From Game to Screen: Assassin’s Creed Gets a TV Adaptation

Streaming giant Netflix has given the green light to a live-action Assassin’s Creed TV series. The Assassin’s Creed series of video games has been in development for years, with a deal struck in 2020, but as of recently, the series’ development has been stalled. Now it looks like the Assassin’s Creed TV series is going to come to fruition.

We now know that Netflix has added showrunners Roberto Patino and David Wiener to lead the series. Wiener has worked on shows like HBO’s Westworld and is the showrunner on Paramount+’s Halo adaptation. Roberto Patino, who previously wrote for FX’s Sons of Anarchy, has joined Wiener to lead the series for Netflix. In a joint statement, the two showrunners expressed their excitement about the series and its potential.

“We’ve been fans of Assassin’s Creed since its release in 2007. Every day we work on this show, we come away excited and humbled by the possibilities that Assassin’s Creed opens to us,” the pair said. “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.”

Patino and Wiener were also quick to shout out Ubisoft and Netflix for their help and support in making the series the best it can be, while also emphasizing their dedication to Assassin’s Creed fans. “We are in the process of assembling an amazing team to bring the show to life and can’t wait to see what we dream up together,” the pair said. “We know fans will hold this show to a high standard, and we plan to build something undeniable for fans all over the planet.”

Assassin’s Creed is a Franchise with Deep Lore and Endless Possibilities

The Assassin’s Creed series is a favorite among gamers, but outside of playing Ezio Auditore and assassinating some seriously high-profile targets in Renaissance Italy, many non-players haven’t had a chance to dive into the deep, historical lore of the series. The franchise began as a social stealth action game that was released in 2007 and set during the Crusades. Over the next several years, Ubisoft would release a handful of games that all followed a similar formula, but it wasn’t until the trilogy of Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations that the series truly found its footing. Set in Renaissance Italy, players were introduced to the main character, Ezio Auditore, and saw the start of a game series that mixed modern storytelling and gameplay with some of the biggest questions and conspiracies in Western history.

The action, stealth, and RPG-style combat in these games made them some of the most successful of all time, while also expanding a fanbase that’s still dedicated over a decade later. Since then, Ubisoft has released 13 other games that continue the storylines and gameplay of the main franchise. These games have become less focused on stealth and taken on more of an open-world RPG style that has since been successful across the world of Assassin’s Creed. The places and periods they’ve covered since the early days have included the American Revolution, the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean, Revolutionary Paris, Victorian London, Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece, Viking-age Britain, and most recently, Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.

Ubisoft’s latest game in the series, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, was released to positive reviews this past October, and it was praised for cleaning up and streamlining the Assassin’s Creed series’ more modern RPG style. It also took players to a new setting, feudal Japan, that has long been in demand from fans. The game was also well-received in no small part because Ubisoft decided to delay the game by almost a year to make sure it hit a higher quality mark. We’ll just have to see if Netflix follows their lead when it comes to the quality of its Assassin’s Creed series.

Here’s What We Know About the Live-Action Series

As of right now, we know very little about the Netflix Assassin’s Creed TV series, but given that the main thread of the games has always been the secret millennia-spanning war between Assassins and Templars, the network’s series will likely focus on a similar premise. Assassin’s Creed protagonists have always taken the place of the Animus, a sci-fi device that uses people’s DNA to put them into the genetic memories of their ancestors. As a result, the games are always set during a historical period of some sort and have a story that is woven in with real events.

Actors have not yet been cast for the show, and story details are still to be worked out. Since the Michael Fassbender Assassin’s Creed film in 2016 opted to focus on a new character rather than the core AC game series, we can assume that this Netflix series will likely do the same. However, since the last Assassin’s Creed game was already teased during one of the final missions of that film, Netflix may have to reference that series or do some other kind of lore or canon connection. The first film wasn’t a smash hit with audiences, though it was a mild financial success and got a B+ on Rotten Tomatoes. We’ll just have to wait and see if the Netflix series plans to acknowledge that game or film’s existence at all.

As with the recent rash of other adaptations of video game worlds, the success of Netflix’s series will be directly dependent on the network’s ability to make the show as lore-rich and engrossing as possible. But with Netflix currently having big-name showrunners in Patino and Wiener, along with a massive and popular title and a rich lore to work with, we’re feeling positive about this new series.

Can Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed Series Succeed?

Game-to-screen adaptations have become more mainstream and more common. Netflix itself had some success with the high-budget, high-fantasy series The Witcher, while its streaming rival HBO recently released The Last of Us to high-profile success. While we aren’t sure that we’ll be seeing a high-quality Netflix Assassin’s Creed adaptation on our screens, if it can make it to air, then we think it will have a chance at real success.

For now, we’ll have to wait and see if more news is revealed as Netflix, Ubisoft, and the rest of the team behind the series get to work. If this all does come to pass, we might just have another high-fantasy hit on our hands.