possibility, academics agree.
It’s fair to assume, then, that Altaïr wouldn’t be fond of a naval metaphor. But 13 games into a cycle of constant iteration, the series is the quintessential Ship of Theseus. Going back now to the 2007 game that started it all, there’s almost no part that hasn’t been replaced in the years since. There’s the occasional mannerism that’s familiar: the rhythmic way the assassin shifts his weight during a climb, and his bird-like bearing on a spire. But even those with an intimate knowledge of’s past decade would find themselves off-balance in Patrice Désilets’ strange first experiment.
