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Everything Is Permitted: On Assassin's Creed
An entertaining deep dive into the world, gameplay, and evolution of the hugely successful Assassin’s Creed video game franchiseA hooded figure stands in a bell tower overlooking medieval Jerusalem, surveying his prey. Parkour-style, he leaps down into the square to kill his target before vanishing into the crowd . . . Released in fall 2007, Assassin’s Creed transformed video gaming. Across more than a dozen franchise entries, players engage with the eternal conflict between the Order of Assassins and the nefarious Templar Order, carrying out missions in a series of painstakingly rendered historical settings, from the Holy Lands during the Third Crusade to Renaissance Italy, the Age of Piracy, the French Revolution, and Victorian London. Everything is Permitted is an analysis of the development, evolution, gameplay, and world-building of this sprawling and distinctive franchise. Cameron Kunzelman examines key themes and concepts that connect the games in the series. Combining close readings of the games themselves with discussion of the broader landscape of video game franchises since its initial release, he uncovers what it means for a game to be part of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Kunzelman maps the elements that contribute to the immersiveness and continual playability of the games, showing how historically inflected conspiracies and science fictional premises ground the fantastical stories the games tell on a massive scale. Diving into the real-world histories and ideas that the game designers used for inspiration, Kunzelman argues that the virtual conflicts between the franchise’s opposing sides offer intriguing insights into actual reality, from ethical dilemmas to the roles of freedom and fate. He demonstrates how, by incorporating themes of means and ends, control and freedom into its gameplay, the franchise engages with profound questions in a sustained, long-form way that is unique among video games. As the Assassins say, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.
- GenresNonfiction
241 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 11, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 4, 2025
I too have spent far too many hours playing these games and I too enjoy pulling big history thoughts out of the series where you climb around and stab dudes. I enjoy a CMRN take (would kill for a volume on Book of the New Sun) and had a good time with these essays on the whole. Section on the concept of “gimmick” as both not-trying and try-hard was especially satisfying. Might have won me over on the famously maligned meta-plot stuff in the franchise, maybe.
November 13, 2025
Oh, game studies, not game studies.
This is a book about Assassin's Creed. Starting with the original video game in 2006, a word like franchise pales as a descriptor for the intellectual property omniplex of Ubisoft, the game's developer, and the thing that is the Assassin's Creed extended universe. There is not a breakfast cereal; there is an appearance in the 2024 Paris Olympiad.
I am not going to explain Assassin's Creed to you. The book does that. Or tries to. Contra the book's title, the book itself argues that understanding the franchise is, in fact, not permitted. Some of the spinoff media is subject to intentional erasure or dereliction by Ubisoft.
The attempted explication is what makes up the first half of the book, discussing what would customarily be referred to as the lore of the game. The second have has more particular analysis.
The first section is weaker. This is not the fault of the author, but because the topic is unhinged. The story of Assassin's Creed is wild, bordering on cringe, which adds a consistent sort of friction to the work of the book in explaining the core elements of the franchise and providing a place for them in a cultural framework. The strong section is on conspiracy, and conspiratorial thinking, which includes discussing how the same sort of pleasure related in a media franchise with its Easter eggs and myriad fragments of hints and information, is similar in form to the pleasure(?!?) of conspiratorial thinking. Qanon drowns in the water that Marvel swims.
And to this section's credit, all the times I flagged an idea as undercooked and deserving of more thought, that idea then did get it in the second section.
But yikes, this part of the book is poisoned by future knowledge. The backstory here, with its eugenic doorways and master races does not play now. I find myself trying, trying hard, to put myself back in that 2006 mindset. Did it play then? I feel like, even twenty years ago, the von Däniken clumsiness with Protean factions of order vs. chaos stretching across time and space fighting a secret war that involves all of history's greatest hits was basic (in the pejorative sense). It certainly was done before, much earlier even, in just as good if not better methods. Obviously, novelty is not mission critical, but as of today, it feels like a big ooof.
