Graphic Novel: Assassin’s Creed vol. 1: Desmond.
Assassin’s Creed is one of those franchises that came out of nowhere. It all started with the original Assassin’s Creed game at the start of this generation gaming consoles. A lot has changed since then. The franchise kept growing and growing and gathered a huge fan base all over the world. One of the most important reasons for the success was and still is without a doubt the story. A story that’s just too big to only be told in a game.
A perfect solution to tell a story that big is to create a graphic novel. Ubisoft saw that opportunity as well and hired Corbeyran and Defali to create the Assassin’s Creed graphic novels. The first one is called Desmond and tells us the story about Desmond and his ancestor Altaïr.
Basically the graphic novel follows the events of Assassin’s Creed one. You won’t find much details and the story is told quite fast. This also means that when you didn’t play the game, you’ll have more trouble understanding the story. Does this mean that non-gamers can’t enjoy this novel? Not at all but it’s far more fun when you fully understand what you’re reading. It’s a shame to admit that this will only happen when you played the game before reading the graphic novel.
Although the novel follows the story of the first game, it will give you some more details and insights about the mysterious world of Assassin’s Creed. You’ll learn more about Desmond and how he ended up in the lab, running through his ancestors memory. But that’s not all, you’ll also learn a lot more about the mysterious subject 16. I won’t go in to further details, I don’t won’t to spoil the story for you.
An interesting fact however is that the book also introduces new characters like the Roman Aquilus who’s story hasn’t been told in the games yet. In this first volume you won’t learn much about these new characters but I’m sure the next volumes will go further into those characters.
Next to the story, the visual style is as important for a graphic novel. While I was reading I noticed that the visual style has been chosen with care. Although it’s very different from the style of the games, it definitely feels right. The artist created a strong visual style where warm colours can change into cold industrial colours. It’s a beautiful style and as a reader you’ll feel the passion the artist putted into his work. The style is very realistic and fits well in the beautiful world of Assassin’s Creed.
We can conclude that this volume starts of very well but there’s still much room for improvement. The style is without a doubt very well chosen but the story could use some more details. It’s fun and intriguing to introduce new characters but the story is over so fast that sometimes you don’t really understand it completely. I hope that the next volume will take care of these little mistakes but the first volume isn’t a bad start at all.
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