The Ptolemic period in the game is centuries after the New Kingdom era, 1300 years before [which means it's set centuries after Egypt's prime]. Egypt is mere decades away from collapse under the Roman invasion [so Egypt is very weak here], and is ruled by foreigners in this era (like Cleopatra), as opposed to Egyptian pharaohs such as Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, or even Khafre [the ones with the monuments and obscure mythology].

I'm wondering, why this decision? Did the Egypt of Egyptians lack the architecture (needed for climbing) that the Greeks introduced to the land? Or is it because the Greeks are more familiar to a Western audience than the original Egyptians, especially with Cleopatra's romanticized story?

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Edit: The reason I'm wondering why they didn't go for the older times is because I think it would've been much more riveting to delve into the relatively obscure world of the pyramids, the sphinx, the tombs of the kings and the prime of the New Kingdom, where all the monuments and the intriguing mythology belongs to, as well as the stories of the Exodus, rather than be a part of a Cleopatra and Mark Anthony story, which is very well known already and has been depicted in the media for a long time.

Did you play the game? I feel this is pretty well answered with the games story. They used certain historical figures as "the bad guys" who started the Templars. Its why that time period was used, and not an earlier part of the Egyptian history. The Romans (and Greeks) are very much seen as an evil force in the game, destroying Egypt.

I think they just wanted to get Cleopatra in there first, and didn't realize what time period she was actually in before it was too late.

So the reason the developer went for 30 BC (Ptolemies) as opposed to 1300 BC (Egyptians) was because the presence of the Greeks made it easier to "assign" the role of the Templars to them? Same way, I guess, the foreign presence of the Crusaders in Palestine made it easier in AC1 to paint them as the Templars.

I don't see why the Templars have to be foreigners. Game could've been set in 1300 and had Templars be Egyptians with bad intentions.

@howardian: The Templars aren't all foreigners but the game is set where it is because of how the Assassin's begin, certain Roman characters need to be present. Other games have talked about the initial event that led to the Assassin's guild being created and this game shows that event. They aren't just picking a time willy nilly, it's in line with their already established lore of the Assassin's

@takayamasama: So without too many spoilers as i may play this game one day, has the whole "Assassins were part of the templars" thing from the first game just been retconned now?

and to the original post, i mean you could say that kinda about anything set in any time or place I just chop it up to that's where they wanted to tell their story.

@oursin_360: I don't recall that ever being a thing in the first game. The first game said things along the lines of them always fighting each other, but to my knowledge of the games it was never implied that the Assassin's came from the Templars. Unless of course you are going back to the proto-humans Adam and Eve, but you can take all current day humans coming from them.

@takayamasama: Well it has been years, but as i recall the head of the assassins in the first game was a templar and they had a falling out about how to use the apple or something to that effect. He then uses you to kill his enemies and then when you kill him altair starts the assassins war against the templars.

It's possible i am misremembering some of that, it has been a very long time.

I don't know what you're getting at. Whats wrong with setting the game during a tumultuous period of Egyptian history that Western audiences are more familiar with. During the time the game is set the Ptolemies are pretty well established as an Egyptian dynasty having adopted many of their customs and traditions, they'd ruled for roughly 250 years at that point.

@oursin_360: No you are correct there, the Grandmaster of Altair's Assassin's Guild was a Templar, working from within, though he didn't agree with other Templars and tried to do his own thing. By that point in time though the Assassin's had existed for quite some time, and Origins is set way before those events. They were always separate organizations.

@howardian: Did the Egypt of Egyptians lack the architecture (needed for climbing) that the Greeks introduced to the land?

FYI, much of that architecture stems from ancient Egypt. The first stone structures, as well as the first use of columns, come from Imhotep's architecture.

Assassins Creed has always been about interacting with famous historical figures. This period of time is the richest in Egypts history with Cleopatra, Caesar, Pompey, Mark Antony, Octavian, Cicero, and so on. Other periods don't have quite the same density of famous figures, so you wouldn't have people going "oh hey, it's that guy!" like they do in most Assassin's Creed games.