Notably, the second section includes discussion about this, and it is in that second section where the best material is. This is a deeper dive into the individual games, and looking at their function, which is more interesting in general as the work has broader applications, and more interesting in specific, as the more intensive look at different games or plot arcs is where the author is able to bring in more important and intensive thoughts on the series and its critical weight.
All of these chapters are good. The only that stands out is the one on history and its uses in the series. (I acknowledge this may be liking what I like, which is foreshadowing.) With the inciting event of the series' inclusion of a "discovery tour mode," designed as a playable educational game using the game's engine, (but one that functions differently in each of the episodes that include it), the author reviews how the developers make choices about the understanding of history. This includes clever observations about the negative space here - the assumptions that underlie when choices are not made, or what is understood as the difference between fact and interpretation in a historical context, as well as what constitutes an appropriate diversion from accepted history into fiction. It is good stuff if you think about history at all and what history is there to do.
Where I end up parting ways with the author is near the end of every chapter, which requires a more charitable reading of the games that I am willing to afford them. The author likes the games, which means that he takes an if-by-whisky approach where every choice invokes Fridge Brilliance, a strong adaptionism where, again, contra the title, everything is true because everything bends towards a singular point.
The standout chapter for this is on POV shifts in the series, which becomes related to the question of morality in games, as the shifts are often used to play with or otherwise explore questions of ethics in the context of the game. There is not any moral 'system,' which is to say that there is no mechanistic expression or narrative result. The book reflects on how that creates more engaged moral exploration than something where there is a system in place.
Looked at one way, the author is just looking to complain about Bioshock. More reasonably, it is a host of defensible but not persuasive conclusions, hinging on a charitable reading of the design choices in Assassin's Creed, and an uncharitable reading of the choices in other games. It is all a bit credulous, considering elements that I would otherwise write off as a bad design as actually message-laden.
I mean, if I get to do the same and talk about games that I like, I think about games where there are excellent moral systems or moral explorations: SOMA, Alpha Protocol, Pillars of Eternity (heck, put Galactic Civilizations in there, if I still talked about that game). All of them implement the process differently, each achieving its own particular end.
That none of these are AAA titles is left as an exercise to the reader.
Luckily, the heft is in the process, not in the conclusion, and the discourse that gets up to that point is insightful. It is a great book about Assassin's Creed, it just has too much Assassin's Creed in it.
My thanks to the author, Cameron Kunzelman, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of Minnesota Press, for making the ARC available to me.
This is a book about Assassin's Creed. Starting with the original video game in 2006, a word like franchise pales as a descriptor for the intellectual property omniplex of Ubisoft, the game's developer, and the thing that is the Assassin's Creed extended universe. There is not a breakfast cereal; there is an appearance in the 2024 Paris Olympiad.
I am not going to explain Assassin's Creed to you. The book does that. Or tries to. Contra the book's title, the book itself argues that understanding the franchise is, in fact, not permitted. Some of the spinoff media is subject to intentional erasure or dereliction by Ubisoft.
The attempted explication is what makes up the first half of the book, discussing what would customarily be referred to as the lore of the game. The second have has more particular analysis.
The first section is weaker. This is not the fault of the author, but because the topic is unhinged. The story of Assassin's Creed is wild, bordering on cringe, which adds a consistent sort of friction to the work of the book in explaining the core elements of the franchise and providing a place for them in a cultural framework. The strong section is on conspiracy, and conspiratorial thinking, which includes discussing how the same sort of pleasure related in a media franchise with its Easter eggs and myriad fragments of hints and information, is similar in form to the pleasure(?!?) of conspiratorial thinking. Qanon drowns in the water that Marvel swims.
And to this section's credit, all the times I flagged an idea as undercooked and deserving of more thought, that idea then did get it in the second section.
But yikes, this part of the book is poisoned by future knowledge. The backstory here, with its eugenic doorways and master races does not play now. I find myself trying, trying hard, to put myself back in that 2006 mindset. Did it play then? I feel like, even twenty years ago, the von Däniken clumsiness with Protean factions of order vs. chaos stretching across time and space fighting a secret war that involves all of history's greatest hits was basic (in the pejorative sense). It certainly was done before, much earlier even, in just as good if not better methods. Obviously, novelty is not mission critical, but as of today, it feels like a big ooof.
