 What's up everybody? I'm the blade and I'm the hook and together we're you know Welcome to the hook blade hook blade a show about all things assassin's creed I'm your host Lawson and with me as always is my co-host Tim Tim listen, I hate to start the episode on such a dark note, but I think it's time for you to come clean okay, the listeners don't know this but you have a a really big secret that if revealed it could Could damage your reputation as a host of this podcast. Yeah, I'm talking about yeah I do but I I've come to realize that there's no way we can properly address this topic and set it up Without this coming too light. Well, should I just should I just rip the band-aid off? I mean take your time do what's comfortable for you, but but whenever you're ready well, I shouldn't have I probably should have been more upfront about this and It makes me, you know a little shamed, you know, I've been losing sleep over it And I've been telling you this outside of the podcast, but yeah, I'm just gonna say it, you know, I don't follow to rule All right, I haven't for a very long time Tim, this isn't the secret Do you wait do you know what I'm actually talking about? Also, I haven't played Origins or Odyssey Wow Wow Why don't you follow to rule? He's been saying such nice things about the podcast Okay, look He doesn't follow me either also you don't know this and I'm probably gonna edit this out unless there's a post about it But he just told us he's stepping down as the head mod. Really? Yeah. Oh shit. So, you know, you maybe don't even need He's still a mentor he is and he's still a great guy and we're sad to see him step down Yeah, I don't know many natural blondes in my life, but he's one of them ghost leader BG is stepping up to fill those Massive shoes and I think he's gonna do a great job. But yeah, so you have not played Origins or Odyssey. Yeah Really Once I started seeing Content for Origins come out it to me it was a clear departure from what the series in my eyes Was going yeah, and I just didn't have much interest in playing I know Origins is it is a lot of a lot of people really like it and About that it just doesn't represent An assassin's creed game That I want to play yeah, and it got worse with Odyssey And I don't think you should feel too bad about it because there's a lot of prominent community members who haven't played them I know irakley hasn't played Odyssey ever and he doesn't want to ever. Yeah I mean Origins is the one that I would consider Yeah, I pretty much know I pretty much know it's like I pretty much know it's contribution to the story but Odyssey You know, I mean you've you've talked about this at length on your youtube channel. It's just It goes so far back, you know before man is created To tell a story that has dialogue choices. And so it's just not my thing So look the reason this is important to address in this episode and not any other episode we've done Is because we're doing something actually really kind of interesting and unique and also cool and funny and handsome with this episode Where we realized that we wanted to talk about the modern day. We wanted to talk about it's you know, it's shortcomings. It's It's elements the things that we like to see from it the things that we don't the modern days that we like But we realized that both of us had these particular gaps in our knowledge about the modern day So I haven't read past the first like assassins comic the first assassins and Templar arcs I never read uprising And I also knew that tim hadn't played Origins or Odyssey So he's completely unaware for the most part of what's been going down in the modern day on that side of things So we thought wouldn't it be kind of delightful To have tim explained to me what happens in uprising, which I have no idea what happens And then for me to explain the modern day of the games to him And just get up to speed for each other On what's actually happening in the modern day story so we can talk about why it sucks why it's really really bad Yeah, I mean I also had it read uprising So I had to read Uprising to fucking like, you know get an idea about because I had read assassins You knew like the broad strokes because okay for me and this is probably some important backstory I cared a lot in the in the games about the Juno plot thread of like Okay, you know, we set it up in ac3 desmond's dead Juno has been unleashed upon the world game by game You're unlocking more information about aita about the sages about the instruments of the first will and then syndicate comes out and it's like It has this whole world war one riff dedicated to catching you up to speed on who Juno is and what she wants and what she's doing And I was excited because it was pretty much at that point the only overarching plot thread To be found anywhere in assassins creed modern day so Then I found out that origins wasn't going to address it at all And I found