the appeal of the creed: how assassin's creed works as an interactive narrative
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ICS 60 Research PaperTRANSCRIPT
The Appeal of The Creed:
How Assassin’s Creed Works as an Interactive
Narrative
Tovya Gibson,
University of California Irvine
2012
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Abstract
Assassin’s Creed is a unique historical game that takes the player not only to
different lands, that they may not have visited, but it also takes the player to different
times in history. The game has a fairly large fan base that have not only created
machinima of the game but have also taken the game out of the virtual world and
implemented it into the real world. As a fan of the Assassin’s Creed series myself, I
wanted to research what aspects of the game caused other fans and players of the series to
enjoy the games as much as they do. There are many games in the series but I will be
focusing on the main games, Assassin’s Creed (2007), Assassin’s Creed II (2009),
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (2010), Assassin’s Creed Revelations (2011), and
Assassin’s Creed III (2012).
Introduction
Figure 1. Animus (Assassin’s Creed) Figure 2. Animus 2.0 (Assassin’s Creed II)
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To start off this section, I will first give the back-story for the concept of the
series, which I found in the essay, “Assassin’s Creed: A Multi-Cultural Read” and in
Ismailis in Medieval Muslim Societies. The Assassin’s Creed game is based on the
myth of the Hashashin (El-Nasr et al. 2008) although the game itself is fictitious.
Back Story
In 1090, Hasan1 had seized the mountain fortress of Alamut2 in Northern Persia,
signaling the foundation of what was to become known as the Nizari Ismaili State, with
its territories and networks of mountain fortresses in different parts of Persia and Syria…
the Ismailis of Persia were under the overall leadership of Hasan-i Sabbah. Hasan
designed a strategy to overwhelm the Solijuqs locality by locality and from a multitude of
impregnable strongholds. Hasan’s adoption of assassination as an auxiliary technique for
achieving military and political objectives, too, was a response to the decentralized
pattern of Solijuq power. Hasan assigned limited and measured role within his overall
military strategy to the selective removal of prominent adversaries. Almost every
assassination was attributed to the Nizari Ismailis. The actual missions were carried out
by the fidalis3 and the missions, normally conducted in public places, were daring acts
with intimidating effects. The fida’is often waited for long periods before they could find
a suitable opportunity to accomplish their mission (Daftary 149-150).
The Game
1 Hasan-i Sabbah (d. 1124)- a remarkable Ismaili da’i (scholars and authors of their
community (Daftary 28)) who was already following an independent revolutionary policy
against the Soljuq Turks…(Daftary 149)2 Served as the headquarters of the Nizari Ismaili da’wa state. (Daftary 149)3 Devotees who volunteered for self-sacrificing missions
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Ubisoft Montreal developed the Assassin’s Creed series. The main games in the
series follows the story of Desmond Miles, a local bartender and son of assassins, who
goes back in time and relives his ancestors’ memories. The main antagonist throughout
the series is Templars who are in control of the most powerful corporation, Abstergo. In
the first game, Abstergo kidnapped Desmond to gain information from his ancestor,
Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad, on the location of the Apple of Eden, which was an artifact that has
great power and would allow the Templars to control the world. Desmond is able to relive
his ancestors’ memories by entering into a device called the Animus (Figures 1 & 2). This
game takes place in 1191 A.D. around the time of the Third Crusade. In the game
Assassin’s Creed II, Desmond relives the memories of his ancestor Ezio Auditore and
through what the characters in the game call the bleeding effect, Desmond learns to
become and assassin at the same time as Ezio. This game takes place around 1476 in Italy
during the Italian Renaissance period. You continue to play as Ezio in AC: Brotherhood,
which takes place in Rome, and AC: Revelations, which takes place in Constantinople
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(Istanbul). The most recent game ACIII takes place during the American Revolution
where you play as Connor Kenway.
Method
I began my research by accessing the Ubisoft forums. I specifically went to the
Assassin’s Creed General Discussion forum and asked that whoever was willing to help
me with my research to post why they like the Assassin’s Creed games. I chose to start
my research this way because I felt that the best way to answer the question of why
people like Assassin’s Creed was to ask the players themselves. After I received feedback
from the forum, I started to search for information pertaining to the games. I found the
most resources from the academic essay “Assassin’s Creed: A Multi-Cultural Read.” I
also read a few articles in two Game Informer magazines that had to do with the series
and one article that was also helpful that looked at why we play games. The last thing I
did was spend a little time looking for historical architecture in the game to compare with
images I found online and in both Ching and Willey’s books. I wanted to check how
accurate the renderings in the game were to the real life buildings and landmarks.
