A Narrative Critique of Assassin's Creed 1

Assassin's Creed can be a difficult franchise to love while the games almost always provide beautifully realized historical Worlds the stories they tell in and out of those worlds tend to be underwhelming or in some cases abandoned by the games entirely it seems like the franchise Feels burdened by the weight of its own mythology bored of the questions it captivated so many fans by asking and yet it feels antithetical to long for the Glory Days of a franchise that's only growing larger and larger As Time Marches On what began as a Grail Quest story that combined mythology history and science fiction to weave Gaming's strangest puzzle box inexplicably evolved into the narrative equivalent of an erasable middle-aged Street cat and you don't want to scare it so you just sort of hold out your hand to see if it'll let you say hi and it steps kind of close and you think it'll let you pet it and then it sort of hisses at you and runs away saying oh we resolved the Juno plot line in the comics also Desmond has a secret son so in this video I want to look at the game that started it all the somber and awkward progenitor of this increasingly bizarre universe as Assassin's Creed is telling two stories that interconnect surprisingly well in the modern day storyline we have a narrative Mystery Box a world on the edge of a knife in the Death Grips of a Sinister Corporation and a hero who is seemingly powerless to stop it in the enemis we're playing through an introspective historical romp that pushes both character and player to reflect on freedom and Faith the questions that arise in the past Focus the lens through which we view the modern day story line abstergo quickly evolves from a one note corporate evil to a philosophy made manifest a final evolution of a bold and terrifying idea that the ends deemed righteous by select few will always justify the means it's a work of genuine ambition a daring narrative proof of concept for a fascinating series that Ubisoft will eventually abandon to make the series more approachable so despite its fairly substantial issues with both pacing and plot I find myself appreciative of it anyway Charmed and provoked by this strange game that somehow birthed Gaming's most unlikely Juggernaut so grab some coffee or tea or Chuck this up on a second monitor or even you know good night I guess a lot of people say that they watch this to sleep and let's dive into history the Third Crusade and somewhat less glamorous 2012 as former assassin Desmond miles is about to be ripped away from his unassuming life and plunged into history's bloody Pages this introduction has a lot to do and I don't think it sticks The Landing there's no graceful leap into the hay for Assassin's Creed instead it snaps a leg and spends the first hour awkwardly stumbling around hoping you'll give it the chance to redeem itself ha scene is the main issue but looking back on what the story becomes particularly the modern day storyline I think it also lacks confidence the first half hour of the game is so obsessed with explaining itself that we never really build any momentum the choice to start the game with a glitching distorted version of our climax is a strong one like all good box stories were immediately prompted to ask questions in this case it's what the hell and speaking of questions what do I mean when I use the term mystery box if you're not familiar with the term you're probably familiar with some of the media that would qualify as one lost Westworld stranger things dark yellow jackets a mystery box or a puzzle box show is a show that's built around unsurprisingly mystery these are shows that we've together a lot of strange and complex details and subplots to gradually form the bigger picture encouraging viewers to speculate about how everything contributes to the world's broader mythology the xfiles deserves an honorable mention as one of the first shows to really try something like this I think we get the term from a TED Talk delivered by JJ Abrams back in 2007 when Abrams described his creative process as almost presenting a series of mystery boxes the thing is that that it represents infinite possibility it represents hope it represents potential and what I love about this box and what I realized I sort of do in in whatever it is that I do is I I find myself drawn to infinite possibility that sense of potential and I realize that mystery is the Catalyst for imagination now it's not the most groundbreaking idea but when I started to think that maybe there are times when mystery is more important than knowledge in terms of the content of it you look at at stories you think well what are stories but mystery boxes there's a fundamental question in TV the First Act is called the teaser it's literally the teaser it's the big question so you're drawn into it then of course there's another question and it goes on on on Abrams isn't the first Creator to really lean into this style of writing but he does appear to be highly influential in how it's been labeled when done well this style of Television can spark discussion and Theory crafting like no other each episode catalyzing further discussions that can take place on and off the internet however it's worth noting that it's incredibly hard to do this well asking questions is easy answering them in a satisfying and interesting way is exponentially more difficult something that Assassin's Creed quickly discovers as the series progresses assassin's greed 1's modern-day storyline is fairly minimalist but rewards the engaged player with a ton of strange and inter information about the Assassin Templar conflict and the crumbling World outside of Desmond's prison the big twist at the end of the game is just taking it a step further giving players an entirely new puzzle to piece together Desmond is roused from the Animus at Lucy's insistence snapping him back to reality with a helpless rage you kidnapped me you strapped me into that thing animus it's an animous I don't even know you people why are you doing this to me you have information we need Mr miles information I'm a bartender for Christ's sakes what do you want me to do teach you how to mix a martini we know who you are what you are I don't know what you're talking about don't play koi with me there isn't time you're an assassin good puzzle boxes have to have the confidence to let the audience make their own connections instead Assassin's Creed plays a surprising amount of its cards in the opening minutes we confirm that Desmond is or was an assassin even though we don't really know what that means yet we can see vidic has a big old Templar cross pinned to the right of his red tie and then this is all followed up by a two-minute sequence that explains how the Animus functions before throwing us into an excruciatingly dull tutorial I can't help but feel like the sequence would be strengthened by telling us less if the first part of this mystery box was players figuring out for themselves the connection between Desmond and Altier and thus the connection of Desmond as an assassin how the Animus functions and why they need Desmond specifically is something we could uncover during the game instead it's exposited to us in the opening minutes what if I told you that the human body not only housed an individual's memory but the memories of his ancestors as well what follows is one of the most dull sluggish tutorials I've ever played we'll eventually pick up an alar in a temple in Jerusalem but for now we plaw through the game's most basic concepts in the sterile blue void of the Animus not only does this completely kill whatever was left of the game's momentum from the opening hook but the next 90 minutes of gameplay are just going to be more tutorials anyway the masaya opening and the first Damascus Mission are just slightly more interesting better integrated ones I think this is one of those moments where it's important to acknowledge how different game narratives are from other stories in a book or a movie or a show if there was a section like this that dragged down the pacing you could edit it out or rewrite it whereas here it feels like early players struggled with a puppeteering system and this was wedged in for additional Guidance with that said if they were intent on keeping this explicit tutorial then I think the game would benefit from trimming elsewhere especially the masaya investigation because as it stands you have to play for about an hour to get to Damascus and once you're in Damascus it still feels like the training wheels are on it's just strange Assassin's Creed is insecure enough in its premise to feel compelled to explain too much to the player in the first 5 minutes but paradoxically also feels comfortable with applauding opening 90 minutes as though it's sure that players will stick around and wait for the story and gameplay to get a little more interesting the story does get more interesting though and the historical side begins with a swift fall from craze from alair he's uncharismatic violent and arrogant a strange protagonist for Ubisoft to start a franchise with but by the conclusion of his Arc I think alar grows on the player quite a lot again it's demonstrative of a strange Confidence from Ubisoft though unlike the aforementioned pacing in the First Act I think this choice is much more commendable aler is a complex and someone unorthodox choice for a hero but he fits this story remarkably well and while it's a little rough in this game his Arc has continued to masterful effect in subsequent ones for now though Altier begins this game as a deeply unlikable character right from the jump his arrogance and contempt practically seep through the screen an excellent kill fortune favors your blade not Fortune skill watch a while longer and you might learn something indeed he'll teach you how to disregard everything the Masters taught us and how would you have done it I would not have drawn attention to us I would not have taken the life of an innocent what I I would have done is follow the Creed nothing is true everything is permitted understand these words it matters not how we complete our task only that it's done but this is not the way of my way is better he kills an innocent man clearly places himself above those he's with and warps the Creed of his Brotherhood to justify his lethal actions his line of it matters not how we complete our task only that it's done is an important one to highlight here because we'll eventually discover that this is a core philosophy of the Templars deeper into the temple the Assassins find what the Templars have located though it's far from unguarded quiet someone's coming I want us through this gate Before Sunrise the sooner we possess it the sooner we can turn our attention to those jackles at masaf Rober Desa his life is mine no we were asked to retrieve the treasure and deal with Rober only if necessary he stands between us and it I'd say it's necessary discretion Al you mean cowardice that man is our greatest enemy and here we have a chance to be rid of him you have already broken two tenants of our Creed now you would break the third do not compromise the Brotherhood I am your Superior in both title and ability you should know better than to question me we've now introduced all three tenants of the Assassin's Creed all while building that characterization of aler as an arrogant violent man who either twists it to suit him or believes it doesn't apply to him depending on the situation we've introduced a mysterious Relic that appears to be part of the famed Ark of the Covenant we've also introduced the Assassin Templar conflict as they have a clear history with Rober doab and Rober even mentioned that after they retrieve the artifact they plan to deal with the Jackal at Masa we've hit these beats with efficiency but right here is where Assassin's Creed plants the seeds that will end up undermining its first half mystery the assassins and the Templars already know each other already have a combative relationship from here Al story is about his understanding of the Assassin's Creed and its failings but also his uncovering of the Templar order a network of ambitious capable men and women working under Rober to take control of the Holy Land to free it from War by any means necessary I think we're meant to understand that these are technically two different entities that Rober spins off from the Templars we know from history to create the Templar order a shadowy faction of global domination but for something so vital to the core of the Game's plot the game does a terrible job of establishing this one of the game's only side activities involves hunting down and killing Templars in the open world again I suppose we could assume they're the Knights Templar but if that's the case why are we hunting them so emphatically when Altier learns partway through the game that his targets are all connected each a piece of a larger puzzle and it's revealed that they're all Templars this Revelation doesn't feel shocking or even that interesting because we've been fighting them the entire game Altier descends the letter to confront Rober and it doesn't exactly go as planned well this explains my missing man and what is it you want blood you know not the things in which you meddle assassa I spare you only that you may return to your master and deliver a message the Holy Land Is Lost to him and his he should flee now while he has the chance aler comes across as a homicidal buffoon in this scene but we're also seeing roer's flare for theatrics as he clearly wants to humiliate aler and by extension Al malim we keep building that sense of mystery too roer's line of you know not the things in which you meddle is effective confirmation that there's more to this situation than meets the eye this moment hits harder when players have already played the game and are familiar with the big twist in this moment Rober truly does know way more about the artifact and Alim than alair he's not just saying this to be moderately villainous Alaya returns to masaya in shame believing his mission to have been a failure when Malik one of the other assassins on the mission emerges with the artifact in tow in following the Creed he has somehow snatched Victory from the jaws of defeat though his brother was killed in the process and Rober and his army are close at his heels after a brief defense of the village the Assassins fall back and alair and two others are instructed to climb a nearby Tower as part of alin's Defense plan my men do not fear death Rober they welcome it and the rewards it brings good then they shall have it all around follow me and do so without hesitation show this fool Knight what it is to have no fear go to God Rober and amim have a fiery exchange and two things are notable about this moment Rober does not expose amalm secret here even though it could theoretically end The Siege or at least cause chaos within the ranks of the assassins and W mentions the rewards of death before explicitly sending his assassins to God I think on a first playthrough Assassin's Creed's historical story line gets away with a lot because it has all the pieces to feel like an elaborate mystery if you're not paying that much attention on closer inspection however a lot of this plot doesn't make much sense at all if you're not familiar with this game the big twist at the end is that Alim was part of the Templars that discovered the piece of Eden and he uses Altier to hunt down the rest of the order so that he alone would know the artifact and its secrets he could then use it to indoctrinate the population of the Holy Land ending the war by robbing the people of their free will when Rober tells this to Altier and his