Forget 'The Last Of Us' — Netflix just announced a 'high-octane thriller' based on the Assassin's Creed franchise
Netflix's first "Assassin's Creed" show will also be a live-action video game adaptation, similar to HBO Max's "The Last Of Us," or Prime Video's hit "Fallout" adaptation.
While it's still early days, we do have a few key details about the show to date, courtesy of announcements shared by Netflix (via Tudum)and Ubisoft. Here's everything we know about Netflix's "Assassin's Creed" series so far.
The big thing to know (besides the fact that anything is happening at all, at least) is that Emmy nominees Roberto Patino ("Westworld," "Sons of Anarchy") and David Wiener ("Halo," "Homecoming") are on hand as series creators, showrunners, and executive producers.
Patino and Wiener have issued a joint statement on the project, which leans on the scope and hints at the thrills we can expect. It reads: "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.
"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, across cultures, across time, and it's about what we stand to lose as a species when those connections break. We've got an amazing team behind us with the folks at Ubisoft and our champions at Netflix, and we're committed to creating something undeniable for fans all over the planet."
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Other than that, we've got a series logline from Netflix. Unfortunately, it doesn't give us any hints at when in the franchise's timeline the show will be set, or which characters may crop up — but it does make the show sound exciting all the same.
"Assassin's Creed is a high-octane thriller centered on the secret war between two shadowy factions — one set on determining mankind's future through control and manipulation, while the other fights to preserve free will. The series follows its characters across pivotal historical events as they battle to shape humanity's destiny."
No casting info has been revealed as yet, nor do we have a release date, but seeing as the show's just been greenlit (and it sounds like it'll be a major production), I doubt we'll be seeing anything from Netflix's Assassin's Creed adaptation anytime soon.
Netflix's track record with video game properties has mostly been pretty solid, with the caveat that the big hits are all animated shows like "Arcane," "Castlevania," or "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners." (I'm not really counting "The Witcher" here, as it draws from Andrzej Sapkowski's books, rather than CD Projekt's RPGs).
The streamer's live-action "Resident Evil" series was a swing and a miss for me, but I'm open to the possibility that "Assassin's Creed" could be a success. Netflix's VP of Scripted Series, Peter Friedlander, sure has talked the forthcoming series up, too.
In the announcement, Friedlander said Netflix and Ubisoft set out with "an ambitious goal to bring the rich, expansive world of Assassin's Creed to life in bold new ways," and goes on to bill the forthcoming show as "an epic adventure that both honors the legacy of the Assassin's Creed franchise and invites longtime fans and newcomers alike to experience the thrill of the Brotherhood as never before."
It's a statement designed to generate hype, but given we've seen so many games make the hop to our screens successfully in recent years, and the fact that the show's been in development for some time already, I'm optimistic that everyone involved has cooked something up that's going to be worth watching.
The way I see it, the "Assassin's Creed" series team certainly has plenty of material at their fingertips. There's loads of lore to be dealt with, and there's still loads of human history yet to get the Assassin's Creed treatment.
Whether or not the series can be a hit like "Fallout" or "The Last Of Us" remains to be seen, but I can't help but see Ubisoft's history-hopping franchise as a potential springboard for success. Yes, even after the Assassin's Creed movie.
Need something to watch while you wait for the live-action "Assassin's Creed" series to arrive? Check out our round-up of the best Netflix shows for tons more streaming recommendations perfect for your watchlist.
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