The last time I found myself in a bookshop, I was surprised to find that the first book on the fiction shelf was Assassin’s Creed: Unity – the seventh in a popular series penned by Oliver Bowden. An interesting story, no doubt; one that details the struggle between two ancient orders against the chaotic backdrop of French Revolution-era Paris. The Assassins strive for freedom, the Templars seek to impose order and control, and rarely is it obvious who has the purer motive.
I wasn’t surprised at the story, but instead the form it was in. Like so many others, I associate Assassin’s Creed with Ubisoft’s brilliant video game series, not the spin-off paperback novels it has spawned.
For the last 10 or so years, plenty of video games have been finding their way into the literary world courtesy of novelisations. Halo, Mass Effect and BioShock are just a few of the successful games that gave birth to popular corresponding novels.
But it would be a mistake to assume the richness of the video games necessarily translates to richness on the page. BioShock may have boasted an enthralling, well-structured plot, but outside of that and a few rare exceptions, what’s most noticeable about these narratives is their mediocrity. Sure, they were lapped up by gamers who were engrossed in the virtual worlds they had already played through, but when read as stand-alone novels these storylines just weren’t up to scratch.
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