Assassin's Creed in Literature

[Majora Fi]

What do you think of the books in saga? Are they relevant or do they only serve to add value to the brand?

 

[ConanTheDestroyer]

The only one of these I've read is The Secret Crusade and I thought was really good. It has everything related to Altair from his childhood to the events of the first game, the story of the PSP game he's in as well as the flashbacks you get of him in Revelations. I thought it told his life story quite well and made me like the character even more. Some of the side characters are also better in the book especially Malik (the guy whose brother Altair got killed at the start of the first game) who was present during the events you see in the Revelations flashback in the book but they unfortunately didn't even mention him in the game.

So I would definitely recommend Secret Crusade especially since it works well as a standalone novel so you might get an idea of the author's style before reading other ones in the series. I have heard good things about Forsaken from people who have read it and since it's centered around Haytham(despite them putting Connor on the cover) I might read it someday. From the looks of it it also seems to be a good place to start since it's also standalone. So I would say they do add to the universe especially in terms of backstory of certain characters. Since I have little to no interest in AC games past Black Flag I can't really say much about the newer books as they also seem to written by a different author.

 

[Majora Fi]

@ConanTheDestroyer Back when I didn't yet own a 7th generation console, Renaissance helped me understand the game I wanted to buy at time

Regarding Secret Crusade, it helped me a lot because the shitty AC1 doesn't have subtitles in any language (not even English), so the only way to understand plot was by buying this book... and Altair ended up becoming my favorite protagonist

Furthermore, recapture of Masyaf by Altair seemed more detailed in the book than in Revelations game

 

[ConanTheDestroyer]

@ConanTheDestroyer Back when I didn't yet own a 7th generation console, Renaissance helped me understand the game I wanted to buy at time

Regarding Secret Crusade, it helped me a lot because the shitty AC1 doesn't have subtitles in any language (not even English), so the only way to understand plot was by buying this book... and Altair ended up becoming my favorite protagonist

Furthermore, recapture of Masyaf by Altair seemed more detailed in the book than in Revelations game

Yeah I still like Revelations but I feel all the Altair scenes from the game were depicted better in The Secret Crusade.

 

[gwardojones]

I read through Renaissance after playing the Assassin's Creed 2. It was a good novelization, but it had a bit of weirdness to it in that none of the Desmond parts were in the book. When Juno talks directly to Desmond at the end of the story, you see it from Ezio's perspective entirely and he's just like, "Uhh... who are you talking to," then the story ends. I'm not sure why they chose that approach, since it made it so readers had to play the game to fully understand the book, but I really enjoyed the rest of it otherwise.

 

[Majora Fi]

I read through Renaissance after playing the Assassin's Creed 2. It was a good novelization, but it had a bit of weirdness to it in that none of the Desmond parts were in the book. When Juno talks directly to Desmond at the end of the story, you see it from Ezio's perspective entirely and he's just like, "Uhh... who are you talking to," then the story ends. I'm not sure why they chose that approach, since it made it so readers had to play the game to fully understand the book, but I really enjoyed the rest of it otherwise.

Yes, I only understood that plot hole when I actually played the game