Those two games are Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Rogue. Both games flip the script in several ways, with Assassin’s Cred Valhalla seemingly set to follow this. Thematically, there’s connections between the three that could easily manifest in the next game.
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Assassin’s Creed: Eivor, Edward Kenway, and Shay Cormac
Generally, the majority of Assassin’s Creed games follow a pattern of the main character already being an Assassin or joining it early. Altair was an assassin having to re-climb the ranks, Ezio joined after the loss of his family, and Connor joins after playing through his childhood. Arno follows this pattern, while the Assassin’s Creed Syndicate characters, Jacob and Evie Frye, begin as Assassin’s. Origins and Odyssey change this significantly, but Bayek is essentially an Assassin early on who establishes the Hidden Ones, while Odyssey doesn’t feature them really.
Edward and Shay are black sheep of the OG games. Edward doesn’t join the brotherhood until the end of the game, although he works closely with the Assassins throughout. Shay, on the other hand, leaves and hunts down his former Assassin brothers. Everything revealed so far about Eivor suggests that he won’t join the Hidden Ones, at least at first. It’s clear that Eivor meets them early, becoming trained in the Hidden Blade, but even the voice actor has suggested that Eivor doesn’t operate under the creed. Eivor and Edward are similar in this way: they work closely with the Assassins from the get-go, yet don’t join for some time. That’s if Eivor ever joins.
Furthermore, despite deep love for their clan, Eivor is described as a “lone wolf.” They are devoted, not scared of death, but prefer to take on the most dangerous and risky tasks alone. If this sounds familiar, this quickly becomes the motif of Shay. Although he later proves his loyalty to the Templar Order, Shay never operates as a true unit. He takes his targets solo, leading his crew of course like Eivor and their clan, but ultimately preferring his own company. Shay, for example, sets off for a journey that eventually takes him to France, where while operating for the Templar Order, he is effectively a “lone wolf.”
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Development, Rogue Symbolism, and AC Valhalla
If Eivor’s viking story set in a world with Hidden Ones sounds familiar to Edward’s pirate story set in a world of Assassins sounds incredibly familiar even by franchise standards, it should. Both games are from Ubisoft Montreal, which is also responsible for Origins, and interestingly enough, the context around Valhalla is incredibly similar to Black Flag. The latter was a cross-gen game on both the Xbox 360/PS3 gen and Xbox One/PS4. It brought then-next gen capabilities to the franchise, with Valhalla set to do so with the Xbox One/PS4 gen to the Xbox Series X/PS5 gen.
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Mechanical similarities aside, Rogue and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla also connect on a thematic level. Shay is adorned with imagery often associated with vikings, and Otso Berg’s vested interested in Shay also relates to Berg’s viking ancestors. In short, there’s small things everywhere in these two games that seemingly connect to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and while it seems simple enough to chalk these up to coincidences or trite similarities, there’s one big reason stuff like this isn’t.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: The Grand Unifying Theory
Narrative designer Darby McDevitt has talked about the series’ “grand unifying theory” in the past and how that connects Assassin’s Creed Valhalla to all past Assassin’s Creed games. From a world-building perspective, this makes a lot of sense as both the Assassin Brotherhood and Templar Order ruminate in contemporary thoughts of the “Illuminati” who manipulate world events from the background, thus connecting several events in history based on this.
And that’s the role the franchise plays in its historical fiction, but Assassin’s Creed Valhalla finds itself in a unique position with this theory. Because of its placement between the BC era games and AD era games, it is the simplest to draw these connections with. Eivor, in Valhalla, meets Hidden Ones, not Assassins. This connects them to the events that started the organization in Origins, and Odyssey’s emphasis on the Isu interpreted as Greek gods seems likely to appear with Norse gods as well. Even if not, Odyssey sets up the modern day story line with Layla Hassan meeting Alexios/Kassandra and facing off with Otso Berg.
But on the other end, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla falls historically closer to the first game than it does Origins and Odyssey, putting it within a few centuries of Altair’s rebirth of the brotherhood. Therefore, it seems likely the corruption that takes place after the Hidden Ones reorganize as the Assassins is likely already fermenting, and through these events, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla connects to the first game. Ezio’s connection to Altair then connects Eivor to Connor, Connor’s revolution connects to Shay Cormac’s dismantling of the brotherhood, and so much more.
In short, a ton of strings can be drawn between the Assassin’s Creed games, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s position on the timeline seems to put it dead center. Some game and events obviously have less connections, but overall, Assassin’s Creed stands as a prime example of not just world building, but lore building.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla releases Holiday 2020 for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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