confession on a first playthrough I think most players will be surprised how can this be on a second play through or even just thinking about it a bit more the question shifts to no really how can this be we'll expand on that more when we get there but he casts a shadow over this moment here because it just feels inconsistent neither Rober nor aalim actually believe in a god of any kind this game strongly implies that there is no God nor any true Miracles just fragments of a precursor civilization that have been discovered and wielded to miraculous results so aim's go to God moment is just strange because both he and Rober know that there is no God and we never see the Assassins portrayed as a spiritual organization they view Faith as part of the world's illusion I know it's just part of the distraction but a more sophisticated story would have used this moment to build an uncanny familiarity between Alim and Rober perhaps even make alim's lack of a reference to a Divine part of the broader puzzle of this universe this is the only time in the game these two will be on screen together and it's just used as a setup to this little action scene all we get is this strange moment that undermines roar's cunning and does nothing to deepen our mystery Altier climbs the tower releases the Trap and the Templars are forced to flee then comes the delayed judgment he STS to pay for his failure at the temple for his dismissal of the Creed there are parts of this scene that we'll Circle back to later because I started noticing some parallels between alim's Behavior here and some of the Templars that we assassinate but for now let's just look at the way that the scene concludes yet your selfish act beneath Jerusalem placed us all in danger we still you brought the enemy to our home every man we've lost today was lost because of you I am sorry truly I am but I cannot Abide a traitor I am not a traitor your actions indicate otherwise and so you leave me no choice peace be upon you alier Altier did not bring the enemy directly to their home Rober already wanted to fight the Assassins he literally talks about it before aler has his moment of huus the sooner we can turn our attention to those Jackal at massia Altier is unbearable in this opening sequence but he is not to to blame for the conflict today this moment really only works in retrospect if we view it as Alim bending the truth to justify his bringing alair as low as possible because he knows that an alair fixated on redeeming himself is an effective weapon to turn against his enemies it doesn't exactly feel like justice though and it's part of the reason I've never found the amalm twist in the game to be that impactful not only does the twist make little sense from a practical standpoint but Alim has been violent and somewhat petulant this whole game there's a later moment when Altier questions him and Al Willam grabs a sword as though he's going to kill Altier again of course this is a man who would be tempted by a treasure like the apple of Eden from the start he's never come across as all that wise or even relatively measured he rails against aler as an arrogant failure but refuses to take any responsibility for raising him to be this way it's not until Assassin's Creed Revelations that this relationship is portrayed as anything other than somewhat hostile and in this first game the emotional side of this relationship and eventual betrayal just really doesn't work for me I'll tier appears to have just been executed and Desmond is pulled from the Animus we can EES drop on the conversation between Lucy and fidic and it's clear that there's a growing tension between the two of them over how Desmond should be treated which is why there's no time to Cle him if you push him too hard he'll shut down and then we'll have nothing we have nothing now but we will you just need to have a little faith if we read this as Lucy just talking to vidic this line feels wildly out of place Lucy using faith in her appeal to vidic a man who built his life around science working for an organization that knows definitively that there has never been a God is such a crime against rhetoric it belongs in a YouTube comment but of course she's not actually talking to vidic here I think this is a message for Desmond I know it looks like you have nothing now but you do have a little faith she's the one who moved this conversation to the conference room where she likely knows she can be overheard and hints to Desmond to stretch his legs why don't we discuss this in the conference room give Desmond a minute to stretch his legs it's a nice little glue for players that there's more to this character than it seems the next morning Desmond wakes to find vict lurking above him and we partake in a conversation that's vital to understanding the Templar philosophy your ancestors almost had the right idea Mr miles if the deaths of a few people evil people no less could save the lives of thousands more well it seems a small sacrifice what do you mean almost they didn't go far enough to use a rather tired analogy corruption is no different than cancer cut out the tumors but fail to treat the source and well you're buying time at best there's no true change to be had without comprehensive systemic intervention chemo for the masses education re-education to be more precise but it's not easy and it doesn't always take there's that old writing adage that good villains should be the heroes of Their Own Story it's a bit of an oversimplification and it's far from a hard and fast rule but it's a quick test to check a villain's three-dimensionality the Templars here in ac1 both in the modern day and the Crusades embody this idea very well they don't do what they do just to be cruel or to hoard power they really do spend their lives working to bring peace to the world it just happens to be their version of Peace achieved by any means necessary so we flesh out the Templar philosophy but we've also introduced one of the most fascinating tension of the game the Creed in the am Lia and the philosophy of the Templars isn't that far apart on the ideological Spectrum there is a lot of overlap by the end of the game alair points to Free Will as the defining separation we don't really get to see how or why he comes to this conclusion but I like the final argument between the two of them all the same re-entering the Animus the player and Desmond discover that alair is not dead after all instead we open on Altier in amim study incredulous at the strange turn of events am alive but I saw you stab me felt death's embrace you saw what I wanted you to see and then you slept the sleep of the dead of the womb that you might awake and be reborn to what end do you remember alier what it is the Assassin fight for peace in all things yes in all things it is not enough to end the violence one man commits upon another it refers to peace within as well you cannot have one without the other so it is said so it is but you my son have not found inner peace it manifests in ugly ways you are arrogant and overconfident were you not the one to say that nothing is true and everything is permitted you do not understand the true meaning of the phrase my child it does not Grant you the fre freedom to do as you wish it is a knowledge meant to guide your senses it expects a wisdom you clearly lack we would be remiss if we didn't address the obvious especially in a story that plays with the concepts and imagery of Faith Altier is back from the dead he is risen we don't know how yet all we get is that line about seeing what Alim wanted us to see it's foreshadowing the explicit Revelation that Alim delivers to alier later that almost everything perceived as Miracle or Divine medaling has just been a piece of Eden manipulating minds but it's baffling that this is never brought up again in Al's story his fellow assassins have no reaction to his resurrection and it's never referenced again Beyond this point where it's just used to signify his rebirth one of the core ideas in this universe is that there is no God or Gods as we understand them and it's part of why both the assassins and Templars are trying to stop the third crusade in their own way because they view it as men throwing their lives away for Phantoms and here amalm has easily replicated one of the biggest miracles in Christendom and we just gloss over it as a cool little Cliffhanger to conclude the masaya defense as though Ubisoft is a little too nervous to further subvert this Christ imagery the other half of this conversation is more important however establishing the goal of the Assassin Brotherhood and by extension alair the amim era assassins fight for peace in all things a lofty and admirable goal that will eventually come to see the danger in and then this snippet from MIM that the nothing is true everything is permitted line not Grant you the freedom to do as you wish it is a knowledge meant to guide your senses it expects a wisdom you clearly lack highlights what my primary issue with the motto up to this point was it's a terrible guide for human behavior it's not a moral code it's a loose philosophy to guide action the virtuosity of those actions will still be tied to the character of the person behind them aler is chided for being arrogant and violent but he was raised by this Brotherhood surrounded by their ideas from a very young age is his lack of moral fiber not partially the fault of the assassins in their Creed but this is exactly the sort of question Assassin's Creed is pushing us to ask here so I kind of love this part since the current iteration of the Assassin's Creed presupposes wisdom it's open to be exploited by dangerous ignorant men the way that we saw Altier exploit its tenants back in Jerusalem it's these moments this conversation between alier and Alim where we literally interrogate the Creed that gives this game its Twisted little genius any game that presents a philosophy only to immediately start poking it with a metaphorical stick has piak my interest and Assassin's Creed doesn't stop poking or prodding until the credits roll the further Brilliance of these scenes is that we come to realize that Alim this old wise man is unconvincing in these discussions because he doesn't really believe these ideas anymore if he sounds like he doesn't have a fire in his heart for defending a liberated Humanity it's because he doesn't he already has the Apple already knows that there's an easier way to both Assassin's Creed and this video can pick up the pace from here as most of the narrative and ideological groundwork has been laid investigations are tutorialedge order after this confrontation Altier lugs the man in front of Alim to face his Justice I offer you a chance to repent to renounce the evil in your heart it is not evil in my heart but truth I will not repent then you will die repent is used twice in this exchange once from Al malim and once from The Prisoner and it's that specific word choice that fascinates me because of its religious connotation it's cleverly written so that it works on a surface level if the prisoner expresses remorse for his actions Amin may be willing to spare him but with how much the Alti story line is and will become a confrontation of Faith repent obvious connection to Divinity adds such a tense layer to this scene depending on your reading amim is playing God in every sense of the word asking the prisoner not to repent to any deity but to him and in is Alim who will provide the final judgment without hesitation on subsequent playthroughs with what we know of Li's ultimate goal this moment has a very Sinister undertone with the traitor dealt with Altier is told he will have to hunt nine men across the Holy Land in doing so you'll sow the seeds of Peace both for the region and for yourself again a vague line that works even better after we know the game's big twist aler is still sewing the seeds of Peace here he's just killing everyone else who knows about the Apple so that Alim May wield it freely and subjugate the masses so we're off to Damascus but not before we trudge through the strange and mostly lifeless Kingdom section of the map from a gameplay perspective it feels more like a proof of concept that this combat system and parkour formula can function outside of a dense Urban environment but the lack of any actual missions taking place here doesn't really give it the chance to prove it there are pretty sections Charming little hamlets and surprisingly Scenic Vistas but because the gameplay is so boring here it makes it difficult to appreciate them what it does provide is an effective contrast that makes the cities feel more Alive by comparison and having endured this Kingdom section we finally arrive at Damascus Damascus is my personal favorite but all of these cities Elevate Assassin's Creed from a middling action game with an ambitious ideological conflict to The Gaming Classic that launched a thousand sequels when we talk about Assassin's Creed we treat the setting like a character in a way that we do with few other pieces of media and for good reason Rome or Paris or Egypt are as vital to their respective AC games as New York is for Sex in the City another Sex in the City guilty as charged but here in Assassin's Creed 1 while still impressive the cities are some of the weakest we'll see in the franchise part of that comes from the oppressive use of filters to establish tone and atmosphere rather than something subtler and more immersive it's most egregious in AER where everything is dled through this rancid blue that robs the city of life in the most boring way I'm guessing that's what they were trying to accomplish it's a scarred City resignedly clinging to life but for me the destroyed roofs and collapsed houses were an exped entially more effective way to convey that than just making everything blue and lightless it's part of the reason Damascus is my favorite relatively Untouched by the broad Crusade Ubisoft allows it to shine unburdened by an oppressive color grading citizens crowd at sundrenched streets thriving palm trees at a splash of green to the warm Tans and Browns of the houses and Merchant stands there's even a small Canal by the gate The Faded Blue Water ready to kill Altier if he so much as looks at it the wrong way there are two side activities in these cities that closely tie into the main story synchronizing with viewpoints and saving citizens viewpoints reveal the location of the Assassin Bureau and investigation opportunities and saving citizens will unlock Vigilantes to help distract guards or groups of Scholars to sneak into secure areas the viewpoints are fine there's way too many of them and they end up feeling very repetitive but it's the saving citizens mechanic that I find somewhat baffling part of what makes the Assassins so interesting is that in this first game especially they're not particularly heroic Altier will frequently watch innocent people get hurt or killed by his Target in front of him but will still bite his time in the crowd waiting for the perfect moment to strike sure they desire peace in all things but that's more of a goal than a mandate to go out and protect everyone you see so saving these people especially in these quantities undermines both the morally gray nature of aler the assassins and the guards involved each City probably has about 20 citizens to save so across the three cities that's about 60 incidents where Altier would have to stop what he's doing descend from the rooftops and fight the guards harassing somebody while that may be consistent with how aler may behave at the end of his Arc at the start of the game it feels that odds with a man who killed someone just for getting in his way in Jerusalem each citizen is also harassed by