The Hidden Blade may be the trademark cornerstone of the Assassin’s arsenal, but that doesn’t mean that the Assassins don’t also carry additional tools for the job. For generations they have employed other gadgets, gear, and weapons to aid in stealth, traversal, and creative murder.
The trailer for the upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie has shown Callum and Aguilar wielding Hidden Blades along with a few other conventional historical staples. But where’s all the fun, interesting stuff we’ve gotten to use in the games? Surely the Spanish Inquisition Assassins will have a few tricks up their sleeves. (Literally!)
Hopefully some of the entries below will be utilized in the film. Here are The Top 15 Assassin's Creed Gadgets We Need To See In The Movie!
15. HOOKBLADE
The Hookblade was introduced in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and seems to have been an established tool of the Turkish Assassin Guild by the time Ezio arrives. Instead of a blade extending from the Assassins’ bracers, the Hookblade was a sturdy metal beam that curved back on itself, extending the user’s reach. Ezio uses the Hookblade in several lifesaving cinematics to just barely grab hold of some convenient climbing structure. Not to mention how it sped up climbing all the tall towers and sliding along the zip lines in Constantinople.
The Hookblade was no slouch in combat either. It let Ezio sweep opponents’ feet, pickpocket enemies during combat, and break necks with extra oomph. The Hookblade was also designed to fit right alongside the standard Hidden Blade in the bracer, so Assassins don’t have to sacrifice the lethality of two Hidden Blades. The Hookblade and the Hidden Blade could be extended interchangeably.
14. SMOKE BOMBS
Good old smoke bombs. These handy explosives loosed a vexing cloud of smoke on the ground that waylaid all but the Assassins who deployed them. You could drop one of these during a chase to temporarily stop guards in pursuit while you found a hiding spot.
Or you could forget the vanishing act and use smoke bombs for offensive surprises. Simply drop one right on top of a group of guards, then air-assassinate and shank any stragglers to leave a pile of bodies when the smoke clears. Later games even gave you the ability to throw the bombs like other kinds of projectiles, giving way to all kinds of guard "griefing."
Perhaps of all the Assassin's Creed gadgets, smoke bombs might be the most realistic ones we could expect to see in the movie. They’re so ubiquitous in the games, and in the genre over all, that their inclusion feels like a no-brainer.
13. POISON BLADE
Before Altair’s time, the Assassins scorned the use of poison as a coward’s weapon. But then Altair saw YouTube videos of poisoned guards totally wigging out and blindly cutting down their fellows, and decided that he shouldn’t deny his assassins the fun. Why snuff out your foes with an instant blade through the throat when you can quietly poke them with poison and watch them squirm? It’s the stuff rag doll physics are made for. Besides, it makes for a perfect distraction while everyone turns to stare at the guard wiggling in the air like he just don’t care.
Anyway. Poison is a classic treacherous weapon. Villains throughout the Assassin’s Creed series have used it as well. With the political upheaval of the Inquisition, there’s bound to be some dignitary too heavily guarded to kill in a direct assault. A drop of poison in a cup during a feast might be just the thing.
12. HIDDEN GUN
As soon as fans saw the new Assassin gun down the Venice nobleman from a safe distance in the AC 2 cinematic trailer, we knew the Hidden Gun was going to be a game changer. The everyday guards carrying crossbows and bows and arrows wouldn’t know what hit them. It took a moment to line up the shot but the Hidden Gun could one-shot any generic enemy in the game. Then in Brotherhood and Revelations Ezio learned to incorporate shots from the Hidden Gun into his swordplay, putting the explosive finishing touch on the ill-equipped mooks.
From Assassins Creed 3 onward, the Assassins could equip multiple pistols instead of the Hidden Gun. Admittedly, Edward Kenway’s four pistol execution dance is pretty cool, but some stealt factor was lost in that transition for several fans. Perhaps Aguilar will get to surprise another target with this famous Assassin gadget in the Inquisition. Nobody expects the Spanish Hidden Gun!
11. CROSSBOW
Altair may have never gotten a crossbow in the games like he did in the reveal trailer for Assassin’s Creed, but Ezio was all too happy to have one. The crossbow works as a deadly long range weapon, with the advantage of being quieter. It was at least possible to use while remaining undetected and could be wielded and fired with one hand. In Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood you could even use it to perform counter kills in melee combat.
