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Writer's picturemozkan

Identity Changes as a Part of Liberation

Part of the appeal of Assassin's Creed is that the player is able to have a character that can shift their identity in order to complete their quest. By accessing doors that are special with blue aura-like graphics floating in front of them, the player is able to take advantage of the identity shift. For example, a slave and noble lady are able to go past guards without being as harshly persecuted as the assassin identity. For a game to resemble the features of life that is more related to reality, it must take into account the multiple roles or identities people tend to have. For example, a doctor may also be a mother at home and hold an administrative position. These roles demand different identities to be associated with them.

When the assassin becomes a slave or an upper-class lady, she is treated differently. In a way, the game could be commenting on just how pertinent our outward appearance and the way we conduct ourselves effects a response from others. The mom may act or say things with more of a playful personality rather than a hospital administrator that sits in droning meetings. Similarly, the administrative role demands more respect from surrounding people such as that is demanded from the role of being a lady. The ability to determine how we are treated by a simple change in the game can be used to our advantage like identities may be in real life as well. Thus, interchangeable identities are actually one way that the player and the avatar are liberated from the rigid structure of stealth games.

For an assassin game, the graphics are not actually that gory. For example, when the avatar kills the soldiers/slave sellers, they fall without an exaggerated splash of blood that may splash around compared to other games like Halo where the FPS player acts as an assassin of sorts as well. The graphics are not as Abstract as Superhot with glass humanoids that shatter because the guards that are killed do exhibit human reactions to being hurt or killed. The focus is still not placed on the act of killing the guards since the missions are involved in saving slave women. This means that the actual killing is trivialized as something that must be done for the greater good of the mission.

As for the racial aspect of this game, I think it is really valuable for players that may identify as something other than French African or Black to understand the more racially-charged societal rules placed on them by the historically accurate game. Although other Assassin’s Creed games can use the identities of other people that also change, the Liberation edition makes it undeniable for those playing the game to know how the color of skin can so horribly impact the way one is treated. I would be curious to see other people’s thoughts on why they value the game in terms of its storyline. How do the identities of the avatar affect the mechanics of the game play, story, and impact on the player?

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vbigdelle
Nov 03, 2019

I think your point about the value of people of different identities to be able to play through a french african or black character is really important to think about. In our discussion section, we talked about what identity means in the scope of a video game. For example, is it more valuable that people are able to customize characters to look like them or is it more important the people be able to "live" through a character different than themselves? While I think it's still important that everyone be able to see characters in the media or pop culture, I also think that to be given the chance to temporarily walk in someone else shoes can be a really…

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ayresn
Nov 02, 2019

I like the direction of the focus you place on the different aspects of identity, and I think this game in particular definitely has many different roles asked of the identity sliver, but I think we can also consider performance a bit more, especially in terms of the game mechanics. For instance, how much overlap is there in mobility or accessibility between the different personas? Can you climb to the top of a tower in the Lady persona? If so, does performing such an action detract from the performance of the identity and incur penalties for the player? Essentially, what happens if you don't necessarily perform the identity you're supposed to be performing as?

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Jaida Kenana
Nov 02, 2019

To add onto your point, I think that the eagle vision mechanic of the game could also add onto and make the idea of identity more complex. As you had mentioned, the game allows you to switch between different identities which allow you to sort of fit in depending on the setting. However, one thing that doesn't change is the eagle vision mechanic. In this case, regardless of which persona you have, the enemies will show up in red. Regardless of what persona you have, you will always see the same enemies in red when using eagle vision. I think this could be significant because, in a way, it ties all of the identities together. It allows each identity to…

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Catherine An
Catherine An
Nov 02, 2019

The connection you make between real life experiences of switching from roles in different social settings, to the switching of personas in Assassin's Creed, is something I hadn't considered. At first, I was skeptical of the player's ability to switch between the personas, categorizing the feature as something rather fantastical. Most people don't switch drastically from one class to another in their day to day experience and aren't able to fully immerse themselves in that role (which perhaps the player isn't even able to do so in the game, since he/she has the option to frequently change personas). The ability to switch between different classes is a rather unique feature of this game, but since the switching of personas is…

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