Why the Assassin’s Creed Series Needs More Than Nostalgia

Netflix has officially greenlit the live-action Assassin’s Creed series that’s been in development hell for what feels like an eternity. First announced back in at least 2020, this adaptation of Ubisoft’s popular video game franchise has undergone a number of creative changes before the streaming giant has now given the series the go-ahead.

A new live-action Assassin’s Creed TV series is officially on its way to Netflix.

Netflix has since officially announced the series is now greenlit, and two showrunners have been attached. Roberto Patino and David Wiener will be handling show-running duties for the series. Patino was a writer for FX’s Sons of Anarchy and HBO’s Westworld, while Wiener is a showrunner on Paramount+’s Halo adaptation as well as AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead.

Netflix confirmed the series is officially greenlit and announced the showrunners in a joint statement, which you can read below:

“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, transcending cultures and time. And it’s about what we stand to lose as a species when those connections break. We’re working closely with Ubisoft and Netflix to build this thing the right way and to bring the best possible version of Assassin’s Creed to life. The production team is amazing, and the IP is undeniable for fans all over the planet.”

What Is Assassin’s Creed?

Assassin’s Creed is a massively popular, 15-year-old video game series from Ubisoft that has seen 14 mainline releases. The first game in the series was originally a “social stealth” action game based on the fictional Assassin-Templar conflict during the historical period of the Crusades. It quickly expanded from its stealth roots into a more open-world RPG in later years and has had several different periods and settings, including the recent Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ historical setting of the Islamic Golden Age in Baghdad, as well as Renaissance Italy, the Caribbean and the Golden Age of Piracy, Revolutionary Paris and London, Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece, Viking Britain, and more.

In the series, two secret factions—The Assassins and The Templars—battle for the future of the human race. In a major part of the game’s premise, modern-day characters are placed in the Animus, a virtual reality machine that accesses genetic memories and ancestors’ pasts, putting them in historical settings and often key moments throughout history around the world.

Assassin’s Creed is a mammoth franchise with a lot of lore to mine. This will also be the second Assassin’s Creed adaptation to reach the small screen and large screen, with the 2016 Assassin’s Creed live-action film starring Michael Fassbender having gone a different route with its narrative and characters, being set in a separate, parallel universe.

Netflix’s live-action Assassin’s Creed series has been officially greenlit, with Roberto Patino and David Wiener set to showrun

Assassin’s Creed is a globally popular and well-known property with some incredibly big set pieces. Will it find a place among the hottest new shows on Netflix, or be a major disappointment? We’ll have to wait and see.