Crossbows were used as projectile weapons for centuries and would certainly be prevalent during the Spanish Inquisition. We’ve already seen bows and arrows being used by Callum and his ancestor Aguilar in the trailer. There seems to be this rule in movies that the more skill a weapon takes to use, the more lethal a character will be with it. Thus bows are better than crossbows, unless the Assassins use them. Some armies could certainly be trained with them though, and the Assassins are pros at clearing out unnamed guards and soldiers.
10. ROPE DART
“Get over here!” Assassin's Creed 3 introduced another level of brutality to combat with the guerilla equipment of colonial North America. The Rope Dart let Native American Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton (Connor) skewer enemies at a distance and reel them in. If he was on the ground he could pull them in for a quick kill. If he was perched on a beam or a tree, Connor could strangle enemies by hanging them and leave them suspended and lifeless on display.
This sort of weapon would mostly be viable only in wilderness or non-developed settings like the Colonial Americas in Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Flag. It seems unlikely we’ll get to see an exact rope dart used in the Spanish Inquisition. But there could be hangings! We’ve already seen in the trailer and there’s at least one scene where Aguilar finds himself on the gallows. That could be an excellent opportunity to turn rope against his captors.
9. PHANTOM BLADE
Unity took the crossbow one step further and incorporated it into a Hidden Blade design. Now Arno could stealthily launch lethal bolts at enemies without having to draw another apparatus and keep moving fluidly. This was a useful upgrade for precision kills given the dense crowds of revolutionaries and bystanders Arno had to wade through. You could even upgrade it to carry and launch two bolts before needing to reload it. The regular crossbow couldn’t manage that.
Introducing the Phantom Blade in the movie would mean having it appear before its chronological development in the Assassin’s Creed timeline, but it’s not the first time that a piece of equipment was introduced much earlier than originally presented. And there’s always the rule of cool. If the guards in the Spanish Inquisition can have crossbows, the Assassins could reasonably innovate towards something like the Phantom Blade.
8. PARACHUTES
Sometimes there may not be a bale of hay placed conveniently beneath your favorite towering landmarks. Fortunately for Ezio, at least, his old buddy Leonardo Da Vinci crafted a perfect device for gliding to safety when all other means of a safe landing were not possible. Who knows how Ezio fits a parachute on the back of his robes, much less up to 15 of them, along with all his other gear. The Assassins are pros in hammerspace after all.
The extra maneuverability in the air and increased travel distance make infiltration and aerial assassination that much easier. Since this is a gadget that relies heavily on game-logic, seeing it appear in the Assassin's Creed movie seems a little unlikely, at least in the exact manner the game mechanics showed. The film might be able to get away with Aguilar taking one parachute for a very high up, high value target.
7. THROWING KNIVES
The earliest projectile available in any Assassin’s Creed game was throwing knives. Assassins honed their aim with these blades to kill guards standing sentry on rooftops. This let you dispatch guards beyond your reach and clear a path to your true targets. They’ve paled in comparison to projectile weapons introduced in later games but throwing knives did still retain some cool uses. You could throw a handful at a time at melee enemies in the Ezio trilogy and follow up a kill streak with a synced melee execution and ranged kill from Brotherhood onward.
Throwing knives have their own grand tradition in film too. A thrown knife always lands blade toward the enemy, even if it spins in the air. Always. And it’s not just enemies that thrown blades have a knack for taking care of in film. Perhaps a well-placed throwing knife could be the instrument of Aguilar’s liberation from the hang man’s noose we’ve seen in the trailer.
6. BLUNDERBUSS
Before there were shotguns, there was the blunderbuss. And that is in fact the real name of a real historical firearm that first appeared in the 18th century, when it was used by European militaries and cavalries. The name comes from the Dutch compound word “donder-bus,” literally: “thunder-pipe”.
The former slave turned pirate/assassin/liberator Adéwalé gets one of these in the Black Flag Freedom Cry DLC. He then promptly goes to town on every Templar in the Caribbean with it. The blunderbuss could clear through as many as five or six guards directly in front of you, if you lined them up close enough. Just let them chase you in a narrow path, about-face, draw, and pull the trigger. Sure, each shot had to be muzzle loaded like other flintlock firearms at the time, but you could use one regular pistol shot to kill five guards instead of five shots for the same number of guards. That’s just efficiency!
Assassins have been ahead of the technological curve before, why can’t they have a prototype blunderbuss for Aguilar in the Spanish Inquisition?
