By Kate Lewis

Titan Books, out now

Behind the scenes on the latest Assassin’s Creed game

Four years ago I started playing the Assassin’s Creed games, in order, for the first time. They are, without a doubt, the single strangest video game franchise in the western world. If you saw the movie, well, if it’s any consolation so did I. The single thing that did right(ish) was to explain the background. I’ll do the same here:

We are not the first civilisation on this planet. The original inhabitants died from a global natural disaster in the distant past. Massively technologically advanced as they were, some survived and the humans, created by them, took over the newly empty world.

But no apocalypse is tidy. Elements of the first race’s technology survived as did some locations. As humanity discovered these, a war began for our soul. On the one side, the Templars. Ordered, precise, brutal. On the other, the assassins. Direct descendants of the original humans, with boosted abilities. One wants humanity to be free by surrendering to individuality. The other wants that individuality to itself be set free. The key to the war lies in the First One tech scattered across the world and the strategic differences that make the sides so evenly matched. The Templars, who become a corporation called Abstergo in the present day, have unlimited resources. The assassins are outnumbered, outgunned but almost impossible to see coming.

The war is fought using the Animus, a computer able to pull the memories of related people from your DNA. Abstergo use it to find people who’ve encountered First One tech and locate it. They also, in a brilliant post-modern twist that hits in pirate game Black Flag (starring Legends Of Tomorrow’s own Matt Ryan no less), use it to make video games. The assassins, when they can, steal an animus and then steal First One tech out from under Abstergo.

The war has raged throughout human history. The games have dealt with the adventures of characters like pirate Edward Kenway, nobleman turned assassin Ezio Auditore di Firenze and the Fry twins who ran London’s underworld in the Victorian era. There’s always Abstergo, there’s always an assassin. There’s always conflict.

Complex? Hell yeah. Fun? HELL YEAH.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the newest game and one of the best to date. Set in Ancient Greece it gives you the choice of playing either Kassandra (DO THIS) or Alexios, Spartan siblings torn from their family by unimaginable tragedy. Whichever one you choose survives to adulthood and becomes a Misthios. Halfway between a mercenary and a courier, Misthios solved problems. Often violently. But as the game continues and you travel across the Greek islands, it becomes clear some problems hit closer to home than others.

That combination of epic scope and personal stakes is baked in at every level of the game’s design and that’s exactly what Lewis walks us through in this vastly impressive tome. Starting with the pivotal battle of Thermopylae and ending with Lakonia, she walks us through each location and every element of the game along the way. In doing so, we learn just how precisely this game was designed. There are seven unique biomes or environments for players to encounter that give each island their own character. There’s a deep dive into architecture of the time and how the revelation that everything was painted at the time gave them the opportunity to make the world more vibrant. Time and again we see how research, artistic impression and the needs of the contract come together. And, time and again, the results are stunning.

It’s especially fun to see how the different environments are influenced by and set the tone for the game. The early sections on Kephalonia are gloriously squalid and run down why Attika is full of high society intrigue and if anything slightly more danger. Every island has a unique character and brings out more in your character and the design process that leads to that is the core of this book.

Verdict: Rounded out with welcome looks at ships, armour and weapons as well as the evolution of Kassandra and Alexios, this is an extraordinarily pretty book commemorating the hard work that went into an extraordinarily pretty, and fun, game. If, like me, you’re happily Spartan kicking your way through the islands right now, there’s even more to enjoy here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Cult of Kosmos won’t fight itself… 10/10

Alasdair Stuart