Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Assassin's Creed: The Fall (Deluxe Edition)

 

Bought at Goodwill, Davis Square, Somerville MA USA.

Title: Assassin's Creed: The Fall (Delux Edition)
Date: 2011
Publisher: Ubisoft
Writer: Karl Kerschl, Cameron Stewart
Artist: Karl Kerschl, Cameron Stewart
Colorist: Nadine Thomas
Letterer: Studio Lounak's Serge LaPointe

Around the end of the 20th Century, a man suffers from hallucinations of the fall of the last Czar of Russia and the battles between the Assassins and Templars in the years leading to the Russian Revolution. When the modern-day Assassins make contact with him, Daniel Cross gains their trust and embarks on a pilgrimage to seek out the elusive leader of the Order of Assassins, the Mentor. As he does, Cross sets off a chain of events leading to a modern purge of the Assassins by their ancient enemies, the Templars.

I bought this with the upcoming Assassin's Creed/Magic: The Gathering crossover in mind, having never played any of the Assassin's Creed games. For a newcomer to the lore, this did a pretty good job of getting me up to speed. I enjoyed the integration of history into the storyline, including the connections to the Tunguska Event and Nikola Tesla.

The story itself does a reasonable job of building suspense at the beginning, although it telegraphs its plot twist a bit, and the Order of Assassins come of as complete chumps by the time all is said and done, which is possibly not the desired impression to make on someone new to the franchise.

Still, it provides a decent setup for Assassin's Creed: The Chain, which will continue the story.

This was the Deluxe Edition, so it contains an extra ten-page epilogue, which really felt like an important part of the story, so it was good to have it here. There is also some "making-of" material, some notes on the relevant historical details, and a selection from the Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia. This last bit had some good background, but also spent a lot of time summarizing the story I had just read.

Rating: 6/10

No comments:

Post a Comment