Remember, one of the big parts of the initial Assassin's Creed 1 marketing pitch was that the people you were killing all actually existed and actually died roughly around when the game takes place.

Keep in mind I haven't played the game, so I don't know which of the folks I mentioned above are actually in the game.

As I recall, none of them (with the exception of the last Cleopatra) learned the Egyptian language or married native Egyptians. They were pretty thoroughly Greek. Adoption of Egyptian customs was for show.

I don't have a problem with the setting, though. A period of cultural and political conflict involving several different power centers makes for an interesting story.

It's in the post:

The big attraction of both Egyptian monuments and lore/mythology has to do with the Valley of Kings, the mummified tombs, the pyramids, and the Sphinx. Religion focuses on those times with scary stories of the Exodus (Torah and Quran), fiction focuses on those times (like The Mummy movies), they are the big alien thing about Ancient Egypt that is most intriguing. The names that cause dread, intrigue and curiosity are Remesis and Khafre, much more than Cleopatra and Ptolemy. They are the faces of the Egyptian Mt. Rushmore.

So, had the game centered around that, it would've been exceptionally riveting. Egypt in its prime, with all its myths and legends, not during its deteriorating times of conquest and excessive political shenanigans.

I have a pretty weak understanding of Egyptian history so anyone in the know please correct me but, in an older era of Egypt, wouldn't there be slaves everywhere? That may be one of the reasons to set it later in Egypt--i doubt thats a topic a big publisher is excited to touch on (even though I believe they already have with one of the AC4 spin offs)

From what I remember from Egyptian studies (and some research/revision now), Ancient Egypt's "Prime" never existed because the society evolved over 3000 years (3100-332)BC. Even the time with the most well-known Pharoahs (the New Kingdom) took place over 500 years (1550-1070)BC.

You can't pick a time when the pyramids were being built, and the pharoahs were all around, and Egypt was in it's technological prime... because all of those are different eras. The only way to represent the affect on Egyptian society that everyone expects (the pyramids, tombs, sphinx, kingdoms, pharoahs, Dynast-kings), is to set it at the end. If you pick any other time, some of these iconic things will be non-existant, being built, or already ruins anyway. They then must have chosen to go a little after that to include the interesting tensions of multiple cultures coinciding in the same place.

You're saying that because of the lore of the first two AC games, this origins story had to have Romans present, which disqualified the New Kingdom era.

So my two favorite AC games (1&2) are the reason I can't be buddies with Ramesses right now?!! They have betrayed my love!

@superdomino: Historians, to the best of my knowledge, now firmly believe that the pyramids were not built using slave labor.

@howardian: I'm telling you because of the lore of the game AND because of what the devs wanted to do, the game is set where it is. Based on how the game talks about the New Kingdom era (of which there is a lot of history in game), there wouldn't be any conflict to have a story with.

The time they picked for the game works very well, and the game is fantastic. A game set in the New Kingdom era would be neat but that wouldn't have the set up to make it an Assassin's creed game, so to me it seems like you just want something else from this game that it can't (and never intended) to give.

@howardian: Every AC game is set in an iconic era with people, places, and events that Western video game audiences are familiar with. The Levant during the Crusades, Italy during the Renaissance, America and France during their revolutions, London during the Industrial Revolution, and finally Egypt during the rise of Rome. You name important people but what are the events and conflicts that your average gamer is going to be familiar with and interested in?

Lord knows we have more than enough media repeating the same snippets of history over and over again but its easy to see why.

You're pretty much on-point. Instead of delving into material that is unknown to the audience (and therefore fresh) by presenting us with a grand legend about Ramesses or King Tut, they choose to show us what we do already know, because it's cool to talk to famous personalities. I would've much rather been taken into the unknown world of the ancient kings rather than see Cleopatra, whom I've seen repeatedly since my childhood, but oh well, AC:O is amazing all the same.

