Assassin’s Creed III to feature evil King Washington

Ubisoft recently revealed The Tyranny of King George expansion pack for the new game in its best-selling Assassin’s Creed franchise.

 Assassin’s Creed III will cover the story of yet another of Desmond’s ancestors, this time moving the player up into the American Revolutionary War to stop Templar machinations during the early days leading up to the Union.

We knew it would have some DLC expansions to the base plot, but this is something they’ve never done before. The Tyranny of King George expansion is a three part DLC which will tell an alternate version of the county’s founding president.

While the Assassin’s Creed stories are always fiction, they have traditionally focused on conspiracy fantasies, meaning that if you look in a real life history book, you’ll never find any details that directly contradict what happens in the story because it’s written in such a way to show how the events were hidden from the history books.

Here, however, players will get the story of a George Washington who decided to accept the founder’s offer to make him the new nation’s king, and he uses that new power toward evil Templar ends. That’s alternate history, not conspiracy fantasy, and the creators understand they are doing something new with the franchise.

“While Assassin’s Creed III concentrates on history as it happens,” explained executive producer Sebastien Puel. “We wanted to take some liberties with this DLC and tell you how things ‘could have happened.””

That even makes it sound like this extra story will not be considered part of the Assassin’s Creed canon, which is also new. It sounds really fun, however, and this teaser graphic they released with the announcement makes it look as though they’ve developed an interesting persona for George Washington the Templar. That orb at the end of his scepter looks like The Apple, although it may be a different ancient artifact.

Though it hasn’t been outright stated, I’m assuming the main plot of Assassin’s Creed III will end with the end of the Revolutionary War, and that the five DLCs (of which The Tyranny of King George is three) will cover the aftermath of the war during the first days of Independence. The contents of the other two expansions has not yet been announced.

Assassin’s Creed III will be on the shelves and download services on October 30th, 2012 It can be preordered wherever you preorder your games, including Amazon. The five expansions will all be available, along with the additional multiplayer content, before the end of Spring 2013.