Release date: 27 October 2017
Story: A prequel to the Assassin's Creed Franchise set in Egypt from 48 BC where Bayek, a Medjay, begins the foundation of the Assassin's Brotherhood. When Bayek searches for vengeance for his sons' deaths, he discovers that an evil group has a lot of influence over the functioning of Egypt.
The game is unique in the sense it is going for a more level based, RPG style gameplay format, with weapons and items with their own level systems and rarities for the player to make use of, which allows for some customisation in terms of approach to gameplay, and can provide a base level of replay ability as players may want to try out all the different builds for their character.
Budget: between $140 million and $150 million
Earned: ??? (10 million copies sold)
Development: Ubisoft Montreal led the game's development, with assistance provided by other Ubisoft studios in different parts of the world. The team in Montreal previously worked on Assassin's Creed Revelations and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Development began after Black Flag's completion and lasted approximately four years. ‘Nearly 1000’ people worked on the game.
Audience: The target audience for the game was of course on the older side given the game’s PEGI rating of 18, in terms of those who would be interested, existing fans of the series would of course be intrigued and more than likely end up picking the game up, but given the setting was Egypt, people interested in the mythology and history behind ancient Egypt would also be interested, same goes for those intrigued by the concept of assassins in those times, and also anyone wanting to get into the franchise, given the title of ‘Origins’ it carries, people would likely assume it’s the first in the order of games to play if they want to learn the story. It would also be appealing to those who enjoy games that have plenty of action and interesting set pieces, the game’s reputation for being nominated at the 2017 game awards for best action/adventure game, which acts as something of a seal of quality for the title.
Marketing: The developers kept fans and anyone else intrigued about the game invested with constant updates and posts on their various social media pages, even opening an email system for people to get in contact with them, receiving rewards for the game as an incentive to do so, they also added pre-order bonuses, which apparently added an additional 10-15 hours of content to the game, alongside DLC later down the line to further extend the game’s lifespan. The series had previously had annual releases, which of course caused the quality to suffer, but this time around, things were waited out and left to simmer, giving more time for hype to build up, and for the team to deliver a much more polished experience to fans of the franchise and anyone else waiting to get their hands on the game.
Application of Theory:
David Hesmondhalgh:
Assassin’s Creed Origins is an example of Ubisoft playing things safe with their audience, knowing fans of the series will be on board with what they put out, and keeping things low risk. The game is set in ancient Egypt, a popular and highly requested period by fans, meaning they’re maximising their audience by selecting this period for the game’s story. The audience is maximised further through the developer’s choice to label it as ‘Origins’, implying the game will serve as an origin story for the events of the franchise as a whole, this maximises audience because it gives long time fans the satisfaction of knowing what began the franchise in terms of it’s story, and it appeals to new fans and people who’ve never played an Assassin’s Creed game because the assumption is that this game will tell them everything they need to know and show them what to expect from other entries should they become a fan of this game.
Another way in which Hesmondhalgh can be applied to the game is through it’s merchandising. The game had a crossover event with Final Fantasy XV, in which one of the characters, Ardyn Izunia is imprisoned and later revealed as part of a crossover quest titled ‘A gift from the Gods’, this not only shows the way in which the game is merchandised, but also links back to Hesmondhalgh’s theory on maximising audience, as Final Fantasy fans may pick the game up for that quest alone, and may end up becoming fans of the franchise in the process. The game also operates in the cultural industry of music, given the fact its OST was released in many forms, being available on streaming services but also being purchasable in a physical store as a vinyl, MP3, or CD. The Final Fantasy crossover also featured promotional art in which the main character from assassin’s creed origins was drawn in the style of that series while Noctis the main protagonist of Final Fantasy XV, was drawn in the style of Origins, this piece was revealed at a 2017 Gamescom, and was able to be signed by the artists at the event.
Albert Bandura:
Bandura’s theory talks about the idea that media implants and injects ideas into the brain and that the audience will then acquire attitudes and model themselves based on what they see in media productions. Behaviour that is transgressive (negative) will be mimicked and imitated by audiences, especially of a younger age, usually children. In assassin’s creed origins, the opening sequence features Bayek, the protagonist, climbing up tall statue like structures and leaping great distances without any insurance of safety, Bandura’s theory implies that this would be mimicked by those of a younger age upon exposure to this, but no stories of that nature were published or made any headlines. Bayek travels to his village alongside a friend, and they converse about their lives and such on their way, once they return home, they encounter a group of soldiers raiding the home of Bayek’s friend, and afterwards the player is instructed to stealthily take out these soldiers. The game instructs that you lure them away from potential help and quietly pick them off, and while the animation for doing so isn’t all that violent, it’s outright stated that they’ve been killed, which according to Bandura, given how much this act is featured in the game, children would be influenced to do the same. And while Bandura’s study showed evidence that supported the notion, no such thing was the case with assassin’s creed origins, or any of the previous titles for that matter, which makes his theory seem very easy to argue against, but it can never be truly wrong, as select audience members may in fact follow the examples set by the game, for whatever reason that may be.
