The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics kicked off today with the usual fanfare: pyrotechnics, live performances, and, uh, a guy in an Assassin’s Creed get-up running the Olympic torch across the rooftops of Paris.
It’s been nearly a decade since Assassin’s Creed Unity took players to the streets of France for some revolutionary parkour-and-murder shenanigans. But that sure didn’t stop what very much looked like a tribute to the game and its French developer, Ubisoft, taking center stage at the Olympics opening ceremony today.
Was this an official marketing effort or partnership between Ubisoft and the Olympics? It’s hard to tell. Ubisoft did lob a couple of tongue-in-cheek references to Unity and its main character, Arno, on social media. And to be honest, if this isn’t supposed to be an Assassin’s Creed nod, then what the hell else is it? Is there some other French property that features hooded mystery men in 18th-century clothing running around on rooftops?
The video game connection is also helped by the International Olympic Committee desperately trying to stay relevant with its many forays into the world of video games. There was the first one that gamers didn’t really care about because it almost exclusively featured games that were just video game counterparts of real-world games (stunning, the fact that kids didn’t care about who was the best Tennis Clash or Virtual Taekwondo player in the world). The next crack at an Esports Olympics is reportedly set to feature games people actually play, like League of Legends and Rocket League, so it does have that going for it.
And, as far as Assassin’s Creed is concerned, it’ll take the free marketing as it enters the final stretch before the release of Shadows, the latest game in the series. Now all that’s left to complete the opening ceremony is for the map to be revealed when the Olympic torch is lit, allowing the torchbearer to jump several stories into a small bale of hay.
