As Assassin’s Creed Shadows hits, how the series became a multibillion-dollar franchise

From the bazaars of the Holy Land during the Crusades to the snowy Nordic coasts of the Viking period, the Assassin’s Creed video game series has served up a wild ride through time and space. The first game, set during the Crusades, was inspired by Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol’s 1938 novel Alamut. For the latest edition from its publisher Ubisoft, the 14th instalment, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, out on March 20, visits a period fans have long requested: 16th-century feudal Japan. As always in the series, players are encouraged to sneak their way through heavily guarded strongholds to take down high-profile enemies from the shadows, with tools like grappling hooks, smoke bombs and a wrist-mounted dagger. But open conflict can also be a viable option, with swords, bows, martial arts moves and firearms on offer. A frame story common to each game places the player in the shoes of a near-future character unlocking the DNA-encoded memories of their ancestors via a powerful machine. The series was a hit from the start, with the first game selling more than 8 million copies worldwide between its 2007 release and 2009, when the second episode was launched. And the Assassin’s Creed franchise has only become more popular over time. France-based Ubisoft said the 2020 release, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, was the most successful so far in the series, generating revenue of more than €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in a first for the publisher. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla broke new ground in other ways, too. In February 2023, composer Stephanie Economou brought home the series’ first Grammy music industry award for video-game scores for Dawn of Ragnarok, an extension to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The games’ sometimes freewheeling takes on history have not been welcomed by all. Assassin’s Creed Shadows has stoked controversy with playable character Yasuke, a burly black samurai in the service of warlord Oda Nobunaga. Historians agree that a real black man of that name lived in Japan during the period, but his samurai status is hotly contested. The game’s developers have defended their “creative freedom” to imagine the character. In 2014, firebrand French politician Jean-Luc Melenchon accused the makers of Assassin’s Creed Unity of “propaganda against the people” in the episode set during the French Revolution. Ubisoft says it employs “dozens of historians, sociologists and other social science researchers” to keep its history true to life. The Assassin’s Creed saga followed the familiar path of successful video games to the cinema in 2016 with the release of a movie of the same name. While the cast was stellar – with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard leading the line-up – the reviews were less so, and rumours of a big-screen sequel have remained just that. Ubisoft was undaunted, though, and closed a deal with Netflix in 2021 to develop several series based on the franchise. The saga also has spin-off comics and podcasts. In February, Ubisoft promised new content in the Assassin’s Creed universe every year, but without specifying whether that would be games or other media. A masked hero figure somersaulting across the rooftops of the French capital bearing the Olympic torch was a common thread linking together vignettes in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in summer 2024. The ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, said this month that the character was directly inspired by Assassin’s Creed Unity. “I love video games and I love Assassin’s Creed,” he said during a podcast recorded at Ubisoft’s headquarters. Jolly said Arno, the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed Unity, could stand alongside historical French pop-culture favourites like “gentleman thief” Arsène Lupin. Following the devastating 2019 fire at Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, Ubisoft made Assassin’s Creed Unity free for a week on PC to allow players to explore the incredibly detailed recreation of the building within the game. Several million took up the offer.

As Assassin’s Creed Shadows hits, how the series became a multibillion-dollar franchise

With new game Assassin’s Creed Shadows out on March 20, we look back at the rise of the historical action-adventure series