four or five guards too so it accidentally creates this feeling that half of the guards in these cities are just violent goons harassing people for fun thank you my boy I only wish my sons were half as Brave as you I'll see to it that they hear this tale and know what it is to be a true hero so through these events we lose a lot of the moral ambiguity of alair and the guards and we lose a bit of that fantasy of being a blade in the dark instead of a shadowy figure in Scholars robes springing from the crowd to take out his Target we become the people's Champion supported by the streets it's a gameplay choice that seems like it actively undermines the game's tone and core premise at the bureau aler checks in with the local leader who mocks him before he points him in the right direction for his investigation a few of your brothers were here earlier in fact o if you'd heard the things they said I'm certain you'd have slain them where they stood it's quite all right yes you've never been one for the Creed have you is that all I'm sorry sometimes I forget myself what uh Miranda I like that we're establishing how uniformly aler is disliked and how swift his Fall From Grace has been but it's strange that part of the rumors aren't about Al's Resurrection he's essentially alim's personal spirit of Vengeance now but we never really address that element the bureau leaders are the most notable way we track Al's Redemption within the Brotherhood and even they never really mentioned this aler completes his investigation and we report back to the leader before being authorized to strike being the game's first Tamir is an easy target and after aler watches in kill his own Merchant for disappointing him we can strike quickly and easily to make the kill in his confession after the killing blow Tamir hints to Altier that he's part of something bigger that his work was about more than just greed it seems you're the one pays now my friend friend you'll not profit from suffering any longer you think me some petty death dealer suckling at the breast of War a strange Target don't you think why me when so many others do the same you believe yourself different then oh but I am for I serve a far nobler cause than mere Prophet just like my brothers Brothers ah but he thinks I have I am but a peace I don't think the franchise has ever offered a definitive explanation for when or how these post-death confessionals happen but in this first game that's grappling so intensely with ideas around faith and rituals of faith in a Godless world the fact that we'll always have these confessional moments after a kill feels interesting rarely do our targets seek Absolution but they almost always seek Mutual understanding and always through this confessional format that seems like a clear homage to the Catholic practice I don't really know where this goes thematically because Alim or roer's attempts to play God is always coded as evil maybe since this is more the Assassin playing Priestly messenger than God this is supposed to be virtuous they're not providing spiritual judgment the way that alal and more Rober would they're just listening and granting peace I don't know what to do with this but I wanted to clock it and maybe see if anyone else had a more cohesive theory for how this all fits after making it back to the bureau Desmond is pulled from the animist for the night this is the first time in the game we can start doing some investigating as Desmond to learn more about the world world around us start poking and shaking this modern day puzzle box we learned that upster go has a deadline and needs to find the information in under six days but Lucy says she can't give Desmond any answers right now there is one question she does answer however why is it that sometimes the guys in there talk like they're from the future the future I mean the present now today whatever you've probably noticed that English has become the official language of the Holy Land yeah I was going to say the animist is translating speech it deems vital into more Modern English so expect a few anachronisms I could probably make it more authentic but you ever read choser who yeah definitely not for you Desmond calling the present day the future prompts Lucy to quickly correct him and we'll later learn it's because she's closely tracking his behavior for signs of the bleeding effect I love her reference to Cher here too and that it doesn't really mean anything to Desmond the man who was raised in a compound most of us have probably been exposed to choser at some Point whenever I try to read it I always feel like I'm reading one of those websites that tries to simulate dyslexia it just looks kind of wrong Lucy prompts Desmond to look at her computer for answers multiple times including the incredibly conspicuous addition of the telecomunication Stu is particularly interesting she's priming Desmond to steal vidic's access pen at some point since his computer reveals some much Saucier information at this point Lucy's emails don't tell us all that much they just confirm that abstergo is definitely shady and absolutely L up to something which we knew already from the kidnapping and the forced reliving of one's ancestors violent memories when he sleeps Desmond as flashes of glowing red symbols though we don't yet know why they happen or what they are the next morning Desmond talks with vidc before returning to the Animus and here we start to learn of the Eerie parallels between the goals of the alera assassins and the goals of obero who we soon learn are the modern day Templars you expect me to believe you're building a better tomorrow that's exactly what we're doing the human race calls out for Direction they want to know why they're here what they're meant to do well we're going to tell them and once they understand how to live their lives everything will be better better how an end to all conflicts large and small isn't that what you assassins strive for peace in all things I told you I'm not an assassin right Desmond can't really have this argument here because it has to happen betweener and Alim at the game's climax so his I'm not an assassin line is a narratively fortuitous end to the conversation but we're prompted to ask ourselves what really separates These two factions and by the end of the game it will be Al aer's role to articulate where that separation lies with Desmond back in the enemis Altier is dispatched to AER and one tedious ride through the kingdom later we arrive at the city of blue and gray Al's Target is running a hospital in experimenting on patients so after conducting our investigation we infiltrate his Hospital ready to strike him down outside in the courtyard Garnier confronts a patient that was caught attempting to escape take hold of yourself do you think this gives me pleasure do you think I want to hurt you but you leave me no choice similar to the Tamir scene our Target is performing an act of borish evil just before we strike to remove a lot of the moral ambiguity from what we're doing but this run so contrary to the nuances of the game's conflict that I started to look for other reasons why these scenes play out the way that they do it would almost be more interesting and bring players and Altier closer together if we just had to take alim's word for it that these were evil men doing nefarious things rather than witness an act of obvious evil from them right before we strike to confirm it it does build in the idea of Templars believing that their supposedly righteous ends justify their cruel means Tamir thinks killing this Merchant will spark fear in the others causing them to work Carter Garnier believes crippling this man to keep him from escaping will ultimately lead to successful treatment but I started to notice something else take hold of yourself and stay your tongue but you leave me no choice so you leave me no choice I think the game is drawing these Sinister connections between amim and the men we hunt we can find these parallels in both their language and their actions aler kills Garnier and like Tamir hears strange words from the man as he's dying but before I close my eyes I must know what will become of my children you mean the people made to suffer your cruel experiments they'll be free now to return to their homes homes what homs the sewers the bral the prisons that we dragged them from you took these people against their will yes what little will there was for them to have are you really so naive what little will there was for them to have this is an idea that Alim brings up during his confrontation with alair that people are so disempowered their lives so ruled by the circumstances of their birth that it's debatable whether most of them ever even had free will we're planting those seeds as we go and while Altier doesn't really have a rebuttal now he will by the time we fight amim in the garden speaking of Amal liim he sends us off to kill our next Target a slaver Jerusalem Jerusalem is probably the most visually interesting City in the game instead of the gold of Damascus or the blue of UR we get a soft greenish Hue over everything not enough to drown the color like we see in AER but enough to mute it just a bit the skyline is more distinct than AAR or Damascus and once you're off the crowded main streets the back streets and Alleyways are cramped and winding it doesn't feel welcoming like Damascus nor hostile like Aur Jerusalem is indifferent to alair our Target tal is also somewhat indifferent to Altier he tries to talk with him thinks that there's a chance aler might see things from his perspective in the dark of his warehouse It's a tense and cinematic experience and after Altier kills tal he gets a crucial piece of the puzzle revealed to him the Brotherhood is not so weak that my death will stop its work what Brotherhood Alm Alim is not the only one with designs upon the holy land and that's all you'll have from me then we are finished beg forgiveness from your God he's long abandoned us aler learns that these men are working together in a Brotherhood just like his he also learns that these men believe that there is no God or if there was that he's abandoned Humanity making them markedly different from so many other factions during the Third Crusade the next Alim wrap-up conversation happens after our act break in another modern-day segment but it makes more sense to cover it here just know that I'm fiddling with the order of it returning to Alim he congratulates Altier on killing the first three men and rewards him with another item before giving him another three names to cross off the list in doing some research for this video I was poking around the Assassin's Creed Wiki and found the version of this conversation that happens if Altier kills tal and Jerusalem first and then finishes the first round of assassinations with Garnier and AER according to the wiki instead of the generic First Act wrap-up conversation after killing tal Altier says and I'm sorry I'm going to read a transcript rather than replay the exhausting first few hours of this game just to get 20 seconds of footage fo AG I saw them though the men and women who would be slaves they were a strange sort old mad sick weak yes what better way to make a soldier than to take a oh my God no you're putting weird emphasis on weird syllables weak yes what better way to make a soldier than to take a Broken Man and rebuild him give him all he's been denied with the promise of more it seems a lot of work it is but what you get in return is loyalty knowing what it was they stood to lose such men would be loathed to betray their savior an interesting Theory I think it's probably for the best that most players tackle Jerusalem last and don't get these lines because they are so on the nose that it undermines a lot of the subtler connections Assassin's Creed makes between aalim and the men were killing it also undermines Al's intelligence a bit that he has this whole conversation and never says hey what the with his first three targets down Desmond is pulled from the animist due to apparent overheating we learn more more about Lucy how Vick saved her life from abstergo employees who were going to kill her when they thought she was no longer useful Desmond also finds access codes to a cell planted inside his dresser if we thought before that Lucy was probably helping us we just about confirm it now and with that our First Act comes to a close with a newly empowered Desmond ready to double down on his investigation and Altier starting to have doubts about his targets and the man he calls a mentor after a sluggish but story heavy prologue Assassin's Creed tells that story in short concentrated bursts between lengthy gameplay sections like little bolon cubes of narrative dispensed with every kill but the story we do get is fascinatingly abstract and gleefully introspective and we're planting the seeds for the game's final Conflict in a way that usually feels pretty organic the plotting is not all that sophisticated and the pacing can be disastrous at times but once you get to the story it's trying to tell I think Assassin's Creed is showing some surprising narrative ambition let's see where this goes rise and shine we've got quite a day ahead of us you're in a good mood this morning here we get the most obvious sign of vidic's evil nature the sick bastard appears to be a morning person vidic also reveals to Desmond that abstergo has been responsible for almost all of Mankind's intellectual technological medical and philosophical progress over the last few years to be fair we don't invent them we find them find them they're Gifts Mr miles from those who came before this is one of the biggest Revelations from the modern day storyline confirmation that there was a precursor race whose technology vastly exceeds Humanities like all good mystery box moments it answers one question but raises multiple others this is probably where the artifacts come from and probably what upster go was searching in Altair's memories to find but now we don't know who these people were or how they became extinct despite their technological superiority the Assassin's Creed series especially in the early days excelled at asking interesting questions If Only They answered them in satisfying ways and of course this isn't limited to Assassin's Creed's puzzle box most of these kinds of stories end up messy and underwhelming the X Files and lost both saw fairly steady declines in audience and critical reception there's a great site that I'll link to you in the description that lets you look up graphs of IMDB ratings of specific TV shows and track their movement over time IMDB ratings are also so far from a perfect Source the folks sticking around to watch a show in its sixth or seventh season are also more likely to be fans of said shows so it's not a perfect reflection of objective quality but it's interesting to track nonetheless I loved the first season of Westworld but that enjoyment was greatly enhanced by the viewing experience tracking all the theories and ideas on podcasts and subreddits in between each episode was such a joy and the first season ended by answering most of our questions and asking a few more then things get messy so starting these mystery box stories having an introduction that really grabs you is easy the endings are the hard part there's even a name that's associated with this kind of unsustainable mysterious Crescendo that causes fans to lose confidence in the overall Vision the Chris Carter effect Chris Carter being the creator of the X Files and what do you know write down in our example section Assassin's Creed the first time I did that first game I got to the end of the script and like you know in a 4-Hour session I think it