Ezio Auditore Da Firenze has resurfaced — this time in a tower defense game built around demons.
Watcher of Realms, the tactical high-fantasy role-playing title, has confirmed an official crossover with Assassin’s Creed. A handful of the series’ leading characters are joining the roster, and Ezio takes the spotlight.
Global rollout is set for August 20.
Five Assassins walk into a demon crisis
Five of the franchise’s most familiar faces arrive with the update: Ezio, Eivor, Kassandra, Bayek and Evie Frye. Their arrival in the game’s world is tied to a story event that won’t stick around permanently.
Narratively, the five band together to take back the corrupted power of the Demon Tide before the situation on the continent of Tya deteriorates further. That’s several centuries’ worth of Assassin know-how aimed squarely at a single supernatural threat.
They will also be deployed beside the roster already in place, a group that counts Anubis, Surtr and Hades among its members. Interpret that combination however you like.
The mode is called Assassin’s Code
In terms of actual content, the release centers on a mode carrying the name Assassin’s Code. True to the title, progression comes down to stealth play and precise timing.
For the unfamiliar: Watcher of Realms mixes real-time tower defense with hero collection. Demons make up most of the opposition, and the roster is enormous — over 250 unique heroes spread across 10 distinct factions.
Developer Moonton has made no secret of how large this crossover is meant to be. The wait to judge the results won’t be a long one.
Why it’s Ezio and not somebody else
Plenty of protagonists have passed through Assassin’s Creed across the years, and a fair number of them genuinely stand out. The RPG era gave us Bayek and Kassandra, both real high points. Altair — quiet and stoic in the series’ first outing — hasn’t aged badly either.
Yet for the bulk of long-time followers of the franchise, no one measures up to Ezio. He was the player’s guide through three of the strongest games the series has ever shipped.
He has sat in the rear-view mirror for some time now. He’s also recalled warmly enough that any reappearance draws lapsed fans back — precisely the wager being placed here.
Meanwhile, Project Hexe is doing something strange
Project Hexe is the Assassin’s Creed release next in line. The plan had been for something markedly unlike anything the series had attempted before, with magic featuring heavily.
Word going around now suggests that direction has been altered considerably, and that what arrives may sit far closer to the series’ conventional formula. Worth stressing: that remains rumor.
The franchise that keeps expanding sideways
Ubisoft has built Assassin’s Creed into a multimedia franchise since the debut video game launched in 2007. Its open world hangs on a centuries-old feud: the Assassins, pursuing peace through free will, against the Templars, who seek peace via control.
Historical settings, dense storytelling and a blend of action, adventure, stealth and parkour are what the games are best known for. The property has since spilled into novels, comics, films and TV series still to come, which has made it one of gaming’s most recognizable and influential names.
All of which explains how a 15th-century Florentine noble winds up shoulder to shoulder with Hades, holding a continent named Tya against a tide of demons.