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The Assassin’s Creed and Destiny 2 crossover may seem incongruous, but the series’ similarities set the stage for a futuristic AC game.
The Destiny 2 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla crossover gives a glimpse of what a futuristic Assassin’s Creed game could look like. On December 6, Bungie added a collection of Ubisoft-inspired cosmetics and weapons to Destiny 2, which included futuristic versions of Altaïr, Eivor, and Kassandra’s Assassin robes. At first glance, merging Assassin’s Creed and Destiny in this way seems like a wasteful undertaking: Ubisoft’s franchise is rooted in human history, while Bungie’s is based in a sci-fi world of alien travel. But considering the similarities between Assassin’s Creed and Destiny 2 lore, this crossover shows exactly how AC games could work in a futuristic setting.
The Assassin’s Creed franchise shares significant story patterns with Destiny when it comes to sci-fi themes. For example, the Isu lore of Assassin’s Creed was an ancient humanoid species that had cities and advanced technologies, but was lost due to the Great Catastrophe and the war between humanity and the Isu. It’s reminiscent of Destiny’s golden age when technology flourished and space colonization was at its height. However, during the collapse, darkness followed the traveler, leaving a small area on Earth as one of the few safe spaces left for humanity. Now the lands of Assassin’s Creed and Destiny are embroiled in endless conflict.
Assassin’s Creed should model a future setting after Destiny 2
The similarities between Assassin’s Creed and Destiny’s lore show just how fitting Ubisoft and Bungie’s crossover is (although the cosmetic item appearances in Ubisoft’s cossover trailer are enough to justify its existence). Should Assassin’s Creed games ever venture into the future, modeling their settings after Destiny would be a great way to adapt the conflict between Assassins and Templars into a sci-fi world. However, traveling to the future rather than the past would be a difficult task for Ubisoft with the Assassin’s Creed series due to its plot devices like the Animus.
Assassin’s Creed should turn its current stories into a framework of destiny
To achieve a futuristic Destiny-inspired setting in Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft would need to push the series’ current narrative into the future. Since Abstergo’s device can only take people to ancestral memories of the past, the only way a futuristic setting could work is if a current Assassin’s Creed story is set in the future instead. It would be a big change for the series. Ever since Assassin’s Creed’s first current protagonist, Desmond Miles, Ubisoft hasn’t focused much on the games’ current narratives. But if the series suddenly jumped in time, a lot more attention would be drawn to stories set outside of the Animus.
A futuristic setting in which the Animus exists would draw further comparison between Assassin’s Creed and Cyberpunk 2077. In this game, the Soulkiller program can steal people’s consciousness and memories from their bodies and store them digitally. Having something similar would create a lot more drama around the Animus in Assassin’s Creed. The process of using a machine that connects people to the experiences and memories of their ancestors would suddenly have more associated risks. Combine that with a Destiny-like setting in which humanity battles alien forces, and Assassin’s Creed’s present-day tales would finally feel as important as its historical tales.
Although Destiny 2’s crossover with Assassin’s Creed at first seemed incongruous, it turned out to be potentially eye-opening for fans of Ubisoft’s franchise. The parallels between the Isu and the Golden Age make Destiny’s setting a solid source of inspiration for any Assassin’s Creed games based in the future. Hopefully, if such games see the light of day, they’ll use the sci-fi Assassins robes that come with the crossover.
Destiny 2 Assassin’s Creed Skins Show The Perfect Future Setting | Pretty Reel