Exploring Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla’s Sense of Time and Geography — Part 1
The Assassin’s Creed series is much maligned within the video game industry, the video game press and, quite often, by its own fans. Ubisoft, the developers and publishers of the series, had a somewhat surprising hit on their hands with the original Assassin’s Creed, released on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC back in 2007. A game that called back to the legendary, and historically significant in terms of video game development, Prince of Persia series, the original AC game, while not the first game in history to do this, offered an alternative open world experience to those from most in video game in that it was attempting to create a realistic world — rather than a created fantasy world.
A follow up, Assassin’s Creed II, was released 2009 to critical acclaim and is often regarded as one of the best video game ever made. And yet, this caused a problem. Like any creative media franchise whose IP is owned by a big organisation with shareholders and accountants, the series started to be milked by Ubisoft. Books, comics, mobile games, spin offs and a feature film staring Michael Fassbender were all added to what had now become the Assassin’s Creed “Franchise” — a term that will cause anyone who’s beloved film, book or game has been turned into one to shudder.
The games themselves started to be churned out in a factory farm style, leading the series to be criticised by many for not keeping up with the trend in video games to keep games emotional, creative and tight.
Since the relatively well received Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the games have soft-rebooted themselves as RPGs, with leveling systems, item upgrades etc — instead of the original open world action genre flavour of the original games. Whether this was the right turn for the series to make is still up for debate. With Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us 2 and many others of the PS4/Xbox One generation setting a completely new standard for the artistic and emotional value that video games provide, many are still critical of the series’ lack of originality and creative punch. While critical acclaim has come from the last three games in the series since Odyssey from the big review sites (IGN, Gamespot etc), user, YouTube and smaller site reviews have been less generous, inevitably leading to accusations of Ubisoft’s massive marketing budgets influencing these reviews and then that leading to the general bin fire that is “gamers” trying to debate online (especially when considering the the online angry “gamers’” kryptonite, lootboxes, exist within these new AC games).
In reality, the games are solidly made, offer an interesting-ish story (even if the “modern world” story part of the AC universe started to wear thin several games ago), lots of stuff to do, great graphics and a nice combat system. Unfortunately, as a result of the demands the executives at Ubisoft no doubt place on the devs and the general modern world, both Origins and Odyssey (Odyssey in particular) both still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were unnecessarily rushed and bloated. Unlike the aforementioned Red Dead Redemption 2, where Rockstar’s Sam and Dan Houser clearly exerted total creative sign off and control over the entire game (thus keeping everything in the game as right and “perfect” as possible — even, allegedly to the detriment of Rockstar’s workforce), the latest AC games suffer from “creative control by committee” and just lack that final weight of creative flourish that all the best pieces of art have when only coming from the mind of one or two people. This isn’t necessarily the horrendous thing that some online angry “gamers” may make out (many of whom seem to take this as some sort of personal slight for some reason), but it does mean that any considered purchase of a new Assassin’s Creed title must have tapered expectation. If you think you will like it, then you will. If you think you won’t you won’t. And if you are not sure, then it’s probably best to wait it out for it out for the price to get a bit cheaper, or if you have a week off work and you want something new to play.
As such, yet again I promised myself I wouldn’t buy the new Assassin’s Creed title, and yet again I’ve gone and bought it.
It’s a battle many might have with the new FIFA game each year. Each year I say to myself “it’s just going to be the same as last year. They won’t have made any meaningful upgrades. Don’t give your money to EA.” And yet, just like FIFA, with its accurate representation of Carrow Road and photorealistic Norwich City players, the Assassin’s Creed series has a habit of touching me somewhat on a personal level which makes it impossible for me to ignore.
As a massive history nerd, I get an enormous kick out of exploring the Assassin’s Creed series’ depictions of history — from Ptolemaic Egypt in Assassin’s Creed Origins, Ancient Greece in Odyssey through the Levant during the Third Crusade of the original game and Renaissance of AC:II, right up to Victorian London of Syndicate. While not necessarily historically accurate, it’s undeniable that all of them capture the feel of the historical time periods they are depicting. As we are all fascinated with “how things really actually did look” (otherwise there’d be no need for the artistic conception drawings at the museum), it could probably be said that the AC series has the best historical depictions of its locations in popular culture. In Origins, Ubisoft realised this themselves — making an exploration, educational mode with virtual tour guides walking the viewer through their created world. This mode, replicated in Odyssey, is excellent, and for anyone wanting to teach children about these particular parts of history I couldn’t think of anyway better to do it.
I also, perhaps as a result of playing the first two AC games (along with many others), definitely find myself in the camp of video game players who prefer realistic environments to fantasy ones. As someone who has always spotted the small details with mundane things, I very much enjoy seeing someone replicate this in a video game. Whereas I most often look to find this in sports games (all of which now simulate every detail of what they are depicting) The Hitman series is, in my opinion, the absolute masterpiece series of doing this. Every environment hits you with tiny minutiae of the mundane that wraps you in the world it is depicting. Signs that display which credit cards are accepted at shops, the way bathrooms are laid out, street furniture, the normal clothes that people are wearing. Everything is done for realistic, call-back effect. That flash of recognition in your brain. Not for the “sense of wonder” effect that most other games would strive for.
Wanting this from video games, however, places me in the minority of what people want from games. As most people playing video games look to find a sense of escapism from their games, and the realities supply and demand takeover, the last five years or so have seen fantasy worlds come back in vogue. Games for Nintendo consoles usually follow this path, and it is one of the main reason I often struggle to get on with Nintendo developed games. The world of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was, for example, critically and user acclaimed. Yet I found this world boring and dull. With its art style being completely “of another world”, and nothing to compare to real life, I just couldn’t find the same sense of wonder that I would from, say, finding the Parthenon in AC:Odyssey or climbing to the top of the Empire State Building in Spider-Man or, even, walking through the fictional, but relatable (from films, TV shows, photographs etc), swamps surrounding Saint Denis in Red Dead Redemption 2. Fortunately, the Assassin’s Creed series will almost always be there to pick to pick up on some of the slack on this.
Part Two to follow…
