Assassin’s Creed is a legendary intellectual property (IP) in its own right and has appeared in many other Ubisoft crossovers.
Now, the rooftop-jumping assassin game is being represented in cardboard with the Universes Beyond treatment of Magic the Gathering. Published by Dungeons and Dragons and Baldur’s Gate studio Wizards of the Coast.
Wizards of the Coast Senior game designer Corey Bowen has promised fans, via Den of Geek that AC stories and narratives will be carefully “revisualized into Magic’s style.”
Wizards have been active in promoting the MTG X AC across X:
You've got a full selection of blades to choose from in #MTGxAC.
Grab your whetstone and get to sharpening! pic.twitter.com/1NFKkYBlsM
— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) July 2, 2024
Bowen continued, “I worked really closely with the art director and creative designer. We were collaborating on what characters and concepts that we wanted to bring. What I really love is seeing whatever the style is of Assassin’s Creed and we’re taking that essence and bringing it in Magic’s arthouse style.”
Assassins in MTG are predominantly associated with black mana, the fuel used to play them on the tabletop. Bowen said of converting the stealthy world of AC, “We still want Assassins of different colors. There is going to be a little bit more Black (Mana cards) because Assassins feel really Black, but we also have a lot of Red/White Assassins that represent the historic side of the series; maybe the Valhalla or Odyssey characters feel more towards that identity.”
As we previously reported when the set was unveiled, the MTG X AC crossover will feature signature items from the series as marquee cards. The iconic haystack players tumble into from epic heights was featured as a playable card. The wrist-mounted hidden blade and animus also take their place as legendary artifacts.
“My favorite card is called Haystack,” Bowen said. “It’s just a haystack and you tap it to hide a creature for a turn and then it phases out. It’s such a simple concept and idea of hiding your creature, but it’s resonant and Assassin’s Creed fans will immediately get the joke.”
Memory corridor treatments will be present in the Collector Booster packs, as well as unique serialized versions of the game’s historical characters. These limited five hundred cards will also come in the language they spoke, such as ancient Egyptian for Cleopatra and Italian for Leonardo Da Vinci.
This is not the first time a gaming franchise or a major pop culture name has been lovingly transported to Magic The Gathering. Lara Croft, Godzilla, Doctor Who, and the Lord of The Rings have all had their own treatments in the card game.
We also reported on the smash hit set for Fallout: Universes Beyond which was a healthy part of Wizards of the Coast’s earning report for the first quarter of this year.
The Lord of the Rings: Universes Beyond propped up a struggling Hasbro, as we covered late last year. Combined with the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, Wizards and Hasbro raked in the profits from fans of all things geeky.
Hasbro and Wizards sadly left a bad taste in fans’ mouths after mass layoffs in the face of the record income.
Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian cut ties with both Hasbro and Wizards despite the game being the best game of 2023. Sven Wicke, CEO of Larian stated that being involved with any new Wizards plans is “literally the opposite of what Larian is about. We want to do big, new things. We don’t want to rehash the thing that we’ve done already.”
Cynthia Williams, the President of Wizards at the time, was shown the exit door swiftly afterward, leaving behind her a legacy of disharmony.
Image: Wizards of the Coast.
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