Notably, the second section includes discussion about this, and it is in that second section where the best material is. This is a deeper dive into the individual games, and looking at their function, which is more interesting in general as the work has broader applications, and more interesting in specific, as the more intensive look at different games or plot arcs is where the author is able to bring in more important and intensive thoughts on the series and its critical weight.
All of these chapters are good. The only that stands out is the one on history and its uses in the series. (I acknowledge this may be liking what I like, which is foreshadowing.) With the inciting event of the series' inclusion of a "discovery tour mode," designed as a playable educational game using the game's engine, (but one that functions differently in each of the episodes that include it), the author reviews how the developers make choices about the understanding of history. This includes clever observations about the negative space here - the assumptions that underlie when choices are not made, or what is understood as the difference between fact and interpretation in a historical context, as well as what constitutes an appropriate diversion from accepted history into fiction. It is good stuff if you think about history at all and what history is there to do.
Where I end up parting ways with the author is near the end of every chapter, which requires a more charitable reading of the games that I am willing to afford them. The author likes the games, which means that he takes an if-by-whisky approach where every choice invokes Fridge Brilliance, a strong adaptionism where, again, contra the title, everything is true because everything bends towards a singular point.
The standout chapter for this is on POV shifts in the series, which becomes related to the question of morality in games, as the shifts are often used to play with or otherwise explore questions of ethics in the context of the game. There is not any moral 'system,' which is to say that there is no mechanistic expression or narrative result. The book reflects on how that creates more engaged moral exploration than something where there is a system in place.
Looked at one way, the author is just looking to complain about Bioshock. More reasonably, it is a host of defensible but not persuasive conclusions, hinging on a charitable reading of the design choices in Assassin's Creed, and an uncharitable reading of the choices in other games. It is all a bit credulous, considering elements that I would otherwise write off as a bad design as actually message-laden.
I mean, if I get to do the same and talk about games that I like, I think about games where there are excellent moral systems or moral explorations: SOMA, Alpha Protocol, Pillars of Eternity (heck, put Galactic Civilizations in there, if I still talked about that game). All of them implement the process differently, each achieving its own particular end.
That none of these are AAA titles is left as an exercise to the reader.
Luckily, the heft is in the process, not in the conclusion, and the discourse that gets up to that point is insightful. It is a great book about Assassin's Creed, it just has too much Assassin's Creed in it.
My thanks to the author, Cameron Kunzelman, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of Minnesota Press, for making the ARC available to me.
December 1, 2025
Fool I was, I had not made it far enough in an Assassin’s Creed game to know about the aliens. Wild thing to learn from the introduction of an analysis book tbh. But even as someone who has never actually finished an Assassin’s Creed game, this was a very good broad overview of the series. I love when we can tease ideas and originating assumptions out of how a narrative is structured, and the very nature of how a franchise works makes long-running themes kind of diffuse and uneven. I also really liked the discussion of how interfaces work— Assassin’s Creed is a weird onion of them, and it’s just Neat to me.
Would recommend! I’m sure it’s even more fun when you’ve played more of the games.
Would recommend! I’m sure it’s even more fun when you’ve played more of the games.
December 20, 2025
An academic deep dive into many of the themes and mechanics of this long running franchise. It's a must read for anyone who fondly remembers any of the Assassin's Creed games or anyone who wants to take a deeper look at gaming's philosophical and political landscapes. It's dense but not dry. It's detailed but not super long. It's a book where nothing is true, everything is permitted.
January 9, 2026
I thought chapter 6's arguments, on "video game morality" specifically within the context of this franchise's assumptions, especially persuasive.
I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game and I didn't know about Isu.
I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game and I didn't know about Isu.
January 22, 2026
Not a very "fun" read. Sometimes felt like it was less about Assassin's Creed and more about the process of writing an Assassin's Creed book. Kind of a boring college essay with no personality.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews