Editor’s take: Video game adaptations are hitting their stride, and Netflix is betting Assassin’s Creed will join the ranks of recent hits. If the show captures the intrigue and depth that made the games global sensations, it could deliver the long-running story streaming audiences crave.
After years of uncertainty, Netflix has officially committed to producing a live-action television adaptation of the popular Assassin’s Creed video game franchise. The announcement signals new momentum for a project long stalled in development, despite high expectations fueled by the franchise’s enduring global popularity among gamers.
The streaming giant first announced plans to adapt Assassin’s Creed into a series in 2020, but the project struggled to find a steady creative direction. Several teams cycled through development before a final lineup was confirmed. Now, with co-showrunners Roberto Patino and David Wiener at the helm, the adaptation is finally moving forward. Patino brings experience from shows like Sons of Anarchy and Westworld, while Wiener previously oversaw Paramount’s Halo series and worked on Fear the Walking Dead.
Details about the plot, characters, and casting remain under wraps. However, those familiar with the games can expect the series to draw on the franchise’s core premise: an age-old conflict between two secret societies, the Assassins and the Templars, played out across different periods and cultures. Central to the narrative is the Animus, a fictional device that allows characters to relive the lives of their ancestors through genetic memory.
The franchise’s sprawling historical settings have always been central to its appeal. Since its debut in 2007, Assassin’s Creed has taken players through a wide range of eras and locations, from Renaissance Italy to Ancient Greece, Viking-age England, and most recently, feudal Japan in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In total, Ubisoft has released 14 mainline titles over the past 18 years, with each installment showcasing detailed reconstructions of historical settings and gradually expanding the series’ gameplay from stealth action into more open-ended role-playing experiences.
Ubisoft has released 14 mainline titles over 18 years, each showcasing detailed historical settings and expanding gameplay from stealth action to open-ended role-playing. Netflix’s new adaptation follows a 2016 Assassin’s Creed film starring Michael Fassbender. Although that movie received mixed reviews and modest box office returns, it gave fans hope that the series could come to life beyond consoles. Whether the TV show will acknowledge or build on the film’s events remains unclear.