Findings
Why do we play video games? Ben Reeves stated in his article that the reason we
play is because games fulfill several real-world human needs. Reeves interviewed Scott
Rigby4 and “according to Rigby, Immersyve’s complex needs-satisfaction metrics narrow
down to three basic categories (Reeves 2012).”
1. A need for competence
4 Ph.D. in clinical and social psychology from university of Rochester, helped found
Immersyve, a research company designed to examine basic human needs and discover
what makes videogames so appealing.
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2. A need for autonomy
3. Relatedness
According to Meadows, “An interactive narrative is a time- based representation
of character and action in which a reader can affect, choose, or change the plot. The first-,
second-, or third-person characters may actually be the reader…interactivity5 fractures
the perspectives of the individual author, places new perspectives in the hands of the
readers, and accommodates a relationship between reading and writing” (Meadows 62).
Meadows stated that interactivity requires rule sets and constraints in order to function
smoothly. Interactivity has three principles of interaction:
1. Input/ Output
2. Inside/ Outside
3. Open/ Closed
Interaction can also be broken down into four steps, which according to Meadows, if the
interaction is done well, generates an increased interest in further information.
1. Observation
2. Exploration
3. Modification
4. Reciprocal Change
Discussion
A Need for Competence6
5 Interactivity is a continuing increase in participation (Meadows 37)6 A need for competence is “a desire to seek out control or to feel mastery over a situation” (Reeves 2012).
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Reeves described this as accomplishing something or in terms of games, leveling
up and gaining achievements.
In the first Assassin’s Creed game, the main goal was to kill the targets to regain
your weapons and rank as an assassin. In a way the point of the first game was to level
up. The killing of the target could be considered an achievement that continues
throughout the series. There was also the option to explore the assassin’s tombs (ACII)
and the hideout of the followers of Romulus (AC: Brotherhood) to gain treasure or
complete main and side missions with 100%. What satisfies this category in regard to
Assassin’s Creed varies from player to player. Of the three categories, the second is one
of the most important reasons as to why this series is so enjoyable.
Need for Autonomy7
7 “The desire to feel independent or have a certain amount of control over our action…”(Reeves 2012)
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(Figure 3 from Ubisoft Official Assassin’s Creed Forum)
The need for autonomy can be satisfied by any game that gives you many
options. Although you do have specific targets in Assassin’s Creed, you do have many
options regarding how you assassinate them, stealthy vs. out in the open, and also when
you want to carry out your assassination. There is not set time for when you have to carry
out these missions. I learned from the forums that the players do have to control over the
development of the game. ProdiGurl stated in the forum that they liked that the game has
“Devs that listen to fan input and act on it.” I did notice that the developers had feedback
sub-topics in the Assassin’s Creed forum and they took polls on what worked in the game
(see Figure 3). Matt Miller also refers to the developers acting on this input in his article
“Assassin’s Creed III: The Assassins rise to the top,” which was the E3 coverage of
Assassin’s Creed III. Miller states “For sheer wow factor, it was a hard game to beat,
making good on promises to improve combat, expand the sandbox of navigation, and
flush out a new protagonist ” (Miller 2012). Players also have the option of how they
choose to get to their destination, be it jumping from rooftop to rooftop, walking on the
streets or riding a horse.
In this sense, players like the freedom you get in the game. Although you do have
a lot of freedom in the game, there are subtle rules. One example is that there are certain
areas that are blocked off because you can not yet access the memory. The main rules are
stated in the first game as the assassin’s creed:
1. Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent (don’t kill civilians)
2. Hide in plain sight
3. Never compromise the brotherhood
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A friend stated, when asked what she liked about the game, “I like the amount of
options you have in the game and that video game logic. Disappearing and being out of
sight by casually talking with people” (Aliza Le) (Figure 4). Although there are rules, the
only punishment you could suffer would be drawing the attention of the guards or risking
destabilization8. Some tend to ignore the first rule of the creed and get joy from “subtly
shanking passersby” (JK).
(Figure 4 Assassin’s Creed Screenshot)
Relatedness9
“We like to feel like we matter to others, and we like to feel like we are making a
significant contribution to society” (Reeves). This in game world can be considered a
society that we are contributing to. Players could feel as though they are contributing in
Assassin’s Creed through the assassination of supposedly horribly people for the benefit
of society.
8 this is when you lose the memory and start over from your last save point. This is usually a result of dying or entering a space that is not part of the current memory.9 Can be fulfilled through players interacting with friends online and also with in game characters. (Reeves 2012).