out quite a bit later that they had actually wrapped up the plot line in a comic book called uprising and I was so Frustrated that they did that just completely off screen of the games That I pretty much never read it out of out of protest right and I but I as opposed to you, I didn't know kind of the bullet points of what had happened because uh, you know, I just read about it and stuff and I had read assassins unfortunately, yeah, and uh, this isn't much better Okay, so And and there okay, so there's 12 issues Yeah, and I'd say at most there's about two issues worth of actual story that happens Okay, there's a lot of meandering so it won't take me forever to explain it. There's a lot of garbage There's a lot of excess fat. I gotta trim off the steak. Yeah, so there's a lot of there's a lot of um filler for sure All right, so give me the you know walk me through it. Okay, because again I just want to reiterate the day of recording today is is july 20th of the year of our lord 2020 And I have no idea in my entire brain What the hell happened to juno? I don't know okay so essentially The book starts and as far as I'm concerned or not concerned, but as far as I'm aware It takes place in 2017. Mm-hmm. So so around the same time as origins, right? So basically Charlotte day of the cruise everyone's favorite. I remember her She's doing this mission the book starts and this is already where it was starting to lose me because charlotte Jumps out of a 30 story window and they make sure to specify it is a 30 story window and lands in a haystack No, she lands on the top of a vehicle And there's no explanation of like hey, she's running the specific tech or she had a parachute or whatever the fuck She just hits the van and she's okay So already You know this this this is a cartoon in its defense the assassin's creed franchise has been stretching believability on height of jump for its entire life But if it was a haystack, I'd forgive it, but it's the top of a fucking vehicle All right, I'm with you. I think that's just rolls off like no like nothing happened like like so that so anyway Thanks to this Volvo for breaking my fall. Yeah, it's a literally it's a literal fucking It's a literal cartoon. All right. So anyway So basically we meet like the usual suspects pretty much in this book. There's kiyoshi. Yeah, um to my understanding is is is in Origins, we're odyssey. He is in odyssey only by voice and then you have chet Chet um It's yeah, and then you got glena. All right. What's favorite everyone loves glena And you got and you got your favorite michelle. Okay, so that's michelle from ac gold Yes, how similar is her personality to how she is an ac gold? It's it's honestly It's not even the same like she's not much. She doesn't do much here. She's she's an assassin in training. Wow Okay, and so as we know she was a former uredito So she's getting Punched around by glena and that's about it for what's going on with michelle in this in this book. Yeah so charlotte is getting her ass kicked by this guy and she realizes wait a second this dude's an assassin What the fuck? and um, they they kind of reveal this later, but If you could tell like if the art was at all um Like correlated with how the characters actually used to look you would be able to know But all the characters just look like new versions of themselves So the guy who is fighting her and who's also an assassin um, i'm gonna fucking butcher his name, but it's uh Let's see. Let me try it here Uh jazz dip dami say again Uh jazz dip dami All right He was the he was the brother and from brahman the brother of Of the sister who got killed. Oh cool. Yeah, so he's in this book. Oh nice I like but he's but he's he's he's he's like defected from the assassins really He is an instrument of the first will I guess that makes sense Does it okay? He's an instrument of the first will you're saying right? So the instrument of the first will has now become a like third faction so They are They are made up from Templars and assassins alike right because they're still like violet da costa running around with them, right? Yes, does she turn up in the book? She does turn up in the book Yeah, but but but like other Templars aren't don't know that she is an instrument Right. She's being kind of she's being subversive. She's yeah, she's being very coy and grammatica pops up But he's not even so much of he's just a wacky scientist that wants to see what happens. Yeah He's not he's not so much What that's I mean, that's kind of how he was in syndicate, right? Oh, yeah. No. No. I I'm just saying like He's not an instrument He's just he's just there for the fun. Is he still working for obstegio? Yeah, okay cool It's because because basically the instruments pop up and they're like yo grammatica We want to take we want to take advantage of this phoenix project you got going Yeah, because they have a piece of the shroud and all that