Rooks and Syndicates: the new Assassin's Creed Chapter
Markuz & Hephaestus, May 8, 2015
Well... it's that time of the year again!
Despite most of the fans believing nothing would have been announced up until E3 (including some of us), today the AC official channels have released this picture:
It's true, the new Assassin's Creed game has been announced, though we'll have to wait until May 12 at 6 PM CET for the world premiere reveal.
Thankfully, though, we already have a bunch of new information to chew on. Here's what we know:
Our new Assassin is already showing at least three of his weapons, if not four: we can obviously see the Hidden Blade, and then we have some brass knuckles, a crow-shaped cane and some sort of piston-based mechanism on the gauntlet. The three new weapons are probably going to portray our new character and his abilities. For example the brass knuckles may mean he is a brawler, but at the same time the cane (which will very likely contain a blade inside of it) may portray him as a distinguished person. Also, the mechanism should be a reference to the historical period we are going to explore, which will probably be Victorian London, as stated by the rumors in the past coming from Kotaku.
The name of our character will probably be Jacob, as we showed in one or our recent news.
Another rumor, once again coming from Kotaku, is that the game will now be called AC: Syndicate and not AC: Victory anymore. This may be plausible as it already happened in the past that the games had codenames which were different from what was used in their final version (Golden Age and Black Flag for example)
Later during the day, another picture was released by the official AC site:
Once again, we have a big amount of information, coming from just one picture:
What we see in the center is the brass knuckles, once again, and this time they are the protagonists of the picture. This means that this object may very well be an indicator of the nature of our character, especially considering that it seems made of gold and garnished with decoration, which may lead to a character of noble extraction (though the weapon itself should lead to a completely different kind of person). The knuckles also contain the line "Strength through loyalty", which seems to be like a maxim referring to a sort of organization which could be affiliated to the Assassins, if not the Assassins themselves.
What's more, the picture of the brass knuckles, if extrapolated from IGN, contains in its link the line "ACS: Albert Teaser Knuckles", which could mean that the brass knuckles don't actually belong to Jacob but perhaps to this Albert (maybe another Assassin member of the "Rooks" groop?)
The top of the picture features the line "We forge the chains we wear in life" a quote coming from Charles Dickens. This may mean that Dickens could actually be a character in game, but it could also have a meaning directly connected to the main's character life.
Over the knuckles we can also see the word "Rooks" (plural) and a drawing, or we should say carving, of a crow. In our opinion it's possible that this is the name of an organization / gang of which our main character is part of, considering the name (which is plural), the little drawing of a rook and the crow-shaped cane. All of them could be symbols of this organization, or better yet and once again of the character himself.
This iconographic choice of the crow, however, could not be coincidental, and right in in London there is a famous legend that concerns a group of crows, seven in this case.
The Ravens of the Tower of London
The Ravens of the Tower of London are a group of common crows (according to some interpretations, common ravens, but still belonging to the Corvus Corax species) who still live in the Tower (now kept in captivity) as a tourist attraction, and that are part of a superstition linked to an ancient legend. The group consists of seven individuals, and the presence of crows is linked to protection of the British Crown and the fate of Great Britain itself. This superstition description states that "If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it".
This legend is said to date back to the period of the English Restoration under Charles II (who already appeared in Project Legacy), while for other sources it dates back to the Great Fire of 1666, when the crows population started to be held in captivity. Geoff Parnell, the official historian of the Tower of London, believes that the myth of the ravens of the Tower is probably a legend which took place long after the Restoration, exactly in the Victorian era.
Parnell even found a document dating back to the Victorian period, which stated that before the end of that era "There are none [ravens] left", and that, even if the monarchy in general and the Tower itself would have still survived in time, contradicting the legend, for the queen it wouldn't have been the same.
Going back to the picture, this crow iconography matches it perfectly.
In fact in the picture, besides the aforementioned "Rooks", which is the (plural) name of the common raven, we have the "God Save the Queen" line, with this last part sentence scratched in the center. This may recall the final and a bit tragic part, of the legend to which they are connected (the Crown will fall and Britain with it).
As a matter of fact, in 1901, Queen Victoria died, ending a historical period that bears her name, while her son Edward arose on the throne, creating the Edwardian era, a very short period of time (only nine years compared to the 64 of his mother) which would have inexorably lead (with Edward's death) to the First World War.
Now we just have to theorize on how we can contextualize the"Rooks" in the new Assassin's Creed.
In fact, as we can hypothesize, the Ravens could be a group of people, who may or may not be affiliated to the Assassins (unless they are Assassins themselves, considering the Swordstick with the carved raven head), and which Jacob and others could be part of.
Another hypothesis could be the presence of the Rooks as a group of Assassins that protects Queen Victoria. If they fell ("If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away") they may determine the death of the Queen and, consequently, Britain's collapse.
In the bottom left-hand corner of the picture we can see the line "God save the Queen", with a scratch over the word queen. This is very interesting, as the name Jacob may mean (in one interpretation) "may God protect", which is very close to the line in the picture. This way our Jacob *could* be protecting something or someone, but it will probably not be the queen, as shown in the picture.
This is all for now, keep following us for any news on the next AC game and stay synchronized!
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