Assassin's Creed Origins director explains the giant snake business, sorta

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Assassin's Creed walks an odd line between historical and science fiction, and the giant snake at the end of the Assassin's Creed Origins gameplay reveal trailer seems poised to scuff that line up even more. But creative director Ashraf Ismail wants to assure fans that the overgrown reptile doesn't mean the end of AC as a "credible" experience, and he gave just a little bit of explanation in an interview for the latest issue of OPM.

"I’ll tell you this about the snake," Ismail began after remarking on how many questions the serpent has prompted since the trailer debuted E3, "Assassin’s Creed is a credible experience. I mean we have our lore, of course, we have our First Civilization, and that aspect, I mean we don’t shy away from that, it is part of the brand and we assume that. But we also don’t go randomly high fantasy.

The First Civilization, if you're not familiar, is where all that ancient technology the Templars and Assassins fight over comes from. They were kind of gods, but also kind of not? Just read the Wiki, it's really complicated. But back to Ismail and the snake.

"There is a justification for that snake, of course, you don’t want me to spoil that for you and I won’t. Yes it’s a giant snake, if you ask yourself, how could a giant snake exist for a guy like Bayek? I’m sure there are a few answers that can work, but I’ll stay saying that Assassin’s Creed is an authentic, credible experience. We have our lore, but we don’t ever really break that immersiveness by all of a sudden going fantasy out of nowhere – outside the realm of the First Civilization stuff."

Personally, if I'm willing to accept that a man can telepathically commune with an eagle to mark all of the tactically significant things said eagle observed from hundreds of feet up in the air, giant snakes don't seem like that much of a stretch. If you need a little more context before you make up your mind on the snake issue, read through our Assassin's Creed Origins recap article. And don't forget to pick up a subscription to OPM for more PlayStation news and exclusives.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.