Welcome back to Assassin’s Creed Ideas, a weekly column where – every Tuesday – we look at a new historical setting that would make for a great Assassin’s Creed game! There have been two previous installments in the series and I’m sure you’d enjoy them, so check them out by clicking the links below:
This week we’ve got a shorter article based on a little idea in the latter of the two articles above. In Assassin’s Creed Ideas: World War One, I brought up a quick thought that a 1900s based Creed game could set the stage for a new miniseries in the franchise, much like Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations.
America in the early 1900s
Returning from the First World War, American society evolved into an era known as “The Roaring Twenties,” which in-turn released “The Great Depression” of the 1930s, lasting until the onset of World War Two, and the rest is history (haha).
Today we’re talking about the lavish lifestyle of so-called “gangsters” in 1920s America.
Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, you may recognize many of these notorious gangsters, bootleggers, and gamblers as fan-favorite characters off of HBO’s hit TV show Boardwalk Empire, but the truth of the matter is that they were all very real people, who committed very real crimes.
Before the creation of the National Crime Syndicate (Syndicate… I’m on a roll today) in 1929, many gangsters in 1920s America held continuous battles from city to city over territory, as well as the importation and transportation of every American’s favorite banned liquid: alcohol. Prohibition hit the country hard, effectively making gangsters’ lives great… except for the competition part.
How does Assassin’s Creed fit in?
We’re constantly reminded of how the Assassin’s order are the good guys in the Assassin’s Creed series, but let’s get real: they’re ASSASSINS. They kill people. This is the definition of an assassin, provided by good ol’ Google:
A game set in the twenties having the Assassin order get down and dirty with organized crime could bring reality back into the series. Finally, players would see the truth behind what they’ve been doing in the games all this time: murdering people. There’s no better setting to make the morality of the series seem abundantly clear.
I bet you’ll never guess how many people involved in major crime agencies were assassinated in the 1920s. Who better to do that assassinating than the Templars and Assassins, hidden amongst the feuding gangs of east coast U.S.A. or Chicago? Using bootlegging, gambling, and battles over territory as a front, the two lifelong enemies could go at it in “secret,” the media’s attention on specific faces of organized crime like Al Capone instead.
An Assassin’s Creed game with this base idea could be ridiculously elaborate and incredibly intriguing, allowing players to meet all of the infamous gangsters previously mentioned and more. Sprinkle in a backstory of bootlegging and the re-legalization of alcohol, have multiple cities available for exploration (Chicago, Atlantic City, New York), include many a reference to HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (mainly because it’s awesome), and give players the side option to create and manage an NPC gang fighting for territorial control in the U.S. and you’ve got yourself a damn fine game.
So, what’s up Ubisoft? Working on this yet?
That’s it for today’s Assassin’s Creed Ideas article. If you enjoyed, agreed with anything you read, found something wrong, have any input, or an idea for a future article, let me know in the comments section!
Don’t forget to read up on the last two articles: Assassin’s Creed Ideas: Ancient Egypt and Assassin’s Creed Ideas: World War One. For all of the hottest Assassin’s Creed Ideas articles follow the tag on the ACI Homepage.
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