10 Games That Drew Inspiration From Assassin's Creed

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00:00Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're looking at games that have taken a lot of inspiration

00:12from Assassin's Creed over the years.

00:14Now, we're not saying any of these games aren't great, in fact, many of them are actually

00:18some of the greatest games of all time, but they definitely wouldn't have been the same

00:22without Assassin's Creed.

00:28Before we begin, we publish new content all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring

00:33the bell to get notified about our latest videos.

00:37Mafia III The first two Mafia games were heavily inspired

00:45by GTA and remain widely beloved.

00:47The third entry, however, wasn't as well received.

00:50Hangar 13 took the criticism that people wanted Mafia II to be longer and have more side content

00:55to heart and approached Mafia III by loading it up with territories to take over and side

01:00missions to complete, feeling very similar to Assassin's Creed Syndicate, but also to

01:05even older games like Rogue, which had a similar gang-slash-territory system.

01:09It also pulled from Assassin's Creed in another key way.

01:12The entire story sees Link and Klee systematically targeting and assassinating members of the

01:17Italian Mafia to seize control of the city.

01:25Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor One of the greatest Lord of the Rings games

01:34ever made, Shadow of Mordor never really hit its influences.

01:38Its third-person combat drew heavily from the Arkham games, which we'll be talking

01:42about soon, don't you worry, but it also had a parkour system and towers you can fast-travel

01:47between.

01:48Although, interestingly, it wasn't until 2013's Black Flag that Ubisoft had the idea

01:52to let you fast-travel between viewpoints.

01:55But we can't forget that the thing that set Shadow of Mordor apart from other games, its

01:59nemesis system, was soon adopted through the mercenary system of Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

02:04That was until 2021, when Warner Bros. finally got its patent through.

02:08So much for give and take, I guess.

02:15The Saboteur What if there was an Assassin's Creed set

02:23during the Second World War, with players tasked with helping the French Resistance?

02:26Well, wonder no more, because we've had a game just like that since way back in 2009.

02:32Unity only gave us a very small taste of a wartime AC in one of its Rift missions, where

02:37Arno climbs the Eiffel Tower and guns down enemy planes.

02:40But The Saboteur is an entire game just like that, with players working to undermine the

02:45Nazis from within and liberate the city, generally by assassinating people.

02:49Later, Assassin's Creed games definitely adopted this formula more, but The Saboteur also included

02:54a very similar parkour system.

02:56Unfortunately, though the game is great, it didn't sell well, and Pandemic was unfortunately

03:00shut down by EA.

03:07Days Gone The first of numerous first-party Sony games

03:16on this list, Days Gone was pretty popular with everybody who played it, which, unfortunately,

03:21wasn't enough people for Sony to take a chance on a sequel, gosh darn it.

03:25While Days Gone has a much more human story than Assassin's Creed, which has become

03:28increasingly preoccupied with its demigod protagonist, the two games are very similar

03:33when you look at the way the open worlds are designed.

03:36Days Gone also has a settlement system in which Deacon works to earn the favor of the

03:40people living there.

03:41This is a little like the side missions Connor undertakes to build up the Davenport homestead

03:45in Assassin's Creed 3, but easily, Days Gone did it better.

03:54The Batman Arkham Series A lot of core elements of the Arkham games

04:06actually appeared in Assassin's Creed first.

04:09Only one AC game existed at the time Arkham Asylum released, with AC2 releasing three

04:13months later, but the inspiration is clear in one key area, detective vision.

04:18Though the Arkham games are often credited with developing this now ubiquitous game mechanic,

04:23with everyone from Arthur Morgan to the characters in Watch Dogs having it, it appeared as eagle

04:27vision in Assassin's Creed first.

04:30Later in the series, and Arkham would draw even more from Assassin's Creed by having

04:33Batman take out forts full of enemies in Arkham Knight, for better or for worse I guess.