took about two 2 and a half hours and and they said okay that's all I said uh all right thanks n um um we're I said and I turned the last page I said I'm just going to get a cup of coffee and we'll we'll U we'll start up again and they look they look at each other oh that's it what this this is awesome what what happens and the writer goes I don't know I said what do you mean you don't know I haven't written it yet nevertheless I think Assassin's Creed 1 deserves praise for how successful it is in starting this this universe how many creative and interesting questions it raises the information given to Desmond in this first game is minimal but by the end with the Lucy reveal and the Eagle Vision Revelations players suddenly had so many questions and clues to study while they waited for the sequel and your mileage may vary but I don't really hold the fact that they don't stick The Landing against the earlier work it is something I still think about but I still love season 1 of Westworld I'll still go back and rewatch older episodes of The X Files and honestly the force awakens is one big old Mr box but it's one of my favorite Star Wars movies somehow Palpatine returned Desmond steals vidic's pen before returning to the Animus this action right here is the most overtly heroic thing he does in the game everything else is pretty much handled by Lucy I like that though Desmond isn't a traditional video game hero in this first game he's just our lens for his world in much the same way that Altier is Desmond's lens for Altair's world back in the Animus Altier is sent after his next three targets each of whom are serving as a temporary leader in the cities they govern for this section in the final three targets I know it's sacrilegious but I always go to Acra first to get it out of the way since it's my least favorite the gaming equivalent of eating one's green beans before one's potatoes the William assassination has two of my favorite little moments in the game the first of which is this snippet of conversation that we overhear during our investigation well the Bible does say God helps those who help themselves no it doesn't actually that's from one of eso's fables the Bible says quite the opposite in fact many passages are being patient and faithful and waiting for the Lord to decide if he wishes to assist well I say we've waited long enough this is one of the few investigations that feels deliberately written to build on the game's ideas and if Assassin's Creed had more of these moments I think its story would have been more effective this man's misunderstanding of the Bible is proving amm's point at the end of the game that people aren't really making empowered choices to follow one God or another but that it's mostly the circumstances of birth that determines one's faith this person can't really separate religious Doctrine from cultural aphorisms it's great moment and one of the only times I found the investigation dialogue to be all that interesting in the bureau before the briefing the local leader gives Altier a rundown of the situation between William and King Richard Altier responds with I've never been one for politics but surely you realize your every action shapes the course of this land's future you are a politician too in your own way as you wish this is such an important line to show Altair's lingering immaturity and I love that one of the game's wiser characters tries to guide him on this Altair's life revolves around going from City to City slaying whichever important person his master tells him to and yet he snear dismissively that he's never been one for politics he's not just emotionally stunted but this line makes it appear like he's somewhat intellectually stunted as well and it's a testament to the ambition of his Arc that by the time Revelations concludes he has become one of the wisest men of his time also to be honest that game feels like it w Callin Al's character a bit I don't mind I think we end up in a better place with those changes but we'll expand on that in another video no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness but he shunned your Graces as was his right without knowing some kindness an excellent kill kindness his investigation concluded alair heads to Williams Fortress where he overhears a conversation between his Target and the departing King Richard 3,000 Souls William I was told they would be held as prisoners and used to barter for the release of our men the sarens would not have honored their end of the bargain you know this to be true I did you a favor oh yes a great favor indeed now our enemies will be that much stronger in their convictions fight that much harder they're referring to an event that I've seen called the massacre at aadia or the massacre of Aer in which Richard ordered the execution of 2700 Turkish hostages vary on whether the entirety of those executed Were Soldiers or whether some of them were also non-combatants it led to a counter Massacre where saladine ordered 1600 Christian prisoners to be executed in Damascus in the fiction of Assassin's Creed this is something ordered by William that Richard condemns him for in our history however Richard is held responsible it's an interesting change and I think it's part of what leads Desmond to asking vidic about the events he sees in the Animus that this massacre is mentioned but not more thoughtfully integrated into the story feels like a missed opport though I also understand if there were ethical concerns about including it were it not handled with immense care you might lower tragedy into spectacle and after seeing where this series goes I'm not sure Ubisoft has the ability or confidence to try to walk that line nevertheless one of my biggest critiques of the game would be that it tells far more than it shows we're always told that the Crusades are a violent and bloody time but that's not exactly something we encounter or challenged with in the story The Human consequences of the Crusade are clumsily conveyed through the we assume that the people of UR are suffering in the city because it looks like this but when you take such a minimalist dispassionate approach towards conveying the Despair and violence that's so Central to your main plot it becomes too easy to ignore too easy to just keep seeing this world these cities as playgrounds because functionally they are on our three trips to these cities we never really meet anyone that makes them feel real never really see or hear something that makes us consider the thousands of people that are trying to eek out a living under the roofs we Dash across neither alair nor the player really encounter any characters that wrench the Crusades down from the abstract that Force us to Grapple with the personal life-shattering consequences of a conflict of this scale as a result the peace that both the assassins and Templars are fighting for feels less urgent alim's temptation to wield the Apple to force peace feels easier to condemn and we see an immediate course correction in Assassin's Creed 2 there is life there is emotion an empathy to that story and characters that give it a giant Beating Heart that ac1 just lacks but I think a more instructive comparison is actually the series's soft reboot Assassin's Creed Origins like Assassin's Creed 1 Origins is hugely ambitious but has massive structural issues that could have completely undermined its main quest but throughout his lengthy confusing Journey Bak is frequently interacting with interesting and grounded characters that help give everything in the story human Stakes that game has no idea what doing in its main story but there are still moments in it that hit as hard as any in the series because they let things get personal not everything is a sterile Crossing of blades through its dialogue and characters Origins grounds the player in Egypt in a way that ac1 doesn't with players and the holy land and that as consequences while it deserves respect for its ambition and the groundwork it lays for future games Assassin's Creed 1 rarely makes you feel anything its provocations are intellectual what are we willing to sacrifice for peace and is Free Will more valuable than order but largely weightless because we're rarely feeling the consequences of war the cost of the ongoing violence if someone just watched the dozen or so conversations between amalm and aler they would come away with an almost identical experience of the game story as someone who spent hours running through Damascus Aur and Jerusalem and to me that's indicative of how much potential is wasted an effective story isn't ingesting 10 bullon cubes of narrative over the course of a few hours it's slow slly deliberately building something thoughtful something orchestrated disparate Parts gradually coming together to form something bigger Assassin's Creed gives you bullon cubes when it could have given you an intricate skillfully simmered soup maybe I'm just hungry returning to AER and to William this Revelation about the massacre of UR is an example of how Assassin's Creed plays with history these moments tend to be fairly subtle in the early games and I think we peak in absurdity with Assassin's Creed 3 in ac1 in the Etso Trilogy the most consistent departure from history is how fixated citizens appear to be with spending hours of their lives on miscellaneous [Music] benches okay so I originally wrote this joke and then made a note to myself to get some good b-roll of benches for that objectively hilarious Montage but after doing some research on the history of benches there seems to be a lot of scholarship on outdoor benches particularly in Florence which I wanted to talk about here because I don't know when I'm going to be talking about Assassin's Creed 2 and I would probably forget which might have been for the best I'll link it in the description but this essay by yavon elette is really well written and goes into fascinating detail about Florentine benches and even includes a decent amount of historical sketches or paintings that feature benches in the background I've pulled three the most pertinent passages from their essay but if this piques your interest at all I encourage you to give the full article a read the mediu were the most notable if not the first of several Florentine patrons to incorporate a grandio stone bench into their facade this was in part A monumentalization of a vernacular element but more important the medii and other prominent Palace Builders appropriated the element characteristic of the Civic Center as part of a strategy to designate their homes as new centers of Civic Authority many Florentine patricians were quick to pick up on this Innovation whether as a desire to keep up with a mediji as a statement of alliance or a challenge to caim Mo's increasing power if distinguished citizens discussing Noble topics was the ideal in reality the benches were frequented by the assorted patricians and plebians and they chatted gossiped and argued about politics contemporary accounts illustrate that A desperate group of people mingled on the Florentine benches patricians low lives learned men idlers old men young men artists clerics and miscellaneous citizens figure in these stories which there's a lot of really crappy stuff about the world today the planet slowly dying and God damn if your check engine light doesn't always seem to come on at the worst time but we also live in a world where within minutes you can find an eminently readable and exquisitely researched essay on the RO of benches in historic Florence and I don't know things could be worse 2023 has got some things going for it so benches pretty important in historic Florence and are closely related to the periods evolving politics I cannot however find any information about public seating in the holy land during the Third Crusade which means the snarky bench montage is here to stay infiltrating The Fortress is quite fun this is a Betrayal on levels that no one's ever seen infiltrating The Fortress for a second time is still pretty fun when Altier finally lands a killing blow William much like his other victims alludes to much more complex motivations than typical greed or ambition back at masaya aler brings us up to Alim his doubts about his master and the Creed growing though they do not admit it directly there is a that binds them I'm sure of it there is a difference aler between what we are told to be true and what we see to be true most men do not bother to make the distinction it is simpler that way but as an assassin it is your nature to notice to question then what is it that connects these men ah but as an assassin it is also your duty to steal these thoughts and Trust in your master for there can be no true peace with without order and Order requires Authority you speak in circles master I don't really know what to feel about this part it's written to be somewhat of a paradox always question everything just you know don't question me aim's ly it is also your duty to steal these thoughts and Trust in your master for there can be no true peace without order is kind of equating order with obedience it's consistent with what will come to understand is the Templar ideology and thus fitting for a man who secretly shares it I'm just surprised this isn't a that's happened between Al malim and his assassins before how one of them hasn't sat down and gone was alal liim's fixation on peace at all costs really that different to the goals of Tamir or Garnier or any of the other men I killed what if our fixations on Creeds and Universal truths were actually blinding us maybe it's time I got myself assass out of the assass sins with William dead alter turns to his next Target the merchant king of Damascus Damascus is a fent particularly after the Gasping streets of Aur Damascus is notable and how peace has allowed the city to keep flourishing it's almost an effective reminder of what Altier thinks he's fighting for an end to the war so that all cities may look like this peace in all things the merchant King is hosting a party that Altier crashes but like all things Templar in this game abu's last moments tend to be dedicated to violence of some kind in this case poison he decries the war and the rich attendees of his party who profit from it before his scheme is revealed no all this suffering is born of fear and hate it bothers you that they are different just as it bothers you that I am different compassion Mercy tolerance these words mean nothing to any of you mean nothing to those Infidel Invaders who ravage our land in search of gold and glory and so I say enough I've pledged myself to another cause one that will bring about a new world in which all people might live side by side in peace a Pity none of you will live to see it it's a great little moment of drama and if Assassin's Creed one had full synchronization objectives I would be curious to see if Ubisoft would consider aler saving these guests to be a desired additional objective you can climb the walls and take out the archers massacring the guests before you strike and I do but I also don't think that's something that Altier would necessarily prioritize his Creed tells him to stay his blade from the Flesh of the innocent but we've seen Altier ignore the death of Innocence when convenient to him before and we'll see it again before the game is [Music] over look at me my very nature is an affront to the people I Ruled and these Noble robes did little more than to muffle their shouts of hate when I was younger I thought his references to being different or being considered an Abomination was just because he was ugly you know he's a Damascus 3 but an AER 6 of course now I think it's pretty obvious he's referring to his sexuality and it sounds like it