Adi Shankar to produce animated series based on Assassin's Creed for Ubisoft

By Brad Jones July 5, 2017

assassin's creed — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Adi Shankar, the producer behind Netflix’s upcoming animated series based on Castlevania, has announced his next video-game adaptation. The creator of the “bootleg universe” will next tackle Assassin’s Creed for Ubisoft, although details on the project are scarce at this point in time.

Shankar’s adaptation of Assassin’s Creed will be an original story, rather than a straight adaptation of one of the games, according to a report from Eurogamer. Given the franchise’s tendency to flit between characters and eras, it makes a lot of sense that the series would carve out its own path.

“I played the first edition of Assassin’s Creed the year I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dream,” Shankar wrote in a Facebook post announcing the project. “At that moment I knew absolutely no one in the industry and could never have imagined that one day Ubisoft would ask me to take the world of Assassin’s Creed and create an original story set in it as an anime series. If anyone tells you not to follow your passion in life they are wrong.”

This isn’t Ubisoft’s first attempt to turn the series into a bona fide multimedia franchise. Last year’s film adaptation looked set to be an authentic take on the source material, but ultimately failed to resonate with either critics or audiences.

However, fans of the games should be very excited about the prospect of Shankar being involved with the animated series. The producer has already demonstrated his knack for getting video game adaptations right with Castlevania, which looks very promising.

Movies and television shows based on video games are doomed to fail if they can’t hone in on what makes the original property great. Shankar seems to have a good understanding of how to translate a game’s strengths into another medium — and his infectious energy makes it easy to get behind his output.

There’s currently no word on when the Assassin’s Creed series will be ready, or how it will be broadcast. However, given that Shankar already has a good relationship with Netflix, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see it land on the streaming service.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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