04:38And of course, there's the heavy stealth focus.

04:45Saints Row IV Of all the games that should draw from Assassin's

04:55Creed, Saints Row probably isn't one of them.

04:57And indeed, Saints Row IV was the series' most unpopular game until the 2022 reboot.

05:02Yeah, that one wasn't good at all.

05:04Originally intended to be a DLC, parodying alien invasion movies and the Matrix, Saints

05:09Row IV didn't need to be a full game, and it ended up full of bloat.

05:12This mainly consisted of territory takeover missions, as big sections of the map, or simulation,

05:17are liberated by the boss.

05:19So how do you liberate the map you ask?

05:21Well, of course, by climbing up huge towers and synchronizing those viewpoints, I mean

05:25everyone knows that right?

05:26Not that any non-AC game would be bold enough to use the word synchronize to describe a

05:30game mechanic anymore.

05:32Shadow of the Tomb Raider

05:48While Tomb Raider is a much older series than Assassin's Creed, and highly influential

05:52in its own right, it reinvented itself with the reboot trilogy.

05:56These games are definitely more inspired by Uncharted than Assassin's Creed, but the

06:00final entry in the trilogy goes heavy on the stealth.

06:03It's actually got even more complex stealth than Assassin's Creed, with Lara able to

06:07cover herself in mud to blend into walls and go prone to sneak.

06:11And of course, she can do stealth takedowns.

06:13She's also looking for legendary historical artifacts, though the use of MacGuffins predates

06:17the entire medium of video games.

06:19These artifacts do have devastating effects though, much like pieces of Eden.

06:28Horizon Zero Dawn

06:35A lot of Assassin's Creed tropes reappear in Horizon Zero Dawn, and its sequel.

06:39Aloy's focus provides her with a version of detective vision, there's third-person

06:43action gameplay with a limited array of weapons, she has to scale tallnecks to hack them and

06:47unlock the map, and crucially, she's piecing together what happened to a long-lost precursor

06:52civilization.

06:53That civilization is humanity, not a race of ten-foot-tall gods with magical apples,

06:58but she still spends an awful lot of time having the plot delivered to her via holograms

07:02from the past, just like how the Isu communicate with humans in the future.

07:06They're practically the same game when you look at it that way.

07:16Skull & Bones

07:22The only Ubisoft game on our list, maybe it's a little cold to describe Skull & Bones as

07:26a knockoff since it was originally intended to be a quick, easy multiplayer spin-off from

07:31Black Flag.

07:32But it's not an official AC game, and it's more shameless than most, taking over 10 years

07:37to develop a worse, more limited version of Black Flag that had already been beaten by

07:42Sea of Thieves years ago.

07:44Even more shocking was Ubisoft calling it the company's first quadruple-A game, and

07:48then trying to charge $70 for it, it's crazy.

07:51If you played it, you know it was neither quadruple-A nor worth all that cash, and Ubisoft

07:55now has squandered all that goodwill it built through Black Flag's best-in-show naval

08:00combat.

08:06Ghost of Tsushima

08:14Sucker Punch was already drawing heavily on Assassin's Creed in its older games, with

08:18infamous Second Son having a lot of Ubisoft-style base-and-territory takeover missions.

08:23But Ghost of Tsushima is the most AC-like non-AC game out there.

08:27It's got parkour, fun melee combat, a historical setting, an open world, and a core game mechanic

08:32of tracking down and assassinating targets.

08:35With Assassin's Creed Shadows on the horizon, we're sure to see this influence reversed,

08:39with Ubisoft now taking inspiration from everything Sucker Punch did to improve upon this now

08:44decades-old formula.

08:46We doubt that Shadows will have a black-and-white filter, though.

08:55Let us know in the comments which game you think is the most like Assassin's Creed.

09:03Check out these other great clips from Mojo Plays, and be sure to subscribe and ring the

09:07bell to get notified about our latest videos.

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