was part of what Drew him to roer's Templars that they were building a new world he's still not exactly pitiable but the confession is enough to provoke aler into confronting amim when he returns to masaya and here we get one of the most important interactions between the two of them each man I'm sent to kill speaks cryptic words to me each time I come to you and ask for answers each time you give only Riddles In exchange but no more who are you to say no more I'm the one who does the killing if you want it to continue you'll speak straight with me for once tread carefully boy I do not like your tone and I do not like your deception I have offered you a chance to restore your lost honor not lost taken by you and then you've sent me to fetch it again like some damn dog it seems I'll need to find another I love that aler finally calls Al liim out on the charade of restoring his honor again however petulant and arrogant Altier is at the start of the game he's a young man that's been raised by this Brotherhood mentored by Alim his moral and practical failings are at least partially the fault of Al malim while he's quickly talked down by aler the fact that Alim is willing to kill him simply for asking questions about the men he kills is revealing of his character alal Lim's discipline doesn't stem from Justice it stems from control we saw that in the prolog and we're seeing flashes of it here it's a very Templar impulse even though alair doesn't know enough about their order to know that yet Alim does reveal to alair the answer to the mystery we've been investigating all game what is it that binds all of these seemingly disperate figures together Templars now you see the true reach of roberes all of these men leaders of cities commanders of armies all pledge allegiance to his cause the works are not meant to be viewed on their own are they but as a whole what do they desire Conquest they seek the Holy Land not in the name of God but for themselves that's right the people we've been fighting all game are the same people we've been fighting all game I don't know why this is treated like the big mystery and I think most players will be confused as to why this is a big Revelation to alair I think a similar atmosphere could have been achieved if we knew from the start we were targeting Templar operatives but we were uncovering their motives and their philosophy bit by bit instead the story of the first half of this game is Just men dying while saying there's so much you don't understand and then when the big reveal happens it turned out that most of us probably thought that's who we've been killing all along if you remember playing this game back when it came out I'd be curious to hear how this Revelation worked for you it's the poor execution here combined with a somewhat logic defying amalm was actually part of the secret Templars not these ones apparently and nobody from his assassins noticed or asked him why he was gone all the time or mention any clues that might indicate this twist and when the Apple was discovered he wanted it for himself so he leaves the order tells Altier to get it and then strips him of his rank to use him as his own private Spirit of Vin and nobody mentions this to Altier until Rober that keeps this game from really being great were this mystery handled more defly I think this game would be talked about in the same breath as its sequels instead we're left with a sloppy narrative experience that ends up asking a lot of great questions of both the player and Altier it just could have been so much more their with the merchant king of Damascus failed Altier Ventures to Jerusalem to find his next Target I really enjoy the continuation of Altier and Malik's slightly prickly Dynamic and here we see Malik start to soften just a little as he notices Altier maturing I suggest you plan your attack carefully get to better know your prey with your help I will where would you have me begin my search what's this you're actually asking for my assistance instead of demanding it I'm impressed I wish we spent more time with these two characters as it stands now their relationship kind of flows through Malik's four different greetings for Altier safety and peace Malik your presence here deprives me of both safety and peace Malik where that the city was possessed of either safety and peace alre upon you as well brother safety and peace my friend y your presence here will deliver us both Malik is interesting because he's a great foil to alair he's a kind of poster child of the amim era assassins he follows the Creed to a te and never questions his mentor and while it leads to success in the game's prologue will come to see the fallibility in that line of thinking Malik wouldn't have been able to discover aim's treachery and fight back against him were it not for alair I just wish he had more than 5 minutes of screen time this is a dynamic that we never really revisit in this series the Rival Assassin of a similar age in rank to our main character I think Syndicate tries this but because they're even being in London is in defiance of the Brotherhood they're always more exasperated allies than Rivals during the investigation aler overhears two men discussing the Injustice in Jerusalem maaden our next target has taken the son of one of the men and is planning to execute him I am sorry Ahmad they came without warning my son they have my son what is to be done with him we did everything we could what is the be done with him he's to be executed today no I won't allow it I really like this beat and it only takes a few minutes of game time to pay off when it comes time to strike we can see the two men in the crowd this is not Justice you've your right to do that who do you take and all of you stand idle complicit in this crime God curse you all see how the evil of one man spreads to corrupt others they sought to instill fear and doubt within you but I will keep you safe here now our four filled with sin the Harlot the thief The Gambler the heretic let God's judgment be brought down on upon them all I like the staging of the scene the obvious Stakes involved in our successful assassination like the other missions I tried to be reasonably stealthy and join the group of Scholars near the stage but this strange fellow had other plans for me in pretty much all of these games except maybe Assassin's Creed Unity the combat is so easy that attempting to play in a stealthy manner is almost a courtesy and a mercy to the City Guards because if they catch you being a miscreant and things escalate it never ends well for them part of the Allure of stealth is that feels cooler it's more of a challenge open combat in these games just reminds me of that heavily memed panel from a Star Wars comic where Rebel soldiers have Vader surrounded and he says all I am surrounded by is fear and dead men as he ignites his lightsaber which is very much the energy aler or Etso have if they're ever surrounded in these games so in what I think is my only non- stealthy assassination of the game I let aler sloppily duul his way through half of the Jerusalem guard before striking the final blow against maaden even though I didn't exactly plan this approach it felt more overtly heroic and in being discovered so early all the prisoners ended up escaping with their lives ma is different than the other men we've killed there isn't a cool logic to him he's just a violent evil man corrupted by the first real power he's ever experienced you kill people simply for believing differently than you of course not I killed them because I could because it was fun do you know what it feels like to determine another man's fate and did you see the way the people cheered the way they feared me I was like a god you'd have done the same if you could such power the corrupting nature of power is an idea that I think we explore in a much more compelling way with Alim so I don't mind that majin's confessional feels a little weightless it does amplify the Templar threat however these aren't all ambitious men working working towards what they believe is Humanity's brightest future sometimes this is an order that attracts and empowers cruel sadistic people Desperately Seeking any path to power this series takes that idea and runs with it with chz r's character in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Desmond is pulled from the Animus as an increasingly exasperated vitic is wrapping up a phone call Lucy tells Desmond that the Assassins are coming for him and then we get this little exchange that little fight your ancestor started during the Third Crusade it never ended you're being held by Templars vidx a Templar there's no way you could have known they hide it so well there's no way you could have known they hide it so well as she leaves we get another very obvious hint from her to do some snooping I'm sorry Desmond I have to go you should turn in for the [Music] night the answers to all of your questions are right in front of you you just have to know where to look when Desmond sneaks out that night we can finally go through vidic's computer you can read updates about the increasingly mundane apocalypse references to hurricane season a massive African plague mass migrations Antarctic Drilling and a Templar satellite launch happening on December 21st 2012 only a few months from when this game takes place and then extremely poorly hidden at the top of his deleted items folder we find an email referencing a metal ball that can influence people's minds our second act ends with several pieces falling into place we've confirmed that abstergo is a front for the modern day Templars and Al has learned that the Min been hunting across the Holy Land all belong to the Templar our order we've also introduced some nice dramatic irony Desmond knows about the Apple before Alti a does knowing what the apple is capable of and knowing the dangerous man who currently wields it we enter the Animus in our third act with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation this is going to get a little messy their leaders after applauding first couple of Acts Assassin's Creed saves Its Best For Last back in the Animus Desmond and the player can only watch the latest conversation between Altier and amim with a growing sense of tread for the first time all game anim is openly wielding the Apple clutching it to his chest with both hands when not moving when we saw the apple back in the game's introduction it was housed within an ornate golden shell here its true shape is revealed a surprisingly mundane looking metal ball Alim tells Altier that the Templars want to control the holy land but that their plans were contingent on their possessing the Apple what is this treasure it is tempation it's just a piece of silver look at it what am I supposed to see this piece of silver cast out Adam and Eve it turned staves into snakes parted and closed the Red Sea Aris used it to start the Trojan War and with it a poor carpenter took turned water into wine it seems rather plain for all the power you claim it has how does it work he who holds it commands the hearts and minds of whoever looks upon it whoever tastes of it as they say I love this exchange and the questions it raises is amim trying to use it on alair now if so how is Altier able to resist it is this specific artifact what the Templars are using Desmond to find then we learn that the apple is responsible for so many historical and religious events the Exile of Adam and Eve The Parting of the Red Sea the Trojan War and of course the poor carpenter that turned water to wine stepping back from the text for a moment we can observe the genius of ubisoft's decision to make this mysterious object an apple right away it has two close ties to prominent moments in Christian and Greek mythology and helps ground this artifact and this in Universe idea of a precursor civilization we'll revisit the Christian half when we look at the final confrontation which has some pretty obvious Illusions to Eden but if you're not familiar with the apple of discord from Greek myth I wanted to touch on it a bit here to show just how well these mythologies line up often cited as the source of the Trojan War this whole situation with an apple began when ays the goddess of Discord and strife is not invited to a wedding because you know the whole strife and Discord thing and decides that the best way to handle this was to you guessed it cause a little strife and Discord I am going to create an environment that is so toxic depending on the story she either crashes the wedding anyway Baron It Go an apple or she Chucks it in from the outside in most versions of the story inscribed on the apple as a version of to the fairest one three goddesses fight over the Apple Hera Athena and Aphrodite they turn to Zeus for his judgment and Zeus exhibiting a rare bit of Common Sense doesn't want to get in the middle of this perhaps less responsibly rather than attempting to squash this debate he tells them to go ask the Trojan mortal Paris they do each offers a bribe and Paris chooses Aphrodite who had promised him the most beautiful girl in the world which turns out to be Helen who just so happened to be married to manalus the King of Sparta Paris takes Helen anyway starting the Trojan War yada yada yada Odus has the idea to build a big old wooden horse and Troy is eventually sacked in the recontextualized version of the story that we get here in Assassin's Creed it seems like the implication is that AIS directly wields the Apple to start the war at least knowing how the Apple works if she just threw it in like she did in the myth wouldn't her fellow goddesses find it knowing what it is and thus be able to access it power instead of fighting over the title of the feris it would be a scuffle to possess a powerful artifact I think we revisit this in a glyph and Assassin Creed 2 though I'm not sure we get any firm answers there either but this tiny line from amim seems to confirm the existence of the Greek gods though perhaps not as history knows them and really drives home the power of the Apple its wielding sparked one of the biggest conflicts in mythology and now it's been hunted by Templars in two different eras and presently being guarded by a man who's already shown flashes of in darkness that's not dissimilar from the men we've killed it's such a tiny line in a huge game but it's important that we credit Ubisoft for blending science fiction history and myth into something that in the early games at least feels grounded feels plausible because it's that element that captivated so many fans at the time of release the gameplay is fine the cities are a Marvel but the secret sauce the junqua to title together was the surprising depth of this new Mythos they were building a Mythos that rewarded existing knowledge incentivized historical and mythological curiosity and provided answers to Old questions while prompting us to ask new ones we now know what the Apple can do for example but we have a dozen more questions wait are the Greek gods real what do the modern day Templars want with it is this connected to their upcoming satellite launch ISM using the Apple already are there others like it a few of those questions will be answered by the time the credit's role so let's set off for AER to slay the first of our final three targets with six men already dead by our hand the city guard are on high alert and you can feel that in the game play Altier has pushed to the rooftops more than ever to avoid the massive patrols of the city guard and The Archers lining so many roofs make getting to viewpoints occasionally challenging for the first time all game it adds to the climactic atmosphere we're seeing and feeling the consequences of our actions