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As an Interactive Narrative, Assassin’s Creed follows the principles of
interactivity and steps of interaction in a way that causes the games to “generate an
increased interest in further information” (Meadows 44).
1. Input/ Output10
“Input should create output and output should create input…the response time
between the input and the output should be quick enough for the user to have a clear
sense of what change he is affecting on the system” (Meadows 39). This relates to the
gameplay and a good example would be the counter attacks in the game. The player gets
instant feedback if they successfully completed the counter attack.
2. Inside/ Outside11
3. Open/ Closed12
10 Ability to control the input should be present…the input should facilitate more input. Input should provide the user with a new capability. As this happens the line between stimulus and response thins and the depth of immersion increases (Meadows 39). 11 A dialogue should be created between the internal and external or “inside-the-skull” and “outside-the-skull interactivity.” Inside-the-skull interactivity is a process of extending what the user already knows. Outside-the-skull interactivity is based on what we are experiencing on an empirical, or experiential, level.” (Meadows 40)12 The system should get better the more it’s used (Meadows 43).
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The best way to relate this to the game is that once you learn the basic controls it
becomes easier to play. The controls stay the same throughout the series, depending on
the system you play on. Assassin’s Creed compared to Mirror’s Edge, a game that also
includes free running, has simpler controls.
1. Observation, Exploration13, Modification14, and Reciprocal Change15
The reader (player) makes an assessment… a kind of awareness of first-level
options is necessary, the reader (player) finds out what he or she can and can’t do, leap
from unintentional discovery to conscious change, the system changes the reader’s
actions. These all apply to the game as a whole. The player observes and explores what
they can and cannot climb. After they figure out what they can climb the player figures
out how to climb certain buildings.
Other Factors
13 First-level options might include the identification of things like buttons or levers or stairs. (Meadow 44)14 The reader changes the system. The reader bridges context to decision.15 “The system tries to change the reader…the system changes the reader’s actions” (Meadow 45).
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The other factor that I noticed, based on the response in the forum, is that players
liked the historical aspect of the game and the Assassin concept:
“Love the whole Assassin concept-that it wasn’t done cheaply or cliché, that you can
travel back in time to differnet eras & important/ historic events as your backdrop, Historic
realism, that there’s an assassin lineage, attention to detail, combat/ weaponry revolves around
different time periods (ProdiGurl)”
“I like the History intorgrated into both the fiction and sci-fi…(Scooper121s)”
The other aspects of the game that I think the main reason players liked the game
was the free running and storyline.
“I love the compelling story lines… What other game can you scale buildings (and most
recently trees) what other game introduces ‘free-running’…(Scooper121s)”
“more depth of story-line &plot (ProdiGurl)”
“My favorite thing about Assassin’s Creed is the freedom of movement both on the
horizontal and the vertical…Practically everything is climbable and you’ll probably want to
climb it. This is hugely important part of Assassin’s Creed for me because it made backtracking
and exploring less tedious mainly because it’s fun to just free run. That’s on of the thing I didn’t
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like about GTA or Saint’s Row because you’re kind of limited in the way you move, sure you can
get a helicopter or something but the game was designed more to be on the ground you know?
(R.T-Shanks)”
Conclusion
In conclusion, the reason that Assassin’s Creed is so enjoyable is because the
game works very well as an interactive narrative. Not only does it work as an interactive
narrative and generate an increased interest in further interaction, but also the Assassin’s
Creed series satisfies the three basic human needs: a need for competence, a need for
autonomy, and relatedness. This reason can be applied to all games. The free running and
historical realism are also main reasons.
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Resources
Ching, Francis. Architecture: form, space & order. New York: John Wiley & Sons
Inc., 1996. Print.
Daftary, Farhad. Ismailis in Medieval Muslim Societies. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd,
2005. Print.
El-Nasr, Magy Seif, Al-Saati, Maha, Niedenthal, Simon, Milam, David. “Assassin’s
Creed: A Multi-Cultural Read.” 2008. 1-32. Print. PDF File
Meadows, Mark Stephen. Pause and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative.
Indianapolis: New Riders, 2003. Print.
Miller, Matt. “10 Cool Features You Don’t Know About Assassin’s Creed III.” Game
Informer. Nov. 2012: 92-5. Print.
Miller, Matt. “Assassin’s Creed III.” Game Informer. Aug. 2012: 39-40. Print.
Reeves, Ben. “Why We Play: How our desire for games shapes our world.” Game
Informer. Nov. 2012: 92-5. Print.
Willey, Peter. Eagle’s Nest: Ismaili Castles in Iran and Syria. London: I.B. Tauris & Co
Ltd, 2005. Print.
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