The alleged “year of the video game movie” has continued with the release of Assassin’s Creed. While the reviews have been mixed (including our own from Mike Ryan), one can’t help but enjoy the world created by the game and brought to life by the movie. It’s a world where people can be plugged into a machine that can simulate reality down to the smallest detail and endow them with incredible powers that they could never possess in the real world. For a newcomer to the Assassin’s Creed story, though, it’s hard to not see the similarities between that premise and the 1999 classic The Matrix, which begs the question: Do they exist in the same universe?
Our fan theory above suggests that Assassin’s Creed could actually be a prequel to The Matrix. In Creed, the Knights Templar war with the Brotherhood of Assassins in their pursuit of restarting society and ridding the Earth of anyone they deem inferior. To accomplish this, they resurrect and try to control Juno, an Isu and one of the ancient, god-like beings who once ruled the Earth. But what if instead of controlling her, Juno deemed all humans, including the Templars, to be inferior beings and used the pieces of Eden to construct the machines that destroyed the Earth in The Matrix? The machines could use a modified animus to enslave humanity through the Matrix, just as the Templars used it to enslave Desmond Miles and the other test subjects. It would also explain that Neo is a descendant of the Isu thus making him “The One.”
Although the history suggested by The Matrix and The Animatrix doesn’t support this, it’s an interesting theory to think about. And it would certainly give the unexceptional Assassin’s Creed adaptation more credence (or Creed-ence).
