This is a book about Assassin's Creed. Starting with the original video game in 2006, a word like franchise pales as a descriptor for the intellectual property omniplex of Ubisoft, the game's developer, and the thing that is the Assassin's Creed extended universe. There is not a breakfast cereal; there is an appearance in the 2024 Paris Olympiad.

I am not going to explain Assassin's Creed to you. The book does that. Or tries to. Contra the book's title, the book itself argues that understanding the franchise is, in fact, not permitted. Some of the spinoff media is subject to intentional erasure or dereliction by Ubisoft.

The attempted explication is what makes up the first half of the book, discussing what would customarily be referred to as the lore of the game. The second have has more particular analysis.

The first section is weaker. This is not the fault of the author, but because the topic is unhinged. The story of Assassin's Creed is wild, bordering on cringe, which adds a consistent sort of friction to the work of the book in explaining the core elements of the franchise and providing a place for them in a cultural framework. The strong section is on conspiracy, and conspiratorial thinking, which includes discussing how the same sort of pleasure related in a media franchise with its Easter eggs and myriad fragments of hints and information, is similar in form to the pleasure(?!?) of conspiratorial thinking. Qanon drowns in the water that Marvel swims.

And to this section's credit, all the times I flagged an idea as undercooked and deserving of more thought, that idea then did get it in the second section.

But yikes, this part of the book is poisoned by future knowledge. The backstory here, with its eugenic doorways and master races does not play now. I find myself trying, trying hard, to put myself back in that 2006 mindset. Did it play then? I feel like, even twenty years ago, the von Däniken clumsiness with Protean factions of order vs. chaos stretching across time and space fighting a secret war that involves all of history's greatest hits was basic (in the pejorative sense). It certainly was done before, much earlier even, in just as good if not better methods. Obviously, novelty is not mission critical, but as of today, it feels like a big ooof.

Notably, the second section includes discussion about this, and it is in that second section where the best material is. This is a deeper dive into the individual games, and looking at their function, which is more interesting in general as the work has broader applications, and more interesting in specific, as the more intensive look at different games or plot arcs is where the author is able to bring in more important and intensive thoughts on the series and its critical weight.

All of these chapters are good. The only that stands out is the one on history and its uses in the series. (I acknowledge this may be liking what I like, which is foreshadowing.) With the inciting event of the series' inclusion of a "discovery tour mode," designed as a playable educational game using the game's engine, (but one that functions differently in each of the episodes that include it), the author reviews how the developers make choices about the understanding of history. This includes clever observations about the negative space here - the assumptions that underlie when choices are not made, or what is understood as the difference between fact and interpretation in a historical context, as well as what constitutes an appropriate diversion from accepted history into fiction. It is good stuff if you think about history at all and what history is there to do.

Where I end up parting ways with the author is near the end of every chapter, which requires a more charitable reading of the games that I am willing to afford them. The author likes the games, which means that he takes an if-by-whisky approach where every choice invokes Fridge Brilliance, a strong adaptionism where, again, contra the title, everything is true because everything bends towards a singular point.

The standout chapter for this is on POV shifts in the series, which becomes related to the question of morality in games, as the shifts are often used to play with or otherwise explore questions of ethics in the context of the game. There is not any moral 'system,' which is to say that there is no mechanistic expression or narrative result. The book reflects on how that creates more engaged moral exploration than something where there is a system in place.

Looked at one way, the author is just looking to complain about Bioshock. More reasonably, it is a host of defensible but not persuasive conclusions, hinging on a charitable reading of the design choices in Assassin's Creed, and an uncharitable reading of the choices in other games. It is all a bit credulous, considering elements that I would otherwise write off as a bad design as actually message-laden.

I mean, if I get to do the same and talk about games that I like, I think about games where there are excellent moral systems or moral explorations: SOMA, Alpha Protocol, Pillars of Eternity (heck, put Galactic Civilizations in there, if I still talked about that game). All of them implement the process differently, each achieving its own particular end.

That none of these are AAA titles is left as an exercise to the reader.

Luckily, the heft is in the process, not in the conclusion, and the discourse that gets up to that point is insightful. It is a great book about Assassin's Creed, it just has too much Assassin's Creed in it.

My thanks to the author, Cameron Kunzelman, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of Minnesota Press, for making the ARC available to me.

I’m an ‘80s kid, so I grew up in the age where computers and computergames were making their uprising.
By the time I was a teenager, the PlayStation one was launched and as everyone I started to play.
I’m not an avid player, yet I enjoy to play from time to time, all depends on the game. I like the ones with a storyline,
those who take you on a journey, because I’m a forever learner.

When I saw this book on NetGalley, I requested it at once, because I knew the game as I played it many times.
And I saw and appreciated the movie with Marillion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons and of course Fassbender.
I was curious to learn more about the story behind the game.

Yet, I miscalculated the scope of the book and it’s content.
The writing was too scholaresque to me, too detailed in topics I didn’t really care about.
And the latter might be on me, not on the writer. I had different expectations about it.

The book, which must have taken a lot of time to research and write, therefore chapeau to the writer, is more about
the franchise/ trans media/ economic and structural logic.
Although I don’t mind learning about it, just not that much. All I wanted to learn more about was the storyline, how it came about, and such.

As a reader and sometimes player I presume both do it for the same reason, which is escaping reality.
At least for a moment, this book was too academic for me and centered on a topic I didn’t much care about.
So make sure to know what you want to read, when you pick out a book.

Thank you for the opportunity.