so anyway, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. So um They're getting attacked from they but by the instruments and they're like what the fuck and so atso burg Everyone's favorite Templar everyone's favorite template pops up and he's like yo what the fuck's going on here This You know Why it was there such a scuffle here. Yeah, and so atso burg is the modern day black cross Yeah Okay, they referenced that in odyssey and I was gonna ask you about that. Okay, cool. So essentially there's only been one black cross before The one in the 40s or whatever. Yeah, I read that. I read that comic. I think I liked it when I read it Yeah, so essentially it was he had the denis calero was the artist and writer. I think yeah, right I I know he did the art. I'm not sure if he did the writing though. It was a good comic So basically the black cross as a scent is like the Templar equalizer Yeah, he makes sure the Templars are doing what, you know They're they're doing their shit, right? So atso burg is like yo something's fishy So he puts on his he puts on his um black cross outfit and he just And he starts investigating and he realizes that this goes on both sides This is this is a Templar and assassin operation from a third party. Yeah, and so he finds people who are Who are aligned with assassins who are working with assassins, but they're not assassins, you know, they're they're just posing as Assassins and so that's how you get people like um just deep just dip. I'm so sorry if I'm saying it wrong And uh all that so it's essentially like you don't know who you can trust not so burg doesn't really trust anyone in this book and so Charlotte gets into the animus And she is able to relive an old first sieve memory and if I'm Understanding it right. It's because of her time with conscious that she's able to access this memory to kind of explain it Like Juno allowed her to see this memory because It's a little convoluted But so anyway, she sees this memory and it's actually the best actually the best part of the book Where it's his first sieve memory and Minerva is like yo these humans. They're actually kind of cool You know, they're gonna like kill us if we keep locking them up like this and and then literally As she says that a god comes out and he's like Death to all of you Juno's dad And so Juno was like no, I hate humans. I hate humans humans friendship ended with humans Juno did not like that. Oh, wow There's a bunch of Juno content in the odyssey dlc that I completely missed because I also didn't play the dlc But like I I was skipping through a video that was explaining or not explaining that was literally just all the cutscenes from the odyssey dlc and Like you're literally in a limpus with fucking Poseidon and Hades and then Juno shows up with aita and they're like throwing shit at at the gods I really gotta look into what the hell's going on there at some point. I wonder if that stuff is like before or after The humans have fucked up her dad yeah, so essentially Charlotte knowing this charlotte knows that Juno wants and she's like well That's going to be like the ending of humanity because essentially the instruments are like culty and they're just like They want the world to burn so that it can start anew. Yeah, which is essentially what was going to happen in AC3 if desmond hadn't of you put his hand on the pedestal Yeah, so uh charlotte's like whoa. Okay, so we got to warn the Templars We have a bigger threat now. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so otso burg shows up at the fucking hideout And then we get kind of a cute little like otso burg working with the assassins That sounds fabulous And so he's like, yeah like we need to fucking kill these guys and they're like, yeah I'm gonna fucking kill you first and he's like, I'm gonna kill you first It's just it's just bickering and it actually is kind of funny though because Otso burg actually is written pretty well in this book and and so like for instance, he walks in on galina I'm interrogating one of their crew members that turned out to be an instrument And she's interrogating him and he's like, wow, it's nice to be up here on the moral high ground with you guys So there's there's some nice like, you know, there's some nice jabs like especially considering galina like High kicked his chin off or whatever in syndicate, right? Did she fuck them up? She whipped his ass when they meet she's like, hey, we didn't finish our talk otso So it's kind of cute saying them like interact in like a passive aggressive manner like that Your your dms to me while you were reading these comics made me think wow these fucking suck But like what you're saying right now so far makes me kind of want to read them But trust me, I'm giving you like the best of the best. All right. It's already far between here. I'm ready I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop Keep going okay, so