it's an idea manifested even more prominently once we arrive at the harbor after our investigation to see sa brand our Target tormenting a scholar believing the man to be an assassin it's a striking scene and like so many other moments in the game Al doesn't step forward when he could he doesn't step into the role of a traditional hero even here towards the end of his ark I don't mean that as a criticism either one of the things that makes aler and his Brotherhood so interesting in this first game is that they're not really an altruistic force in this game there's no real Arc for Altier there but in subsequent games our assassins are rarely put in situations where they must choose between saving innocent people or staying in the shadows to increase their chances of killing their target so much of how the Assassins change and why is attributed to alair but almost all of that Evolution happens off screen and we really only experience it as iio through dialogue and Codex pages from eto's Brotherhood onward the Assassins tend to have a general do gooder impulse about them but unless I misremembering things it's rarely tested against their duties as assassins navigating through the harbor Altier boards sabr's ship and takes him down saand is scared and aler tries to comfort him don't do this you are afraid of course I am afraid but you'll be safe now held in the arms of your God so brand goes on to tell aler that nothing is waiting something that aler should probably know by this point in the narrative so I almost think this is more of a final confirmation for players that weren't paying attention to the conversations with alal liim most notable is Al tier's growing compassion and wisdom in both the post kill confessionals and the conversations with the bureau leaders we're seeing a calm more thoughtful man I wish his maturing was something we explored a little more than just he's less angry now and he talks a little more gently but Assassin's Creed 2 takes that kind of Arc and does something ambitious and wonderful with it so maybe it's for the best that we keep it on a back burner in this game returning to Alim aler asks again about the men he's killing before Alim ends the conversation by prompting this little exchange before you go I have a question for you of course what is the truth we place faith in ourselves we see the world the way it really is and hope that one day all mankind might see the same what is the world then an illusion one which we can either submit to as most do or transcend what is it to transcend to recognize nothing is true and everything is permitted that laws arise not from Divinity but reason I understand now that our Creed does not command us to be free it commands us to be wise do you see now why the temp are a threat whereas we would dispel the illusion they would use it to rule it's fascinating to me that Ubisoft had the confidence to make so much of this game's main conflict intellectual and philosophical rather than something more straightforward and I respect their ambition and yet I don't know these lines here what is the world then an illusion one which we can either submit to as most do or transcend what is it to transcend to recognize nothing is true and everything is permitted that laws arise not from Divinity but reason this parts specifically feels a little sophomoric for my taste and I think it revolves around the way they use the term the world the world is an illusion and by accepting that nothing is true and everything is permitted we transcend it this third act especially is going to become all about Illusions mostly stemming from the piece of Eden so this little conversation addressing the broader more mundane but equally dangerous illusion a theologically driven laws and hegemonic forces that rule without reason is interesting and connects with our broader theme but especially with the pace of these conversations I think it's too easy to just hear that line and think like this kind of Illusion instead of this kind of Illusion this is a huge defining moment of the Creed and Altier and we whiz past it with language that's unspecific enough to probably confuse a decent number of players then there's the I understand now that our Creed does not command us to be free it commands us to be wise I alluded to this earlier but a Creed that presupposes wisdom is always going to be somewhat flawed it's taken aler over 25 years of his life to come to this understanding which I think is more of a condemnation of the Creed and amim than it is of alair the Creed doesn't explicitly command them to be wise that's just Altair's interpretation and the fact that there are so many darker interpretations of those words feels like a recipe for disaster when your order is largely built from Misfits and broken people interpretations can be lost or drowned out by louder more dangerous voices and that can be an issue especially in a game that cries religion as part of the illusion one thing it doesn't address is how to replace the moral framework of religion if everyone were to transcend the illusion to be clear this is not a we wouldn't know right from wrong were it not for religion argument that's not an idea that I personally find all that compelling or persuasive but for both good and Ill throughout history religion has been a powerful force to instill and reinforce social and moral Frameworks and the Assassins saying it's all an illusion transcend brother maybe technically correct but the current iteration of the Creed is too open to misunderstanding to effectively and safely replace religion and current ideas of divinity as a pillar of society without massive destabilization Altier is an example of how someone can think they're following the Creed yet be led astray anyway and by the game's end Alin will reveal himself as a man who believes the world needs something else it's part of the Paradox at the heart of the assassins in this game that in order to gather the power they need to liberate the world to try to help everyone transcend as they have they would would likely need to resort to tactics similar to the Templars and after aler stopped amim we ensure that they never will by being so fixated on protecting free will they're never able to amass the power required to emancipate the masses and yet that kind of ends up being the point of this game even though we're left to come to that conclusion on our own the Assassin's Creed and the people who follow it need to change they can't live in a fortress in a rigidly structured Brotherhood that demands obedience while also extoling the virtues of free will they're too like their enemy in future games Templars will bring up time and time again that the world needs order needs guidance and we never get the chance to see if they're wrong they're usually so successful in their efforts that for the rest of time assassins are barely holding on doing just enough to balance the scales we never really zoom out enough to explore this from a macro level this fascinating push and pull between these two ideologies because Ubisoft hasn't shown us a prolonged period of assassin Victory we're left to assume that we're witnessing a modified hegelian dialectic played out over centuries the push and pull between assassin and Templar ideology that gradually forms a new society and then the battle begins again but this is why I find this game and the early games in this series so compelling even if their execution falters at times the questions they're raising and the themes we play around with are fascinating and when you couple that with the gorgeous settings and what at the time was a compelling mystery in the modern day it's so good it's so good Altier makes for damas us with only one target left before Rober in a story that is so deeply entrenched in intellectual and ideological conflicts having our penultimate Target be a book burning Zealot is quite fitting like the sbrand assassination the guards are on high alert and the city is trickier to navigate as a result the level design just keeps getting more interesting the later we get into the game it's in this last third of the game that Assassin's Creed really Finds Its footing from a gameplay perspective confident enough in its systems and its world to try to challenge the player in this case one of the big wrinkles is to have multiple possible targets juer like all of the other men we've slain gets a short cut scene to introduce himself and like so many of our other targets he commits an act of Disney villain evil to crank up the saturation on our morally gray world you love your precious writings you do anything for them yes yes of course then join them any man who speaks is he is just as much a threat do any else among you wish to challenge me if players are tracking details in this scene you can see that juar has a bit of a fanny pack situation going on while as fellow Scholars don't so you can locate the real one that way players who also completed all of the investigations will have Clues revealing where the real juper is likely to be but the most foolproof way for aler is to use Eagle Vision and one of the only times all game when it's actually somewhat useful after finding him killing him proves rather easy and the two have this exchange why why have you done this men must be free to do what they believe it is not our right to punish one for thinking what they do no matter how much we disagree then what you of all people should know the answer educate them teach them right from wrong it must be knowledge that frees them not force while admirable there is an intense naive to this philosophy but it's to AC's credit characters within the series usually Templars will point that out multiple times we'll even hear this idea criticized from Alim before the game is done it's not a logical outlook for Altier it's a philosophy steeped in his desire to be good and to protect people's Free Will so that they may also choose goodness and it's lofty and messy but that's what makes it the perfect opposition to the calculating and often cruel approach of the Templars virtue is often illogical something will revisit in the garden without MIM Desmond is roused from the Animus after this in time to overhear a conversation between vitic and another Templar off screen not a lot of time VI understand there's a narrow launch window wherever it's hidden time to retrieve it working on it and when it's done he'll be taken care of it's a conversation he's clearly not supposed to have overheard and he asks Lucy about it I think there's a problem with the Animus nope it's working fine I'm pretty sure it just ejected me when I'm pretty sure you should shut up I like this moment because if we separate who Lucy becomes in the equals a very stabby and confident Assassin from her characterization in this game and just take her on this game's terms this act is pretty heroic for her at this point she's only been characterized as This brilliant but quiet subordinate to viic so this act of minor Rebellion is heroic by her standards she tells Desmond that they have to find a way to stop the Templars that they're going to try to change everything and on the off chance players don't pay attention during this conversation you can read her extremely conspicuous emails in which everything is put in all caps so you know it's serious business this is one area where the modern day mystery really Falls flat for me though I suppose if we factor in brotherhood's big twist we can look at this as manufactured evidence to have Desmond grow to trust Lucy which would be fine if that twist was sufficiently woven into the story of the first few games I'm sure we'll look at it with more scrutiny when we get there but it's a moment that never worked for me Desmond asks if they're using him to find the piece of Eden Lucy confirms it but there's a Twist they already found the one in Mas off but it was destroyed in the accident in Denver they're hoping to find from alair where other artifacts might be it's a good mystery box moment our questions are answered but now we have new ones how many more artifacts are there are they all like the Apple what were the Templars doing that managed to destroy the original one sneaking out that night Desmond finds emails to Lucy from the Assassins that connect the Templar satellite launch with their hunt for the Apple they want to use the satellites to amplify the Apple's reach bump bump we've clarified the stakes for the modern-day storyline abstergo is already a corporate behemoth too powerful to be easily stopped by anyone let alone the fractured Assassins but if they succeed in securing an additional piece of Eden then the war These two factions have been fighting for centuries will finally be over the Templars will have won Freedom would be eradicated in the pursuit of a world without chaos the next morning Desmond and vidic have what I think is their second to last morning conversation of the game look I know you're not going to let me leave so why not tell me what's going on humor me I'm not an idiot Mr miles I think you've already learned quite a bit I don't know what you're talking about of course not having just learned of the templar's dangerous and ambitious plans I like that this moment restores vidic's villainous credibility a bit he's probably noticed his pen is missing maybe noticed his chair turned in the wrong direction but at this point he knows Desmond isn't going to make it out of this lab alive so he doesn't really care after that exchange Desmond asks about the historical inaccuracies in the Animus and this time viic humors him anyone can write a book and they can put whatever they want on its Pages anything used to be we thought the world was flat some people still do yes and they publish books about it or that the moon landing was a hoax I believe there's also a book claims the world was created in seven days a besteller too history religion Academia it's all connected to the Perpetual construction of what the Assassins would call the illusion but it's not a structured illusion it's not a shadowy background hegemonic orchestration not yet at least because that's essentially the templar's ultimate goal to replace the chaos and the misinformation of the modern world was something cleaner more orderly their own version of the truth and it's going to be up to the Assassins to stop them they do try to stop them right we don't just spend 12 games sort of playing in the margins and then mostly ignore the modern day entirely resolving the majority of its storyline in comic books that the vast majority of players don't read we we definitely wouldn't do that and then never find a way to summarize those occurrences in game for players who just play the games right right it's okay no no no no no no oh my god oh my god future games that show us an expanded Templar order will probably give us cause to touch on Antonio grami's work on cultural hegemonies and the way it's been Incorporated in literary criticism because it's really interesting and fits alongside a lot of AC's themes but in this first game go and the historic Templars are single-minded enough in their goal that we can probably kick that can down the road to scooch for now it's back to the Animus for our last friendly chat with Alim before we're sent off to Jerusalem to take down Rober while alim's betrayal still really doesn't work for me on a first playthrough I think this moment is effective in making it feel like we're riding to Jerusalem for the end of the game the Peace of Eden is Temptation given form merely look at what it's done to Rober once he tasted of its power the thing cons assumed him he saw not a dangerous weapon to be destroyed but a tool one that would help him realize his