Assassin’s Creed II – oh i’ve seen that movie!

For my first game lesson, my friend showed me the game Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009). Which might seem a bit counter active to just skip the first game in a series when i’m meant to be learning about games and telling you about them. However, the real impact this game series has had on the world has little to do with the story but rather a lot more to do with the features and functions that it popularized.

While my friend was explaining this to me, he reminded me that the 2016 film starring Michael Fassbender was based off the first game. Which i admittedly was not the biggest fan of, but luckily i remembered the basics of.

The series is centered around a machine titled the ‘Animus’ that can access a person’s genetic memories, looking into their ancestors lives. The games main character Desmond Miles was ‘kidnapped’ by the company Abstergo Industries in the first game and the second picks up right as he is escaping with the help of a former employee (voiced by Kristen Bell no less!). He uses the Animus to live his ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze’s life in Renaissance Italy to gain a better understanding of Abstergo and their Renaissance counterparts, the Templar.

The second game greatly expanded the map and because of that, it had quite a large map for the time which, coupled with the highly detailed recreation on Renaissance Italy, made the whole game feel very open (although by 2020 standards the map is very small).

While playing i asked my friend what was some more reasons that these games became popular and have have a large impact on the world and he stated that for the first few games the game play was very engaging and that they have essentially started to influence other games in the same open world style.

“i feel like every open world game at this point is compared to assassins creed, in some way”

Which seems to be the main way that the games have had an impact, as now a lot of other games have taken a lot of inspiration from the games and improved upon them.

Despite the loss of enthusiasm over the later games in the series, as of September 2019, the series has sold over 140 Million copies and has seen 95 Million unique players.

Overall, as a first time and inexperienced gamer, i can see why the series, and especially Assassin’s Creed 2, is so loved by gamers, and why it has influenced games like it today.

And now for the arguably most important factor in knowing if Assassin’s Creed has really had an impact; Do my parents know about it? Both say yes, but mum says ‘ i don’t know what is it, i just know its a game, probably from advertising’

Thank you for reading and please leave a comment on your thoughts on Assassin’s Creed!