This discussion made me appreciate Uncharted 2 for going after fresh unexplored lore, like Marco Polo, which is way more intriguing than lore we're familiar with.

Very interesting statement, can you elaborate? Why would it be difficult to set an Assassins story in 1330 BC and have the Pharaoh be a Templar/Assassin and his enemies be the opposite? Instead of Cleo being good and Ptolemy being bad, it could've been Ramesses good and his opponents bad, or vice versa, just replace the names! I'm sure Ubisoft could've easily woven a story about an ancient Egyptian cult hellbent on world domination, which is the origin of the Templar movement, or used one of the ancient Egyptian heroes as the first Assassin, etc.

@howardian: Without spoiling things, it just wouldn't work with the established lore they have and want to enhance on. This is called "Origins" for a reason. Also you assumptions of who is "good and bad" is definitely off.

If they wanted to do a Assassin's Creed set even further in the past, they probably would just go to the time of The Ones Who Came Before.

@takayamasama: hmm i know the order existed but i thought the war started in that time period. Like i remember only the chief knowing anything about the templars? I may have just misinterpreted

I for one loved the weird culture clash that was displayed in this game and felt like it was a much more interesting setting then just "ancient egypt" I like the idea that the old rulers of Egypt where ancient to the ancients and it was kinda neat to see this awkward period of history as the worlds oldest civilization is on the verge of collapsing

It probably had to do something with the rise and fall of rulers, people or what have you. It makes sense for the story, though I don't know Ancient Egyptian history well enough to say if what came before would also work. I don't think it would though. You said it yourself, this takes place around the time Egypt 'collapses', so it gives some reason for the main characters to do the things they do.

It just seems so weird/scary to me that the pyramids were already ancient to the people depicted in the game.

Time, man. Pink Floyd made a song about it.

I really loved the setting actually i never even knew Egypt had the clash of cultures so i actually started reading more about it after playing the game!

I haven't played through the whole thing yet, though I am really enjoying it so far.

When it was announced, I was surprised that they went with Ptolemaic Egypt, where Egypt has really kind of lost it's 'Egyptian-ness' in a way.

I think New Kingdom would've been a far better setting. Looking at just after the expulsion of the Hyksos, or, I think for an AC game, looking at the pharaoh Akhenaten and the change for Egypt from a polytheistic religion to a briefly monotheistic one. Akhenaten is Tutankhamun's father, so that's a familiar name for those who aren't quite up on their Egyptian history.

I can see the drawcard of Cleopatra and Caesar for the devs though. The larger structures in Alexandria would also have been a drawcard. A New Kingdom game could've had a location down in Thebes, Luxor or Karnak rather than Alexandria though.

@ripelivejam There was more time between the construction of the Pyramids at Giza to Cleopatra, than there has been between Cleopatra and Now. It's crazy stuff.

Assassin's Creed has ALWAYS been about culture clashes. Crusaders and Saracens. Byzantines and Ottomans. British Empire and American Colonists.

Would you believe me if I told you that Pink Floyd's release of the song "Time" is closer to Cleopatra's time than it is to our present day?

This is speculation on my part but I think a major reason for the specific time period was its familiarity with most people. While egypt during its "prime" would have been interesting I think the time period kinda made the exploration more interesting since you had the chance of exploring places that might not yet have been built during the previous era. Also this specific time period offers players more variety when it comes to towns that they can visit in the game. So the player can explore Alexandria with its Greek architecture and then visit Memphis where Greek influences in building styles are not so heavily emphasized.

The only thing I kinda dont like is the fact that having this be an origin story kinda limits the chances of getting an assassins creed game set in ancient babylon or in China during the time period when the first emperor of China lived.

Why? Probably accessibility the widest audience possible. How many people actually know who Khafre was? How many players have even heard of him? I'm guessing not a lot. By comparison, just about everyone knows who Cleopatra and Caesar are.