life's ambition he dreamed of power then yes and no he dreamed still dreams like us of Peace but this is a man who sought to see the Holy Land consumed by war no alir how can you not see when you're the one that opened my eyes to this what do you mean what do he and his followers want a world in which all men are united I do not despise his goal I share it but I take issue with the means peace is something to be learned to be understood to be embraced he would force it and Rob us of our Free Will in the process this seemingly locks our Conflict for our climax kill Rober to keep him from getting a piece of Eden and in doing so preserve the Free Will of those in the Holy Land our Stakes are made Fairly clear our core conflict regurgitated and now alair is off and building that sense of climax is clever because it makes the subversion with robar and amim feel structurally better at least if not narratively so it's also interesting that amim labels the apple as Temptation given form and says that part about merely look at what it's done to Rober once he tasted of its power the thing consumed him this idea comes up after the Garnier assassination but I wanted to wait to cover it here we're supposed to understand that the Templars have possessed the Apple before clearly Rober had it at some point Garnier was trying to replicate its effects by experimenting on patients with drugs so clearly they knew something of its effects but if that's the story Assassin's Creed is telling the way the opening scene under the temple in Jerusalem plays out is so poorly executed that it undermines this entire plot in that sequence the apple is built into the Ark of the Covenant which itself is sitting high up in the ruins with scaffolding sort of going up to where it's sitting Roar literally says I want us through this gate Before Sunrise the sooner we possess it the sooner we can turn our attention to those jackles at massia the sooner we possess it the sooner we possess it implying that they don't already possess it if they did why would they keep it here relatively exposed and unguarded if it really was Temptation given form 10 men would not have the strength of will to just leave it there for all that time I don't know if I'm just missing something or if this game went through some serious rewrites at some point but if we just look at the text of the game without any of the red conning that future games will try it just doesn't really function it's still interesting still successful in giving us a compelling Clash of competing ideologies but there are just these key moments that don't work the way they need to in the story the timeline of the Apple doesn't make sense and the Templar twist halfway through the game doesn't really work either when Altier explains the Templar order to Mal at the bureau he makes it sound like they're the same organization as the historical ones Crusaders and CZ working together they are none of these things but something else Templars the Templars are a part of the Crusader army or so they'd like King Richard to believe no their only Allegiance is to Rober de sablin some mad idea that they will stop the war you spin a strange State indeed he does Malik because if that's the case why all the secrecy surrounding the Targets in the first place the confessionals of the first four or five targets are just dedicated to the whole oh H you have no idea how deep this goes but turns out actually yes we really sort of did y'all raided our cute little castle at the start of the game and I've been killing you as a side objective ever since the World opened up Malik and aler are getting along much better now that aler has grown up a bit and I love this Dynamic I just wish we got more of it before the assassination Altier finally apologizes for his behavior at the temple in the start of the game and Malik is gracious in his acceptance all this time I never told you I was sorry too damn proud you lost your arm because of me lost G you had every right to be angry I do not accept your apology I understand no you don't I do not accept your apology because you are not the same man who went with me into Solomon's Temple and so you have nothing to apologize for it's a nice moment and the most obvious example of Al's emotional growth and it's pivotal that it happens here because these two need to work in tandem to save the Brotherhood and it's Malik's New Faith in alier that lets that happen the feral roer's attending is heavily guarded and if Altier uses Eagle Vision on the approach you can notice there's no gold figure like there normally is something is wrong as you know this man was murdered we have tried to track his killer but it has proved difficult these creatures cling to the shadows and run from any who would face them fairly but not today for seems one stands Among Us he mocks us with his presence and must be made to pay seize him bring him forward that God's justice might be done it's a fun inversion of what we've been experiencing all game this time aler is the target with the rest of the guards slain Altier turns his attention to the strangely small and feminine sounding Rober who during the confessional window is revealed to be a woman what sorcery is this this woman I don't think we learn her name in this game but we'll later learn that it's Maria reveals roer's new goal and it's a clever one Rober rides for Assa to plead his case that Saras and crusader unite against the Assassins that will never happen they have no reason to had perhaps but now you've given them one nine in fact the bodies you've left behind victims on both sides you've made the Assassins an enemy in common and ensured the annihilation of your entire order well done I love this moment all game we've been dealing with the small consequences of our actions after killing Garnier there are more mentally ill people on the streets after the second wave of assassinations all the guards are on high alert we've seen Scholars be attacked on the off chance their assassins and here is a much more significant Consequence the unification of Christian and sarasin against the assassins and in our assassination of politically important figures we've left a of a power vacuum the Templar philosophy of an iron fisted order will never sound more appealing to those in power than in the very chaotic circumstances that we've created it's a great moment and fits in beautifully with the ideological themes of the game Altier also spares Maria here saying that since she's not his Target she can go and this moment is strange throughout the game aler has been interacting with people tangentially related to his targets and those interactions almost always end with the person's death the final couple interrogations feel the most unjust to me they seem like they're just Heralds doing their job and Altier kills them on the off chance that they'd warn his Target that he's approaching so his sparing of Maria is a little illogical and she even shows up as red in the Eagle Vision so it's not like he has some supernal awareness of the part she has yet to play Alti A's sparing of Maria is an emotional decision and it's revealing of the very thing that will ultimately Define his argument with Alim and Al's New Direction for the Assassin Brotherhood it is and I think we have to be okay with that if they meant to show an attraction here I don't think it comes through in the text at all but if this is just a way for Alti a to demonstrate that he's done enough killing I don't mind it Mercy feels good allowing himself to trust his gut feels like a good thing it feels like the right thing to do and that is vital that is so vital because this is a choice that a Templar would never make except for one specific Templar in one specific game but we'll get to him who knows when aler follows his emotions here in a later do the same in the garden when he argues with amim this is probably a massive stretch but I wonder if this moment is put here to connect Altier with the story of Paris especially because we're about to revisit the Adam and Eve imagery in the Alim conversation so revisiting the Trojan War and the apple of discord incident would make thematic sense Paris made an emotional decision as well in awarding the Apple to Aphrodite who promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world I don't know I don't think that they thought all that hard about it but I just wanted to clock that and maybe someone else has a more cohesive idea for how this moment fits back at the bureau aler talks over this new development with Malik and we have ourselves to blame the men I've killed men on both sides of the conflict men important to both leaders roer's plan may be ambitious but it makes sense and it could work look brother things have changed you must return to Masa we cannot Act without our master's permission it could compromise the Brotherhood I thought I thought you had learned this stop hiding behind words Malik you wield the Creed and its tenants like some Shield he's keeping things from us important things the earlier exchange with Malik saw Altier demonstrate his emotional growth now we get to witness his growing intellectual confidence he trusts his understanding of the Creed enough enough to push back on Malik and follow his instincts being a good assassin is not about subservient despite Alo liim's frequent insistance to the contrary his mind made up alair rides for AR to get to Richard he has to fight his way through dozens of men from both armies like I mentioned back with the final am liim discussion we're building a powerful sense of climax this fight to Roar is a dramatic but mundane fight Altier methodically cutting his way to Richard to save his Brotherhood it makes for a fascinating contrast with a return to maaya which will practically be a ghost town under the new rule of a corrupted Al malim when he at last arrives at Richard he tells the king about roer's plan of betrayal and Rober of course denies it hold a moment Rober why what what do you intend surely you do not believe him it is a difficult decision one I cannot make alone I must leave it in the hands of one wiser than I thank you no RAR not you then who the Lord let this be decided by combat that little moment there of Rober thinking King Richard is referring to him when he says one wiser than I is one of my favorite moments in the game just the Casual arrogance of a man who knows that God doesn't exist in this universe overlooking the fact that his King perhaps the most powerful man on the battlefield still believes in one Rober probably could have talked his way out of this were he a little wiser and a little more patient but unlike aler Rober doesn't seem to have matured over the course of the game and in the end his arrogance costs him his life Altier cuts down his men and eventually lands the killing blow on Rober who meets his death with some degree of Grace as he confesses something crucial to Altier it wasn't nine who found the treasure assassin not nine but 10 a tenth none may live who carry the secret give me his name oh but you know him well and I doubt very much you'd take his life as willingly as you've taken mine who it is your master Al MIM but he is not a Templar did you never wonder how it is he knew so much where to find us how many we numbered what we aspired to attain he is the master of the Assassins we master of Lies you and I just two more ponds in his Grand [Music] game this reveal seems to imply that Alim was or still is an actual Templar and was part of this organization even though the start of the game implies that the assassins and Templars already have a combative history even setting that aside we're supposed to to understand that the ancient Alim who even armed with the apple of Eden loses the fight against aler was part of this Elite Templar Expedition that found the apple and nobody from his assassins remarks on his absence and none of the other Templars not sbrand or Tamir or G ever say oh kiddo you got another thing coming as they Lay Dying even though they all know it would probably save the lives of their Templar Brothers by turning Altier against AMW liim the amwal Lim twist is terrible but the most baffling thing is that it didn't need to be this story would be more effective the ending more tense if Alim was never a Templar if he was a virtuous Mentor that was slowly corrupted by the Apple over the course of the game the Apple then falling into Altair's possession would be a bittersweet ending we wouldn't know how he would be able to handle its power it would certainly raise the stakes for keeping it out of abstergo hands a powerful company that could be so easily poisoned by its corrupting influence instead we make him a secret Templar I I just don't get it I don't want to harp on this too much though I'm sure I already already have this twist just doesn't work for me and I don't think they do nearly enough to set it up properly it's possible I'm missing something though still reeling from alim's apparent betrayal Altier speaks to King Richard some men cannot be reasoned with like that mad man saladine I think he'd like to see an end to this war as much as you so I've heard but never seen even if he doesn't say it it's what the people want sarason and crusader alike the people know not what they want it's why they turn to men like us then it falls to men like you to do what is right nonsense we come into the world Kicking and Screaming violent and unstable it is what we are we cannot help ourselves no we are what we choose to be this is a great moment and almost makes up for the whole amim thing Richard says that the people don't know what they want it's why they turn to men like him and mere moments ago when he didn't know what he wanted he turned to God Richard is B into what the Assassins call the illusion the belief that the world is governed by Divine laws rather than pure reason and here alair gently guides Richard away from that approach he tells him that soladin also wants to see an end to this war reminds him that he has a choice that everyone should have a choice and then bids him safety and peace as he leaves with aler on his way back to Masa to confront his mentor Desmond is pulled from the enemis again the Assassins are attacking abstergo they're coming to rescue him it uh doesn't go so great here have a listen that's been neutralized looks like the Cavalry won't be coming it's a strange and lowbudget way to have this story moment but it works with the minimalist approach the game has taken with the modern day storyline vidic storms out afterwards and Lucy tries to comfort Desmond it's not as bad as it seems what are you talking about they just killed literally killed my only chance of getting out of here and then I find out the Assassins are all but destroyed and and Christ I still don't know what these people are planning but I do know they plan to kill me when they're done I am screwed okay what do you want me to do just try and have a little faith you're have faith that line have faith is what we noted all the way back at the start of the game the words that Lucy said to Vick in the conference room that seem knowingly aimed at Desmond the reveal is fine most players will have known Lucy as an assassin from reading her extremely suspicious emails on her company computer but the gesture in the circling back to the faith line is nice Desmond wakes up to vidic's pronouncement that it's going to be a historic day and we climb back into the animist to witness Al's dramatic confrontation with Alim aler returns to a village covered in Shadows and for what I think is the first time all game we get this Dutch ankle shot for this conversation to heighten the unease there is only what the master shows us