Claiming greater than 230 million gamers worldwide and with a star-studded spin-off film and Grammy Award beneath its belt, “Murderer’s Creed” has turn into a online game juggernaut since its 2007 launch.
As followers await Thursday’s launch of the most recent version, “Murderer’s Creed Shadows,” AFP takes inventory of the sport’s distinctive journey.
Historical past of violence
From the bazaars of the Holy Land within the period of the Crusades to the snowy Nordic coasts of the Viking interval, the “Murderer’s Creed” collection has served up a wild experience via time and area.
The primary sport, set in the course of the Crusades, was impressed by Slovenian author Vladimir Bartol’s 1938 novel “Alamut.”
For the most recent version from its writer Ubisoft, the 14th installment visits a interval followers have lengthy requested: Sixteenth-century feudal Japan.
As at all times within the collection, gamers are inspired to sneak their approach via closely guarded strongholds to take down high-profile enemies from the shadows, with instruments like grappling hooks, smoke bombs and a wrist-mounted dagger.
However open battle will also be a viable possibility, with swords, bows, martial arts strikes and firearms on provide.
A body story widespread to every sport locations the participant within the footwear of a near-future character unlocking the DNA-encoded reminiscences of their ancestors through a robust machine, that means the probabilities for mayhem span the centuries.
Speedy jackpot
The collection was successful from the beginning, with the primary sport promoting greater than eight million copies worldwide between its 2007 launch and 2009, when the second episode was launched.
And the longer it has gone on, the extra widespread it has turn into.
France-based Ubisoft mentioned the 2020 launch “Valhalla” was essentially the most profitable thus far within the collection, producing income of a couple of billion euros ($1.1 billion at at this time’s charges) in a primary for the writer.
“Valhalla” broke new floor in different methods too.
In February 2023, composer Stephanie Economou introduced residence the collection’ first Grammy music business award for online game scores for “Daybreak of Ragnarok,” an extension to “Valhalla.”
Quick and free?
The video games’ generally free-wheeling takes on historical past have not often been universally welcomed.
“Shadows” has stoked controversy with playable character Yasuke, a burly black samurai within the service of warlord Oda Nobunaga.
Historians agree that an actual black man of that title lived in Japan in the course of the interval, however his samurai standing is hotly contested together with on social media.
The sport’s builders have defended their “artistic freedom” to think about the character.
In 2014, French leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon accused the makers of “Murderer’s Creed Unity” of “propaganda in opposition to the folks” within the episode set in the course of the French Revolution.
Ubisoft says it employs “dozens of historians, sociologists and different social science researchers” to maintain its historical past true to life.
Starry solid, one-star evaluations
The “Murderer’s Creed” saga adopted the acquainted path of profitable video video games into the cinema in 2016 with the discharge of a film of the identical title.
Whereas the solid was stellar—with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard main the line-up—the evaluations have been much less so, and rumors of a big-screen sequel have remained simply that.
Ubisoft was undaunted although, and closed a cope with Netflix in 2021 to develop a number of collection based mostly on the franchise.
The saga additionally has spin-off comics and podcasts.
Ubisoft final month promised new content material within the “Murderer’s Creed” universe yearly, however with out specifying whether or not that may be video games or different kinds.
Olympic highlight
A masked hero determine somersaulting throughout the rooftops of the French capital bearing the Olympic torch was a standard thread linking collectively vignettes within the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in summer season 2024.
The ceremonies’ creative director Thomas Jolly mentioned this month that the character was straight impressed by “Unity.”
“I like video video games and I like Murderer’s Creed,” he mentioned throughout a podcast recorded at Ubisoft’s headquarters.
Jolly mentioned Arno, the protagonist of “Unity,” might stand alongside historic French popular culture favorites like “gentleman thief” Arsene Lupin.
Following the devastating 2019 hearth at Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, Ubisoft made “Unity” free for every week on PC to permit gamers to discover the extremely detailed recreation of the constructing inside the sport.
A number of million took them up on the provide.
© 2025 AFP
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