There's also the historical tourism aspect of it. Ubi wants you to be able to participate in big "famous" historical moments. And while the guys the OP mentions might be really important to the history of Egypt, you probably can't think of a big quote or single defining event to associate with them. Instead, by using the Ptolemaic period, they get to use moments like Cleopatra being smuggled in the a palace via a rug and Caesar getting got in the Senate.

Now for what it's worth, I think both those moments were largely wasted in the game. Historically, Caesar may or may not have said anything as he got stabbed (although they at least didn't use "Et tu, Brute"), and Cleopatra-in-the-rug might not have happened at all. And they didn't exactly build to either moment very well. Cleopatra is in all of a half dozen cut-scenes that never really establish her character. And Caesar is in the game for all of twenty minutes and never seems particularly villainous during that time.

So yeah, I'm fine about the time frame they set it in. I'm less fine with them wasting the history behind it.

I completely understand their many reasons for setting it in the time period they did. But at the same time I can't hep but feel a little disappointed they did not go with the older period of Egypt in it's former glory. One of the draws of AC games for me was always them bringing those places that are now ruins and history to life. While big chunks of Origins feel like you are just exploring dead ruins (because you literally are) instead of exploring those spaces at their "live" period.

I haven't played the game yet, but it sounds like a time when the Greeks and Romans have their hands in Egyption affairs with war bubbling all around is a very politically compelling setting. Culturally too, it's a game set in Egypt, but you can include Romans and Greeks.

The fact that Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony are well known is a plus. Most people only know these figures by name and having recognizable figures to place in historical context is a great selling point. One the Assassin's Creed series has never shied away from.

Others have already said it, but there are several reasons:

1) General historical familiarity. More people know about Cleo and Caesar and the Romans that would ever know about Old or New Kingdom history. Hell, even historians do. Many of the names OP lists are only known through faded stone carvings and brief snippets of anecdotes or oral tradition. This series has always been about the "historical tourism" where famous events are happening around you and your interaction with them. If this had been in a more ancient period of Egyptian history, everything surrounding the gameplay would have been guess work and complete fiction and, honestly, its hard enough for game writers to piece together a story with all the historical trappings in the world, let alone when left entirely up to their own devices.

2) Honestly, I don't want to play a combat driven game like Assassins Creed in the Bronze or Iron ages. Most of the new stuff in this game comes from the gear/loot system. Iron blade # 25 or bronze tipped spear 16 doesn't hold the same gameplay loop to me. Anyone remember Far Cry Primal? I do, and that was more than enough.

3) Do you really expect Ubisoft to make a gigantic open world Egypt and not include one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World? Alexandria HAS to be in the game, or else it would be an endless series of climbing sand dunes, nameless approximations of temples, and random wooden towers. The mix of "modern" like Alexandria, the old, Like Letopolis, and the ancient, like Giza and parts of Memphis creates a really unique world in my opinion. Also, as others have said, the end of the Ptolomeic era has everything present that a person would want from a representation of Egypt, as opposed to setting it earlier during a period where something was being constructed, or did not exist yet at all.

4) This is the one I need to remind myself of with every one of these games: not everyone knows as much about history as I do. I'de be willing to bet that the majority of people who play this game have never heard of the Ptolomys, or that they were descended from a general of Alexander the Great who brought the Greek influence fully to Egypt after Alexander's conquest. Or the whole story of Cleopatra's dalliances with Caesar and later Antony, and how that ended up greatly shaping what would be the Roman Empire. Its been the same with every AC game I've played other than Revelations. To many people, this game will be their first exposure to a lot of that history, and I cant really be disappointed in a game for not tailoring the story to myself.

Brilliantly put. I would've much rather walked in the halls of the old Kings while they were inhabited and alive, rather than walk in their ruined and abandoned halls in silence.

