After a year-long hiatus, Assassin’s Creed will be returning to our consoles with great fanfare at the end of this week. Judging from all the content I’ve seen here on TheSixthAxis, Origins certainly looks like a return to form after the broken Unity and uninspiring Syndicate. Also you can pet cats in it.
Even better than that, it genuinely looks like it is breaking new ground for a title in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. With RPG elements, a living breathing world and updated combat, this is the most interested I’ve been about an Assassin’s Creed in years. In fact, it was 2013’s Black Flag that last had me excited about running, jumping and stabbing strangers.
The biggest reason that Origins has me so intrigued is the setting. Like many others, I find that Ancient Egypt is a fascinating era in history. It’s combination of myth and mystery is surely a perfect match for the Assassin’s Creed blend of history and hokum. With thousands of years of Egyptian history to draw upon, it’s a relief that Ubisoft has focused on one of the best documented and most compelling periods, that of 49 BC.
For few hundred years prior to 49BC, ever since Alexander the Great romped through Egypt to carve out his short-lived Empire, Ancient Egypt has been ruled by a series of Greek leaders. When Alexander popped his sandals in 323BC, his empire that stretched from the Himalayas to the Mediterranean Sea was carved up between the Diodachi, the rival generals who served him during his life. Ptolemy I Soter I took Ancient Egypt, founding a dynasty and turning Alexandria into a centre of Greek culture – you’ll get to explore Alexandria in Origins. Just don’t get it confused with the other 70 cities that Alexander all named Alexandria.
Fast forward 13 generations and Ptolemy XIII is now the Pharaoh of Egypt. He is married to Cleopatra VII, who despite being the most famous Cleopatra in our modern day history books was far from the only Egyptian with that name. Her husband is 10 and she’s 18. Her husband is also her brother. For the Ptolemy dynasty, incest was best. What better way to make sure that no inferior families could interfere with the bloodline?
In fact, getting from Ptolemy I Soter I to Ptolemy XIII was a long litany of incest and betrayal across hundreds of years. Ptolemy II (I’s son) married Arsinoë I who provided him his legitimate heir, Ptolemy III. No incest there, until Ptolemy II married his full sister Arsinoë II as his second wife, who is believed to have accused and had Arsinoë I exiled.
Anyway, Ptolemy III married Berenice of Cyrene, which was fine, until their son Ptolemy IV married his sister Arsinoe III and she gave birth to the very originally named Ptolemy V. Ptolemy V married Cleopatra I and she gave birth to Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra II. Ptolemy VI ruled with his mother Cleopatra I for a while – his full title Ptolemy VI Philometor means ‘he who loves his mother’, which I’ll let you interpret how you will – before later marrying his sister Cleopatra II.
Now I hope you’re paying attention as this is where things get really complicated. Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra had several children, Ptolemy Eupator, Ptolemy, Cleopatra Thea, Berenice and Cleopatra III, but more on them later. Then Ptolmey VI and Cleopatra II were temporarily deposed by their brother Ptolmey VIII – who the hell knows what happened to VII? –but ended up ruling again. VI died and Cleo II married VIII who later married his neice Cleo III. Cleo II led a rebellion to get rid of Cleo III and Ptolmey VIII, who then fled Egypt but kept himself busy by murdering his stepson and son Ptolmey and Ptolmey. He even had Ptolmey (not Ptolmey) dismembered and sent his head, hands and feet to Cleopatra II in Alexandria as a birthday present. Cleo II ended up patching things up with VIII and Cleo III and they ruled Egypt together until most of them died leaving Cleo III in charge.
Cleo III then ruled with her son Ptolemy IX, whose dad was his mother’s uncle, until his mother expelled him from Alexandria and ruled with her other son Ptolemy X. She eventually got bored of X and swapped him for IX, so X killed her. X then died, which left IX in charge. When Ptolemy died his daughter Berenice III ruled and she had to marry her stepson Ptolemy XI, who decided to have her killed nineteen days later, but got his comeuppance when he was then lynched by a mob.
Ptolemy XII, though illegitimate, took over and was given Cleopatra V, his half-sister, as a wife. XII left his daughter Cleo VII in charge when he died and she married her brother Ptolemy XIII.
And that’s pretty much where Assassin’s Creed Origins will begin and I think there is one thing we can all agree with after all of that inbreeding: Cleopatra, rather than being the hottie that Elizabeth Tayler and the trailers for Origins would suggest, was probably nowhere near as pretty as suggested.
This boiling pot of tension is the world in which the player will find themselves on release day, and I for one cannot wait to see how Ubisoft will allow us to explore and take a role in this tumultuous political situation. Cleopatra has been deposed by her brother/husband and is attempting to gather her forces to launch a counter-coup. In the coming historical years that the game will no doubt cover, a great deal of violence and madness will come. There’ll be a 13-year-old ruler desperate to hold on to power, a Roman general who will be beheaded, Cleopatra will be rolled up in a carpet and Julius Caesar will end up aroused, angry and mobilisng the Roman Legions to war.
How will Ubisoft weave all of these events into the Assassin’s Creed lore? We don’t have long to go until we get to find out.
