The Assassins were a group of Syrian killers who took out key targets among the European invaders. It would take a whole history book to give a thorough account of these two organizations, but Assassin’s Creed got the basics right on both counts. Instead, the game was about a very real event, The Third Crusade, and two very real organizations that fought in it: the Order of Assassins and the Knights Templar. The main character, Altaïr, actually had very little in the way of a “personal” narrative or goal to achieve. What made Assassin’s Creed interesting, though, is that you weren’t just playing out a totally fictional story. And, love it or hate it, you have to admire its focus. With the exception of a few boss fights, that was the whole game. Then, you’d plan your attack, dispatch the target, watch a long, expository cutscene where the target explains his or her motives in painstaking detail (that part hasn’t changed, at least) and make a getaway. The more of them you did, the better your resources for the assassination would be. The side missions helped you gather intel about the target. Open combat was still present, but stealth was the main focus here.Įvery single activity in the game was in service of these assassinations: Climbing Eagle Towers and syncing your viewpoint revealed side missions. The game’s premise was exceedingly simple: The game was split into seven “Memory Blocks.” In each block, you’d explore part of a city, complete a few side missions, then plan and execute the perfect assassination of a high-profile target. Unlike Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla, which are about traversing huge worlds and completing varied side missions along the way, the first AC was laser-focused, and sparse in its mission variety. But the game’s structure was (and still is) a point of contention.
Almost everyone praised its inventive concept, tight parkour and lush graphics. From the beginning, fans and critics were split on Assassin’s Creed.