Templars vs Assassins: A Tale as Old as Civilization

Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed video game series is one of the best-known and most prolific series in the gaming world. Now, for the first time, the modern historical fantasy franchise will get its television adaptation. Netflix greenlit a live-action adaptation of Assassin’s Creed in 2022. The project’s approval is just the latest step in what has been a complicated development path that began at least as far back as 2020.

Netflix confirmed the order after a number of high-level personnel changes to the project’s development in the years leading up to its production. Now the series has finally found its showrunners: Roberto Patino and David Wiener will be bringing Assassin’s Creed to the small screen. Patino has worked as a writer for a number of high-profile shows, including Sons of Anarchy and Westworld; Wiener has worked on a number of adaptations of video game franchises, including the upcoming Halo on Paramount+ and Fear the Walking Dead on AMC.

Patino and Wiener released a joint statement through Netflix on the news of the order. In it, they both said that they were “fans of Assassin’s Creed from its original release in 2007” and expressed their passion for the narrative and character potential that the series has to offer.

“We come away every day excited and humbled by the possibilities that Assassin’s Creed opens to us,” they wrote. “Beneath the scope, the spectacle, the parkour and the thrills is a baseline for the most essential kind of human story—about people searching for purpose, struggling with questions of identity and destiny and faith. It is about power and violence and sex and greed and vengeance. But more than anything, this is a show about the value of human connection, transcending cultures and time. And it’s about what we stand to lose as a species when those connections break.”

They also said that they were working closely with Ubisoft and Netflix to ensure that they could “bring to the screen the best possible version of Assassin’s Creed”, citing an “amazing” production team and promising an adaptation that “fans all over the planet will find undeniable.”

Assassin’s Creed: A History in Development and World-Building

The Assassin’s Creed series has been developing its own rich and long-running story since it was first released in 2007. The series began life as a third-person action-adventure “social stealth” game focused on the Assassins, a group of historical warriors with a secret mission to protect the human race. This first game focused on the time of the Crusades and placed players directly in the path of Templars, a group of Knights Templar caught up in a similar mission.

The Renaissance Italy trilogy of Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations truly solidified the Assassin’s Creed series and is to this day beloved by fans. The story of Ezio Auditore, his involvement with the Assassin’s Brotherhood, and the supporting cast have remained some of the most popular video game characters, blending history, fantasy, action, and mythology.

In the 18 years since Assassin’s Creed II, there have been 14 Assassin’s Creed mainline titles. The series has moved away from its “stealth” mechanics and focused on the development of an open-world RPG. Historically, the setting for these games has shifted wildly from the American Revolution to the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean to Revolutionary Paris and Victorian London to Ancient Egypt to Classical Greece to Viking-era Britain to, most recently, a setting in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, released in 2023, made good on a long-standing fan request by setting the game in feudal Japan. It has also been critically acclaimed for finessing the RPG style found in the more recent Assassin’s Creed games while still giving fans the nostalgia of the core aspects of the series that they love. Ubisoft has also received praise from fans for its willingness to delay game releases when needed, in the interest of creating a better-quality game. Netflix would do well to take note if they want to make a hit show of their own.

Series Premise: The Plot Points So Far

Assassin’s Creed is one of those game series where only the broad strokes of the game have been publicly released so far. Fans already know that it will follow the centuries-long conflict between the Assassins and the Templars, two factions that have been at war over the human race’s future. The modern-day portion of the games usually features modern-day characters that use a genetic memory reliving machine called the Animus to experience the memories of their ancestors and uncover secrets of the human race and themselves in the process.

Both the team of showrunners and the animation team have yet to be cast. One of the big questions that remains is whether or not the Netflix series will focus on existing Assassin’s Creed characters from the games or create its own from scratch. Given that 2016’s Assassin’s Creed movie starring Michael Fassbender took the liberty to diverge from the existing characters and create its narrative path, there is a strong possibility that the series will diverge as well. That film received mixed reviews, but was still a minor box office success, though it is unlikely that Netflix’s series will acknowledge its existence at all.

There is a rapidly growing trend for high-budget adaptations of video game universes. With HBO’s massive success with The Last of Us, both for its faithfulness to the source material and its emotional heft, it’s no surprise that Netflix wanted to get in on the game. Netflix’s own Witcher franchise has been a relative success despite some creative missteps, and the Assassin’s Creed series has everything it needs to rise above. Assassin’s Creed’s newest game has been a critical success by taking its time and perfecting the gameplay, something that Netflix can only hope to take note of as the series itself heads into development.

Netflix seems to be doing everything right for this project, if the team of showrunners is any indication. A brand like Assassin’s Creed is recognizable across the globe, and given time and care, its deep lore can be spun into a television epic. Time will tell if Assassin’s Creed can break the mold of middling video game adaptations and create something that both fans and viewers love.