5. BLOWPIPE
The ultimate stealthy guard griefing tool in the Caribbean was a blowpipe. Assassin’s Creed 2 introduced poison with hilarious results and Brotherhood introduced poison darts to make guards go berserk from a distance. But Black Flag introduced the blowpipe, a favorite among the Caribbean natives for sowing chaos among their colonizers and Templar invaders.
Edward Kenway used the blow pipe in his reign of pirate terror-- from tree tops, dense jungle brush, and around corners-- to poke his foes. This time the darts could be used to poison foes from a distance or drive them berserk specifically. The berserk darts were especially potent for making guards fight each other, more so even than the poison Ezio had available.
We’ll see how much a blowpipe might fit in during the Spanish Inquisition or if the Assassins will prefer to deliver their chemical poisons by more close-quarters means. It may be a bit too early for the blowpipe to migrate back across the Atlantic.
4. DISGUISES
Being robed all in white and blending in with the monks in Assassin’s Creed may have been successful during the crusades, but as the centuries have gone on, people seem to recognize the Assassins more easily. So for some missions, disguises are called for.
Ezio has gone in for disguises the most frequently. He’d disguised himself as a Borgia soldier in Assassin’s Creed 2 to ambush Rodrigo Borgia. Remember those pesky minstrels that cramped your style in Assassins Creed 2? In Revelations you beat up a minstrel and steal their outfit, then sneak into a party and play songs inspired by Ezio’s adventures for the guests. It might just be the most hilarious moment in the whole series.
Disguises are another common trope for this genre of film. Perhaps the turmoil with the Assassins in the Spanish Inquisition will call for Aguilar and his brothers to take on less conspicuous disguises.
3. KILLING GUARDS WITH THEIR OWN WEAPONS
Fine, it’s not a gadget. But, since it was first introduced in AC 2, it has been one of the most fun and varied parts of combat throughout the Assassin’s Creed franchise. You've had to buy weapons if you wanted a sword or a knife or a mace the whole time but disarming guards and taking their cool weapons was an excellent way to test those weapons out! Especially since disarming them usually let you follow up with a brutal execution. Many fans still remember the first time they got to disarm a guard with a spear or an axe, then smash their faces with it.
This would be another to reasonably expect in the film. It is, after all, a pretty advantageous move to steal your opponent’s weapon. Will Callum go through a similar arc to the one that players went through in early Assassin's Creed games, discovering all the inventive and brutal ways to dispatch his enemies?
2. DA VINCI’S FLYING MACHINE 2.0
“Addio, amico mio!”
Da Vinci’s Flying Machine in Assassin’s Creed 2 was the crowning achievement in his technical assistance to Ezio. With a little help from strategically placed pyres lit throughout Venice, Ezio was able to fly over the walls of Palazzo Ducale and assassinate Carlo Grimaldi.
In Brotherhood, the Borgia captured Da Vinci and forced him to design even deadlier machines of war, including early prototypes of a tank and a mounted machine gun. But the most impressive of all was the Flying Machine 2.0, with a bomb delivery mechanism. With the new upgrade, you could rain fiery death down on your enemies and bombing a random spot on the ground let you light your own lift pyre to propel you back towards the sky.
With such a great success in gameplay, we could reasonably hope that a design of Da Vinci’s Flying Machine could have made it to Spain for the Assassins to use.
1. HAY BALES
Do the Assassins have to set up bales of hay themselves under all potential leap of faith points for every city they operate in? If the Templars really wanted to put the Assassins down for good they would burn every bale of hay in every city. Yes, the bales of hay safely breaking falls from dozens of stories up fly in the face of physics. But within Assassin’s Creed’s crazy world, there’s no doubt the Assassins would have died out a long time ago without these safety nets for their most impressive stunts.
There is a bit of a question with these hay bales if they’re used in the film. Most fans just go with the hay bale logic in the games because it’s a video game, where “game logic” with some realistic touches is enough to immerse the player and sustain the fun. But will the suspension of disbelief translate to a live-action film? We’ve seen the stinger in the trailer with the leap of faith and previous interviews with the filmmakers have indicated that there would be no magical bales of hay. Still, Aguilar is going to have to break his fall somehow.
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Were there other weapons or gadgets from the Assassin’s Creed video games that you would love to see in the movie? Let us know in the comments!