this is the truth you've lost your mind seeing the village so lifeless and gray is Eerie after all the times we've walked through it and at the top of the hill Altier is confronted by two waves of mindless assassins that try to cut him down he fights them off easily though quite lethally and before long Malik arrives with a contingent of loyalists at his back ready to support his friend guard yourself well friend Alam has betrayed us yes betrayed this Templar aliz as well how do you know after we spoke at returned to the ruins beneath Solomon's Temple Rober had kept a journal filled its pages with Revelations what I read there broke my heart but it also opened my eyes you were right Alti all along our master has used us I love this moment as the cherry on top for the Altier Malik Bromans but what robaab personally kept a journal of Templar secrets that included juicy details about Amal liim's involvement but just left it in the ruins beneath Solomon's Temple for anyone to find a journal that where found by anyone else could have exposed his treachery to King Richard and probably led to the execution of his entire order he just left it just left it despite having multiple allies in the city that could have retrieved it for him was there really no other way we could have motivated Malik's decision here it had to be roer's secret little diary it sounds like a bit of a nitpick and I guess it is but it's just disappointing when we think about how this moment could have been handled in a more satisfying way Malik finding roer's diary is a boring narrative moment that strains credulity so not only do we undermine our climax but we're missing out on a dozen more interesting ways that Malik might have returned we might have given Altier a moment of genuine persuasion back at the bureau Malik might have even found a somewhat repentant Maria on the streets of Jerusalem but instead we get this journal tidbit as aler enters the castle the gate clangs shut behind him with an ominous finality the courtyard is empty which means the annoying trainer is finally gone Al it seems my students do not fully understand what it is to wield the blade perhaps you could show them what you know maybe alim's ideas aren't all bad after all Altier pushes through the crowd in front of the castle and makes for the garden out back it's a little on the nose that this conflict over the apple of Eden takes place in a garden and I've even seen it mentioned in Wiki entries that this area of the castle was referred to as Paradise though that's not something i' been able to confirm or verify in game is amim supposed to be the serpent and that by beating him back alair saves Mankind from the temptation of the Apple possibly redeeming man for that original sin I don't think that really works and I also don't think aler would say that anything needs redeeming there's another interpretation that I really like here I read that Catholicism teaches that the fruits themselves were not evil since they were created by God and everything that God created quote was good so it was the disobeying of God to eat the fruit not the eating of the fruits that caused the disorder which is really interesting when we take that idea and apply it to Assassin's Creed and the competing ideologies of the Templars and assassins with regards to order the Assassins will Embrace disorder as the price of Freedom the Assassins would view this consumption of the fruit as a good thing the key to leaving the Gilded cage the Apple itself isn't the problem and that's something that kind of carries over to the fiction of Assassin's Creed this is an artifact that can be put to virtuous use in future games we'll learn that Altier has studied it for decades used its secrets to Aid his Brotherhood if I don't sound very confident in these biblical connections it's because I'm absolutely not I'm not a religious person and I haven't studied religious texts from a historical or literary perspective yet either so it's a fairly substantial blind spot for me I've done my best for this video but it's likely there are a lot of symbols or references that I'm missing here in this game and I'm sure more will come up as we move through the Etso Trilogy Alim has a moderate ly villainous monologue before sending nine assassins after Altier each made to look like one of the targets we killed in game as Altier Cuts them down the illusion is broken and we see the lifeless bodies of his former Brothers it would have been a much more impactful Scene if these bodies stayed on the ground after the fight while we battled with Alim himself as it stands the real bodies fade away and reduced the emotional gut punch of what should be a pretty devastating encounter when the bodies vanish they glow with a light from the Apple maybe we're supposed to understand that even the Assassins under the targets were illusions that none of this was real if that was the case it could be an interesting parallel to the Assassin Templar conflict in this game that when that veneer is removed they're essentially the same and compared to the piece of Eden they're United in their insignificance this could also just be Al MIM tidying up his garden though water features are finicky enough as is without a fellowship of corpses in moist Decay Altier fights his way through these men with relative ease and by now amim has descended down to face Altier himself alair challenges him to a more honorable fight and amim uses the Apple to summon multiple Illusions to support him I think you can end this early by spotting the real one with Eagle Vision but after listening to this oish geriatric prattle on all game I find a dark satisfaction in fighting him so many times now defeated for a second time amim uses the Apple to take hold of alair once more it's very reminisent of the position the two were in at the start of the game again it's like poetry s of they rhyme after two visually interesting but narratively Hollow fights we get what's probably the most important conversation in the game you lied to me called Rob's goal foul and all along it was yours as well I've never been much good at sharing you won't succeed others will find the strength to stand against you and this is why so long as men maintain free will there can be no peace Alim laughs and alair asks why you never made him a thrw like the others W admits that he tried back at the start of this act when we saw him speak to alair with the Apple in hand it didn't work you saw through the illusion illusion illusion that's all it's ever done this Templar treasure this peace of Eden this word of God do you understand now the Red Sea was never parted water never turned to Wine it was not the machinations of Iris that spawned the Trojan War but this Illusions all of them what you plan is no less an illusion to force men to follow you against their will is it any less real than the Phantoms the sarens and Crusaders follow now those Craven Gods who Retreat from this world that men might Slaughter one another in their names they live amongst an illusion already I'm simply giving them another one that demands less blood at least they choose these Phantoms or do do they aside from the occasional convert or heretic it isn't right ah and now logic has left you in its place you Embrace emotion I am disappointed I love where this conversation goes even if I'm not a fan of how we get there if this was going to be where amim ended up it would have been more interesting to see how and why he gets to this position I guess since he was secretly a Templar the whole time apparently this is a version of Peace in all things through control but I just wish we got to see or hear why he abandons his Creed is it really just the temptation of the Apple not being able to resist ending all conflict when that power is within the palm of your hand this final bit of the exchange is my favorite it isn't right ah and now logic has left you in its place you Embrace emotion because yes that's exactly what Altier is doing and I love that he doesn't apologize for it his Creed commands him to be wise and now he's wise enough to understand that despite the nobility of his goal amm's means to achieve it are wrong Free Will is illogical allowing for the possibility of chaos and suffering when you might have the means to prevent it is illogical but when those means involve stripping the human race of Free Will of the chance to choose goodness it just feels wrong sometimes you just have to let go and try your best but accept that things will be messy and as Lucy would say Have Faith part of why I love this conversation that were presenting two incredibly valid outlooks here I am applauding Altair's gut instincts about protecting free will but we've also seen the consequences of an uncheered World William ordered the execution of 3,000 prisoners of War saladine retaliated in kind we've seen women and Scholars and monks harassed by guards in the cities we've seen innocent people killed or victimized by others just because they can back in his Fortress his Decades of training his mind and body ensuring his Perpetual freedom fre it can be so easy for alair to say let's choose the Glorious chaos because it's right that might not be a perspective shared by the soldiers who die by the thousands the scholars who are cut down for wearing white robes in the modern day storyline we've read about a plague annihilating most of the African continent hurricanes ravaging the globe there are real and genuine consequences for fighting against the Templar vision and that's what I find so compelling about this game is that it wants us to think about all of that Altier and Alim cross blades again and this time Altier lands the killing blow you held fire in your hand old man it should have been destroyed destroy the only thing capable of ending the Crusades and creating true peace never then I will we'll see about that Altier won't be able to destroy the Apple Temptation given form as aalim once called it and we know that he is correct that it can be destroyed because centuries in the future Desmond will read in vid's email that it has been it's a huge Cliffhanger on which to leave aler story but leave it we do having seen the map the Apple projects Desmond is pulled from the Animus as a triumphant vitic celebrates his victory with abstergo hups watching from another room we've got the map how many at least half a dozen they want to kill Desmond but Lucy argues that keeping him alive until they have the artifacts is a safer play and they acas as he struts out of the room vidc says we've got a lot of to do don't get too comfortable Mr miles we'll be back for you soon enough as Desmond climbs out of the enemis his vision suddenly changes he's seen the world through Eagle Vision suddenly seeing hidden symbols all around the room panning over to Lucy and vidic reveals that Lucy is colored blue she really is his ally overwhelmed by the sudden power he heads back to his room and that's when a giant wall of symbols and codes is revealed just above his bed the same kind of iconography that's been haunting his dreams all game oh my God it looks like is that blood what the hell were they keeping here before me and what happened to him what does it mean I wonder and that right there is where the credits roll on this unorthodox bombshell of Desmond's New eal Vision in a story about the illusion whether fighting to create a new one or fighting to tear the current one down the fact that the big power Our Heroes have is just Supernatural visual Clarity is so thematically resonant after the credits roll Desmond can wander the room deciphering these symbols and he did in the games of thousands of players in the two years that they waited for Assassin's Creed 2 the Assassin's Creed Wiki has a page that goes over the meaning of each and every one of these messages I'll link it in the description but with two years between releases this was such a bold and interesting way to leave things and cements this game as the start of something big we're going to do the Lost thing we're going to give you a big and Mysterious World with Clues and signs and characters that you talk over with your friends and you read about on the Internet it's doing what great mystery boxes do it's answering some questions and giving us more and it's giving us questions that we can answer ourselves if we're curious enough to go looking for information if we just take this game on its own terms I think it absolutely nails that and while Assassin's Creed 2 is an extremely strong second chapter by the end of Brotherhood the modern day goes off the rails and we never really bother with the train tracks again so if you only want to view Assassin's Creed 1 as the start of what ends up being a sloppy and disappointing story that's absolutely fair but if you can separate it and appreciate it on its own terms it's still quite messy but it's ambitious and it stepped up to the plate and took a ridiculously Grand swing and yeah maybe it resulted in a double and never ended up scoring but ah just look at what it does it Blends history and science fiction and mythology to beautiful effect gives us a set of antagonists whose goals are the literal opposite of the generic chaos and bloodshed and it pushes us to ask ourselves if abstract concepts of choice and goodness are worth killing and dying for so messy though it may be it's hard to not love what this game is trying to do Assassin's Creed is so far from perfect perhaps even a good distance away from being great but I'm compelled to love it anyway because of its sheer audacity it shot for the moon and missed by Miles it often feels too insecure in its premise and undermines both its first half mystery and climactic twist with awkward and clunky writing but somehow back in 2007 in one gigantic bizarre release Ubisoft spawned a universe and behold it was very good with such a sparse and minimalistic approach despite a shocking lack of planning and narrative discipline they somehow created a universe capable of supporting a dozen sequels and spin-offs this game is sloppy this game is heartless it's character is eminently forgettable its arcs more akin to two vague dots separated by 10 hours of repetitive gameplay and dialogue and it somehow barely sticks The Landing despite this I have no idea where this series is going whether in future games or the upcoming television adaptation but Assassin's Creed 1 put down such fervent roots that despite multiple creative missteps this franchise is only growing larger by the day I think my instinct is to be cynical to think that the series's best days are long behind it but who knows maybe we should to quote a certain assassin try and have a little faith oh wait she's not an assassin you see Lucy is a Templar the whole time and that's why Juno possesses Desmond and he has to kill her in the vault and Brotherhood it has nothing to do with how Kristen Bell asked for royalties for her appearance in the games and upcoming sequels and the creative director allegedly kills off her character right after she asked for that reason actually makes total sense in the game you see the Templars called it project siren she was actually working with vidic and just wanted to take Desmond somewhere he would feel save and even though we don't set up this twist with any clue or line of dialogue it's on what happened to you it's on and popping up in here you feel what happened to you you didn't used to be like this what are you talking about you've gotten so much worse it's on and popping

Channel: Duke of Whales

Views: 163,203

Keywords: Assassin's Creed 1, Assassin's Creed, Assassins Creed

Id: 8_zAU_4ZSi4

Length: 122min 16sec (7336 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 01 2023