@cornfed40: My hobbyist's interest in history (the result of a lot of hours spent listening to Dan Carlin and The History of Rome) is one of the reasons I feel compelled to play Assassin's Creed games. I don't really expect accuracy, but there's typically a good attempt, framed within the confines of a video game, if you're willing to accept a fictional plot built into a real world setting. I feel like a period needs a few things to be a really viable Assassins Creed setting. Most importantly you need some historical figures that people know - as much as i'd want say, a game about ancient Persia or Assyria, or somewhere else rarely talked about, we know next to nothing about specific people from the period that weren't rulers, and the more unknowns a setting introduces, the more gaps Ubisoft has to fill.

Egypt and Mesopotamia are unique regions in that they are places where what we consider to be ancient civilizations lived next to ruins that were as old to them as Rome is to us.

But that very point is why that game is Uncharted, and not Assassin's Creed. UC2 doesn't explore any "unexplored lore," its all complete hogwash fiction. Fun and interesting mind you, but completely from the mind of a video game writer. Video game writers, by and larger, make pretty crap stories when left to their own devices. That's not what I, or most likely the broadest audience of the games, comes to the AC series looking for. Assassins Creed stories are personal tales wrapped up with a historically based backdrop for the characters to weave in and out of. An epic story from the age of Ramses might as well have an alien as the main character. It kind of sounds like you wanted a different game, not a different setting.

When I made the thread I wasn't aware that Old/New Kingdom Egypt was so obscure to archaeologists with so little knowledge about those periods, that a story set in those times would be stuffed with fiction, and no longer be Assassin's Creed.

Now that I know this, I guess Greek Egypt is the best we can do if we want a measure of historical accuracy, but it's a damn shame I'll tell you that much.

I love the historical era of ancient greece and the roman empire, so for me this period is pretty spot on. Towards ancient egypt, my knowledge is pretty limited, but I will say that mostly because of the setting, the game areas feel different from one another. And every Assassins creed game has and most likely will be tied into a major historical struggle.

Aside from good points already brought up, the era kind of helped the flow of the game: first a tour of Egypt, and right as that was getting old, throw in a tight bunch of history tie-in, and then add Romans to the enemy pool to refresh things.

Also, using the most famous assassination as the origin of the creed made sense. They successfully framed Caesar's speech very close to Templar ideology too.

It is true that the 40BC setting means the most famous assassinations (and failed attempts) in Chinese history is then incompatible with lore. I'm sure if in a decade they see the franchise struggling again the writers will figure out a way though. That is the last card up their sleeves (with apologies to other settings, and mind my ignorance, I think China will come closest to matching Egypt for vastness, diversity, and historic/cultural intrigue.)

@howardian: it just goes to show the vastness of human history compared to what we really know and understand. From AC1 to Syndicate, we are basically covering 1000 years. Origin is set over 1000 years before AC1. To get to the pyramids and Sphinx in there glory, its over 2000 years before THAT.

While i do enjoy that AC writers tend to stick with history and leave the "myths" and "legends" mostly to side stories, maybe they could have added some flashback, isolated sequences kind of like the games ending, thay showed a past medjay climbing something that showed the glory of "ancient" Egypt or something.

Can't wait til you do a Roman Empire one with an appearance from Jesus.

(the #1 name people know in Egyptian history is Cleopatra, end of story...probably because of Shakespeare)

Well, technically the guy who 'White Jesus' is basically based off of, Cesare Borgia was already the main antagonist of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and took place in Rome! But yeah...this series seems like it could go on forever at some point. If GTA can go back to Liberty City and San Andreas twice, there's no reason they cannot visit place X and place Y twice in very different time periods in totally separate games.

I mean, there are things in AC2/Brotherhood that are picked apart and super old by the time that game takes place too.

i wanna say when Alexander the great took over egypt they became a bigger military powerhouse then they where before. Also i think this timeline is pretty great you get Greeks Romans and oppressed native Egyptians and Nubians. I think it's the best Egyptian timeline to tackle in a videogame IMO.

Ive wanted to be Spartacus in one of these games for a long time. I guess that would give them time to sneak in Jesus haha