basically, yeah, so by the costa fuck her um, she's an instrument and It's basically there's all it's kind of a little historical plot which kind of follows the old black cross I don't give a fuck either should you it doesn't matter so basically Guess what else pops up in this book what the koai nor diamond. Yay So that is essentially what juno wants to get her fucking hands on She wants his diamond because if she gets the diamond she can take back essentially all of the pieces of eden Okay, I guess that's the idea That's kind of what they float around and by the way if i'm wrong about any of this stuff Be sure to comment and down below about it Um, if you're familiar from syndicate as well Yeah, we did see these like fucking test tubes. Yeah of of like little like, you know, uh fucking Two babies Yeah So tell me about they Uh otzer burg and the assassins are able to track down where the diamond was last By going through charlotte's memories and otzer burg's memories, too Oh, they actually like go through their memories in the animus. Yeah, but it's it's It's just it's so Guys tim sanity is unraveling moment by moment because because the black cross was you know Was keeper of the koai koai near no no no the koai nor Yes And so they're like, oh fuck dude. This is where the this is where it is. We gotta go get it before they get it Okay, and so they're like, yo, let's go get this diamond dog Yeah, and they all suit up and they go to australia the australian desert and they're like, yo we're gonna get this diamond and Of course the instruments of the first will show up with uh old assassins and templars alike and On the inside of their base On the outside, they're all battling kiyoshi is shooting people and You know, there's a bunch of action going on and so on the inside of the base And something I haven't said to you guess guess who they good guess who they have on their side right now Elijah miles Who's like like eight years old he's he's not old but he's an instrument of the first will no Because they kidnapped him and they brainwashed him. Oh, that's cool. I like so he's like he's like, yo like I want to bring juno back dog The eight-year-old Elijah's like, you know, can we get judo back, please dude? He's literally like a psychopath Oh my god. He's like he like talks to himself That's and he's like, yo, I'm gonna stab this bitch That's so interesting to me. So yeah, because I always theorize that when they wanted to do a real soft reboot They would essentially just take Elijah and put him in the same position as desmond So like putting some legwork into having a very different experience For him seems like a smart and good thing to do that's better than what I would expect him to do Tell me why it's stupid. Well, it's just because like I mean there might have it's just they don't Oh, they don't build on his he doesn't have a character. He's just a little boy and and he's an instrument of the first will But like I guess it's fine if they're setting it up for something later Right, but basically what okay, so well, here's why it's stupid. So basically this whole time They've been like they need gravanica's help. They need the use of the shroud Because they're gonna put juno in a body Yeah, so they put juno in a body And she's in a body Yeah She she walks out of the tank. She's back. It's juno. She's like what's up back alive It's your boy juno and juno what it is Consist is a part of her because they used the shroud to bring to to to speed up the process I'm not even gonna pretend to understand that but continue So So juno's like yo like all right, you guys are gonna die now So she's like she blasts kiyoshi and and chat and they fall to the ground and uh Elijah is like Yo, like I actually don't really like you juno And so he like uses the diamond against her. He's like she's like I want that diamond and he's like, yeah, no, I'm not gonna give it And charlotte And so in in that moment Charlotte's like yo, I'm gonna stab you and she stabs juno. That's it. She's dead She falls to the ground it's over Is that it? That's it. That's all you get Oh my god, and And also though the fucking like building collapses on charlotte So she's dead. Why didn't she if she could just blast kiyoshi and the other guy away Why didn't she just blast charlotte into another zip code? You're not supposed to think about that She's distracted by elijah because elijah's like you want this diamond? Well, you're not getting it. He's playing keep away with the corridor. Yeah, so essentially Elijah is mad because he's like you killed my you killed my mom Yeah, not to juno because juno didn't but do we know who his mom is? No, no, no, no, we don't know. Okay, but essentially in the scene before elijah got out of his Of his tank. Uh-huh. Not tank. He was a cell. Sorry because they they needed elijah mainly Because they wanted to use his his ripe first sieve dna. Yeah, he's also a sage by the way