Bandura does also state that you can conversely have positive ideas, attitudes, and behaviours injected into your mind from video games and that audiences have a conscious choice of the reading they take of what they’re viewing/playing. You could draw such things from assassin’s creed origins as although the main protagonist uses and resorts to violence, it is often for a noble cause, given the fact the example from the opening sequence is violence being used against unwelcome and antagonistic forces, Bayek is simply protecting the people of his village, even if the way he goes about doing so isn’t necessarily the correct thing to do. This means younger audience members can take important lessons from the game, such as nobility and the willingness to perform selfless acts simply because it is right to do so, while being able to understand that killing and violence aren’t the right choice, as there are plenty of factors to support this, the most obvious being, that the player is aware what’s happening isn’t real. Moreover, a younger player may have many distractions keeping them from becoming too immersed in the game’s world, sure, it may hold their interest and become something they mimic when playing with friends, but they know enough to understand they shouldn’t perform these actions outside of pretending to, or through playing the game. The game also makes Bayek’s motivations for his resorting to violence clear, which the death of his sons. The game doesn’t tell the player that they should turn to violence if someone they care for is to pass away but helps to understand the reasons behind Bayek’s actions and makes them more reasonable and less pointless, avoiding the idea that it’s being violent for shock factor, or, for the sake of it. Audiences themselves would also be aware that this isn’t the path to take in the event of a loved one’s passing, given that society as a whole, and the mainstream media make it clear that grieving properly is the healthiest thing to do, so that even if the media influences someone’s choices, there’s enough representation in the mainstream to prevent most people from believing they should ‘take vengeance’ on those who wrong them.
Curran and Seaton:
Assassin’s Creed Origins can be applied to Curran and Seaton’s theory of power and media industries as it’s quite clear Ubisoft was playing things safe with this entry into the series and keeping true to the formula the franchise is known for to gain as much as they could from the sales of the game. While the company could technically be called an ‘Indie’, Ubisoft has lost that status amongst plenty of the general fanbases it provides games for, ‘Just Dance’ one of the company’s other massively successful game series’, has become known for the fact each instalment is practically the same, just with tweaks to songs and the dances that go with them, each new instalment being seen as a soulless cash grab more than anything, which of course, plenty of people give into, simply feeding into the cycle of releases for the series. ‘Far Cry’, yet another popular series from Ubisoft, has been facing the same criticisms, as the games after ‘Far Cry 3’, a game of critical acclaim, have clearly been trying to recapture the ‘lightning in a bottle’ that was that entry into the franchise, it’s most recent instalment, ‘Far Cry 6’ had tried its best to keep up, using famous actor Giancarlo Esposito, who was playing the main villain, in plenty of its marketing to try and sustain excitement and fanfare around the game, but simply couldn’t save it, as the game was bashed for it’s lack of variety in gameplay and repetitive nature. Although, despite having the most entries out of any of Ubisoft’s series, having 20 something instalments by this point, assassin’s creed has managed to keep it’s relevance, and while plenty of people have complained about the changing formats of combat and customisation, with Origins being the first game to start the ongoing trend of RPG like elements withing entries to the franchise, the variety of set pieces and new characters seems to be enough to keep things rolling for Ubisoft, who will very happily pump out game after game from this series. Origins was a historical game in the franchise as before it, the other games had annual releases, which very quickly led to burnout from fans, as origins had a lot longer in its development time, being given 4 years, and being allowed space to breath with no other releases being sandwiches between it and the previous game. Although, the game wasn’t anything special, reviews were mixed, a lot of fans complained that the RPG elements made it too ‘grindy’ and the story followed the same format the series has used for decades at this point, which clearly supports Curran and Seaton’s notion that conglomerates or large companies don’t take many risks and limit creativity, as, besides art direction, characters, and some RPG elements, the game is exactly the same as any other entry in the series.
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