How do video games deal with their own history?

[Administrator]

I played two video games this week that made me think about history. Not History with a capital H, although, certainly, one of them did that. Instead, they all made me think about their own histories as video games: the lineage they came from and the traditions they were bound up with. No wonder then, that by the end of the week, I was recalling a conversation I once had with a video game developer who was working on the narrative for a Star Wars game. This was way back, very much pre-J.J. Abrams and The Force Awakens. I asked the developer what it was like navigating that much accrued lore from the point of view of someone who was trying to make something new and characterful and coherent. He didn't reply. Not in words anyway. Instead he sighed and he closed his eyes and he pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was trying to dispel a migraine. I doubt this man was too upset when Abrams and company announced the death of the Extended Universe.
I imagine a lot of that kind of sighing goes on at Ubisoft when the teams are trying to hash out a new Assassin's. Man oh man, the early days of a game must be so exciting for developers. I can easily imagine the rush of pleasure picturing all the things you'd like to do and all the things you're going to really nail this time. But with a series like Assassin's, I can imagine the tension headache that descends too. This is a headache of history, I imagine. Ambitions are hemmed in by the lore and what it allows for, but also by the accrued weight of systems - systems that players expect, and systems that are so deeply bedded in that they cannot be shifted at this point.
It's amazing, then, that Origins managed to dig out something so fundamental as combat and give it a bit of a reworking. So much of the feel of Assassin's is bound up in those tightly-gathered fights, where enemies pace on your perimeter waiting for an opening, and where you sit back and counter rather than lash out with a straightforward attack. This approach to combat was forged back in the first Assassin's game, where I suspect that if you were in combat at all it was meant to feel like something had already gone a bit wrong. Openly engaging in swordplay in the original Assassin's Creed wasn't your reward, it was a chance to salvage a messy victory in the face of imminent defeat.
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