We've all heard the standard "Netflix adaptations suck" phrase. And, to be clear, they very often do. However, sometimes a Netflix production can provide new life to the adapted franchise (just remember Cyberpunk: Edgerunners), which could be exactly what the dwindling Assassin's Creed series needs.
Assassin's Creed has been in the pits for several years now. Ever since Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, we haven't really seen great games in the series. Sure, Unity and Syndicate were fine, but once Ubisoft made the switch to RPG instead of immersive stealth, things started falling apart.
They retained all the glee usually associated with Ubisoft—sprawling open worlds, beautiful graphics, and so on. But the gameplay, stories, and everything in between generally lacked the quality of the older titles.
Anyone who's been around gaming for a spell knows the name Ezio Auditore. Many know Altair. Some may even know Connor and Edward. But few can remember the characters of later games, especially those like Mirage that Ubisoft seems to have treated as some kind of random content drop rather than a full-blown game.
So, this is where the Netflix series comes in.
Yes, yes, I know it's being produced by the Halo adaptation guy, and we've already had a subpar live-action Assassin's Creed. All valid points of concern.
However, a Netflix adaptation could provide a lot of vigor to a genuinely dying series. If done right (and that's a big if), it could even open Assassin's Creed up to more people, make those sales start coming in again, and give Ubisoft, partnered with Tencent, more reasons to keep chugging along.
After all, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners did just about the same with CDPR's title. The game suffered a lot of bad rep for years by the time the anime launched, the numerous patches, fixes, and updates notwithstanding. Post-Edgerunners, however, things started looking up. People started revisiting the game, CDPR kicked into overdrive to provide as much content (especially Edgerunners-themed stuff), and Cyberpunk 2077 finally started seeing green.
The same could happen to Assassin's Creed, and honestly, it's probably the series' best bet. Ubisoft surely understands this.
What's more, so does Tencent, which played no small part in making Arcane a thing, and we all know just how successful that turned out to be.
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