ASSASSIN’S CREED COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT: ACCESS THE ANIMUS

Assassin's Creed is casting a spotlight on what truly makes AC's heart beat: the community. Since its release 15 years ago, AC has gathered a wide and diverse community of passionate players. We are truly honoured to listen to and share their stories!

Assassin's Creed Community Manager Miranda Amess sat down with Access The Animus to find out more about this amazing community-driven group.

Miranda: Let's start at the beginning! Tell us about Access The Animus and your group's mission.

Access The Animus: First of all, thanks for having us! It's an honor to be featured in this Community Spotlight.

Access The Animus is a fan initiative aimed at creating a hub to discuss every aspect of the Assassin's Creed franchise and to share our passion with other fans across the world.

Overall, our goal is to create a safe space where fans can freely discuss the franchise (even critically, if they desire) without being judged for their opinions. Our main mission has always been to create content and provide theories and analysis, both through our YouTube channel and articles on our website. We endeavour to continue sharing news and information on AC as clearly and reliably as possible.

M: Is there a story behind the name "Access the Animus"?

ATA:  From the very start we have been Assassin's Creed lore nerds. With lore as our focus, we wanted to find a name to represent that. It took a while to decide, however. One night during a call with the original founders, "Access The Animus" came up as a reference to the track composed by Jesper Kyd for the first Assassin's Creed game. Collectively we felt that such a title, whilst an homage to the first game and Jesper himself, could represent entering the Animus to unravel the mysteries and complexity of Assassin's Creed. The name was therefore a natural and easy choice.

M: When was Access The Animus created, and how has it evolved over the years?

ATA: Access The Animus was founded May 11, 2013, as an Italian-only fan project. At the time we were six founders, Markuz, Sary, Simonsens, AJ23, Haephestus, and Xander. We started with a website, on which we published our lore-related articles, and a Facebook and Twitter account to share daily news and communicate with the community. After a few months, we started receiving many requests from non-Italian fans asking what our content was about, and whether we could translate our content into English. Due to this feedback, in September 2013 we turned ATA into a bilingual initiative welcoming Stefania to the team as our main translator. Since then, our content has been published in both English and Italian.

Access The Animus has evolved a lot. The team has changed and some of the original founders left to focus on new projects. Over the years, we've been joined by Mathieu, our collection specialist, and Sorrosyss, a lore expert and our main reviewer for every Assassin's Creed release (both games and transmedia).

We have created an expansive catalogue of content and have grown into new realms of the fandom. This includes news, previews, reviews, theories, analysis, videos, streams, giveaways, and more. ATA has previously: hosted interviews; participated in fan meetings; organized successful fan activities, including some at gaming conventions and events; participated in Ubisoft's community programs such as the Initiates Ambassadors, Star Players, and Mentors Guild - the list goes on.

In order to diversify our content, we relaunched our YouTube channel in August 2020. Markuz takes great care when creating and narrating our lore and news videos for fans to enjoy.

M: What do Assassin's Creed and the community mean to you?

ATA: Assassin's Creed has been a constant in our lives for 15 years now, and there are so many memories tied to the franchise for us! We have met a lot of people along the way with whom we have shared so many experiences. It sounds cheesy, but for us the most important takeaway from this whole experience and journey is the people we have met and the friends we have made along the way.

Being part of this community means to some degree, being part of a big family. We share enthusiasm for everything that revolves around the franchise in our own peculiar and unique way.

M: What is your favorite thing about being a member of the Assassin's Creed community?

ATA: The best part of being within the Assassin's Creed Community is the confidence of being able to easily find someone as passionate as we are, with whom we can share our thoughts, ideas, and projects.

There are so many aspects of Assassin's Creed that people can enjoy after 15 years and becoming a member of the community is thankfully extremely easy and accessible. Although sometimes families bicker, there are plenty more occasions where fans gather to celebrate the franchise that they love.

M: Which contribution to the AC community are you most proud of?

ATA: There are many but the ones we are proudest of are the fan activities and gatherings we organized during live events such as Gamescom. During the convention, together with Ubisoft, we were able to organize Community Dinners where fans and developers could sit at the same table and chat about what they love in a relaxed manner. We also organized and hosted several editions of the Assassin's Creed Trivia quiz for fans visiting the Ubisoft Lounge, as well as Fanart contests with the winners being displayed next to the Ubisoft booth.

Another contribution we are proud of is the Assassin's Creed Calculator, a web tool we developed with the objective of helping fans find a recommended order to consume the myriad of story-based releases of AC. The tool also gives a rough estimate of how much time will be needed to read, watch, or play releases based on how fast or slow fans would like to consume them.

Since Assassin Creed® Valhalla's release, there have been new mysteries and languages introduced, which we have used to crack the Isu language. We produced several videos about the topic and following the community's enthusiasm for the language, we released what we called the Isu Language hub in March 2022. Here we collected all the content and knowledge that we were able to gather about the language and retain this into a resource tool to use.

M: Do you have any favorite memories of being part of the Assassin's Creed community?  If so, what are they?

ATA: This is something we have already touched upon in the previous question, but the best memory is absolutely tied to the Community Dinners, because we were able to give something to the community. At the end of these dinners, we would hand each participant (both fans and Developers) a commemorative print. It was surprising to see not only fans asking the Devs for autographs, but the Devs also asking the same of fans. Seeing the mutual admiration of both fans and developers writing nice messages to each other was heartwarming.

M: Now for some fun questions, and I'd love to get all your answers! What is your most memorable moment from the series?

Sara: My favorite is no doubt the moment where Ezio meets Altaïr in Assassin's Creed® Revelations.

Marco: Ah dang, Sary stole it from me! If I had to choose another, I'd say in Assassin's Creed® II, where Minerva stops talking to Ezio and looks straight at the player, addressing Desmond directly across time. It was an immensely powerful moment and a huge plot twist.

Stefania: The end of Assassin's Creed® Black Flag, when Edward sees all his friends while Anne sings "The Parting Glass."

Sorrosyss: There are several - the Minerva moment is a favorite. Controversial as it is, I was shocked and awed by the ending of Assassin's Creed® III. Seeing Desmond die, and Juno suddenly an emergent threat upon Earth - it was amazing, and I was dying to find out what would happen next.

Mathieu: That moment in Assassin's Creed® Brotherhood where Desmond kills Lucy while being controlled by the piece of Eden.

M: Are you Team Templar OR Team Brotherhood?

Sara: Absolutely team Templar.

Marco: Team Brotherhood, I very much believe in free will.

Stefania: Team Brotherhood.

Sorrosyss: Instrument of the ... oh wait. Team Isu. Humanity needs its affairs put in order by a higher being, now more than ever.

Mathieu: Team Brotherhood is where I get my energy from.

M: Where can we follow you to learn more about ATA?

ATA: You can keep an eye on our social media in the coming weeks. We are planning to expand with new ATA platforms, as well as creating more community initiatives which will happen very soon!

ATA Website

YouTube

Twitter

Facebook

A huge thank you to the team at Access The Animus for joining me and thank you for being AC fans and community leaders! It has been an absolute pleasure to hear more of your inspiring story and we are excited to see the future of ATA!