Weekly Assassin's Creed News Recap:
24th - 30th July 2022
News
Welcome to a new weekly Assassin's Creed News Recap series, hosted by Colum Blackett (Col_96) from The Ubisoft Star Players Program (Formerly Mentors Guild).
Every week, we will be rounding up Assassin's Creed News and sharing it here on The Ones Who Came Before website. Keep an eye on the site every Sunday for more weekly recaps, or check out our social media links down below to stay updated on everything Assassin's Creed.
1) We begin this week's Assassin's Creed recap by sharing another collaborative project by community members Arshak (AC: Landmarks), Zark (Master Hekate's Ceremonials) & Science_creed, who once again came together to host a 2-hour long virtual tour and trivia, this time for Assassin's Creed Unity!
In this week's stream, the team covered everything from the Palace of Versailles to Napoleon Bonaparte, and dived deeper into the bloody history behind the French Revolution.
You can find the AC Unity Virtual Tour / Trivia here
2) We here at TOWCB released a new article titled Aztec Empire: Pitching an Assassin's Creed Game
The article, written by new Isu Network member Finn Fletcher launched on Wednesday this week, and has already broken one of our own personal records! The sensational piece is now the biggest debut article to launch in the history of our website, attracting thousands of new readers to the site!
In the article, Finn pitches an Assassin's Creed game set during the Aztec Empire, along the way creating an original character and unique storyline! We will certainly be exploring this era and other potential settings further in future articles.
You can look to more articles by Finn, which are set to launch
3) This week, Aaron Young from the Writing Team launched a special edition of our 'This Week in Assassin's Creed Virtual Photography' series.
For the first time ever, we featured six shots, to mark six months worth of articles! The theme for the article was Black and White, showcasing incredible captures by community members.
A big congratulations to Aaron for reaching the milestone, and to all of the community members featured in the article!
You can look forward to more articles in the series, which release every Saturday, or head to the VP Hub to see everything in the series so far.
4) Ubisoft revealed that an Assassin’s Creed 15th Anniversary Community Cosplay Championship event would be taking place at Insomnia Gaming Festival #i69 in August!
In a short video shared on social media, cosplay projects, including those created and worn by our good friends Kim Beacham and Jamie Oakley from Assassin's Creed United Kingdom advertised the upcoming event.
According to the Insomnia website, the winner of the event will win a 'true Assassin’s Creed VIP Experience'. More details will be shared on this at a later date, but the prize will be a 'fantastic moment' for any Assassin’s Creed fan!
Good luck to all the participants!
5) Some disturbing news to share this week. According to Axios's Stephen Totilo former Assassin's Creed creative director Ashraf Ismail (terminated by Ubisoft in 2020 after an internal misconduct investigation) has been quietly working for Tencent's TiMi studios since 2021 as "a consulting creative director".
Here is the statement provided to Axios by TiMi's company rep:
“During our work with Ash, he has carried himself in a professional manner and has consistently shown an eagerness to learn and grow as both a team member and person,"
The news broke on Twitter and sparked an uneasy feeling within the community. The wound is still fresh, and for many, the disgraced figure gaining a position at another gaming company simply feels like abusers can be recycled to other companies. The other worrying factor for many is that this individual could potentially be working with fans again one day. A link also remains, as Ubisoft and Tencent are working together on various projects, including Assassin's Creed mobile games launching in Asian territories.
As this is a difficult topic, we have opted to share our message to the community from 2020 instead of a photo of a person which we deem to be highly toxic. We stand with the victims and our fans
6) New State Mobile announced an unexpected collaboration with Assassin's Creed.
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, a free battle royale game available on Steam will soon be launching an Assassin's Creed crossover event, beginning August 17th and running until September 22nd. According to PC Gamer, the following items will be available:
Costumes (x2 sets)
Bag Skins (x2 sets)
Parachute Skin
Emote
Gun Charm
Spray Item (x2 sets)
PUBG's Haven map will also be transforming a main building into an Abstergo Industries facility, featuring an Animus machine and Leap of Faith ledges!
Although this crossover came completely out of the blue, it sounds like a ton of fun for gamers. We look forward to seeing the community response to the event!
7) Sad news to report this week, as Assassin's Creed Community Developer Sebasteann Barradas announced that he would be leaving the position. In a closing statement posted on Twitter, he reflected on his 'rewarding, transformative, and utterly unbelievable time working on Assassin's Creed.''
''I will always remember the warmth and passion of this community, how AC acts as a unifier, and how every detail matters. I need to thank you all. Thank you for your ambition. Thank you for your wonder.''
Although Sebasteann only joined the AC dev team in January 2022, he demonstrated great community engagement and passion for the brand. Our own experiences with Seb were extremely positive.
Most recently, Seb was one of the team members who hosted the Assassin's Creed 15 Year Anniversary Celebrations stream. We wish him good luck on his future endeavours.
8) Finally, we close our recap by revealing that this week, Ubisoft announced the release date for Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Forgotten Saga, along with the launch of the 2022 Sigrblot Festival!
The Forgotten Saga is a free roguelite game mode which is set to launch August 2nd, and take players to Niflheim, the Norse Hell. Odin will battle the forces of Niflheim, making critical decisions along the way which will determine the outcome. Challenges will take place throughout the four regions of the realm, with the end goal being to defeat all of the enemies, and return to the realm even stronger with upgraded weaponry. This mode is perfect for speedrunners, (also known as Creedrunners), who will no doubt discover the best ways of slaying dragons and other forces of Hel.
Also announced was the return of the Sigrblot Festival, which last year introduced a number of new activities and rewards to Ravensthorpe. We understand that the 2021 festival brought with it some major technical issues, so we hope that the 2022 version is much smoother for players.
What are your thoughts on Assassin's Creed Valhalla's post-launch content so far? Let us know in the comments below!
We hope that you enjoyed this Assassin's Creed News Recap! You can look forward to more articles like this, dropping every Sunday!
What was your highlight of the week?
Let us know in the comments!
About the Author
Col is one of the UK's leading Assassin's Creed Community members, and is best known for establishing both 'The Ones Who Came Before' fan community and 'Isu_Network' content creation program.
As Team Leader for The Ones Who Came Before, Col was officially recognised by Ubisoft, becoming one the UK Assassin's Creed community ambassadors in 2016. He has attended many events after spending a decade in the AC Community, and has worked on countless projects, all of which you can find here on TOWCB website.
He is also a former Ubisoft Star Player and member of The Mentors Guild, two recognisable community programs which opened doors and took his status within the AC Community to the next level.
Colum Blackett (Col_96)