Yeah, I think I knew that from something else like so Anyway, yeah, he's like no actually juno. I don't like you and So Damn, I hope we see in the game at some point. That'd be cool. He might be he's probably in vahala You think I think so. I hope so And the really reason why I say that is because the building collapses charlotte's fucking dead And which is fine. We see elijah was able to escape and he has the diamond with him at this time Okay, so elijah has the diamond charlotte's dead r.p. Charlotte sad titanic music on the flute juno is dead So there you go The the accumulation of that plot was you get stabbed and dies, which I mean, I guess I'm not going to ask about how You can be a virus and then you're but you're you've got the personality and power of your past first civilization isu self And then you get put into a body But that like virus digital version of you does not remain at all And this regular supposedly human body or maybe it's human with first sieve You know crossbreeding right? Yeah, it's it's crossbreed with with with elijah miles is dna The shroud and then juno So, yeah, I know like I know people who have read the comic or listen this I want to I like I kind of breezed over a lot of stuff But look there's not a lot of me in this book And if I got anything wrong, tell me that i'm stupid in the comments Just send us some hate mail to our our youtube comment section But that is essentially the the like the the uh the skeleton of it Is the assassin templars are like, whoa, what the fuck is going on here? They work together they find juno trying to be resurrected By the instruments they kill all the instruments basically in the process where they're all gone Juno is resurrected. She gets stabbed by charlotte The building collapses The only thing is it ends very abruptly like kiyoshi chat galina. They're all just like Around this army of templars. So I don't know how the fuck they got out of that So maybe you could shut some light. I don't think I can Tim I don't think I could do that All right, so I think that sets us up You know juno's been dealt with enter enter leila hassan. She's egyptian. She's a lesbian She's you know kind of got that like take no shit attitude and she's working for obsterago She is in egypt her mission in egypt is to recover Some shit. I think an artifact or something But she has a portable animus that she invented herself because she's also the coolest smartest ever and This portable animus is allowing her to use that artifact to relive the memories of Bayek of siwa She is doing this with the help of her best friend deanna geary Who only communicates with her via like phone slash earpiece slash radio whatever And who's chilling in a hotel because She prefers to have air conditioning And the cool thing about deanna is that like a lot of the modern day voice actors She punches the shit out of her lines Every time so like if leila's overheard like talking to herself or talking about something deanna will be like Who are you talking to? You know like leila's like time to do a leap of faith and deanna's like leap of what? I actually I've taken the liberty of compiling A sequence of all of deanna's most harsh line punches And i'm going to send it to you over twitter right now leila wakie wakie. So How did it go amazing? Well, this time you let the book on fire and then stomped on it. Who are you talking to? Bayek's mummy Real chatterbox that one a second mummy. Oh, man. We should really report to abstergo. What is it? Leap of what? There you are. Thank god. Leap of what? Okay, you're making less and less sense. Leila. We need to report not yet Not yet. So when? Yeah, well, i'm worried Why is she so They must have found out about oh shit D Oh D Who what is this character's name? Uh deanna geary and you're you might be thinking to yourself i'm gonna google who acts her But you can't because there is no credited actress You can't because it's played by david devin. They have not accepted voice credit They're one of the like 75 percent of voice actors on the game that are credited as Additional voices and we have no way of knowing who she is. Oh, man, dude. That was something else. Isn't that fantastic? That is some like the room tier acting. I feel like man. No wonder she didn't want to be credited I wouldn't either if I was her You know so at one point leila is like if this doesn't convince abstergo to give me a place on the animus project Nothing will so she has a clear motive. She's working for abstergo She wants to be put on the animus project Which I think is just the catch-all term for people who develop animus technology You'd think she'd be a great fit there considering she pulled a portable animus out of her ass That she says has more computing power than nasa and cern combined. Okay, cool um It's also implied over email conversations You can read that she has something of a romantic relationship with syphia reichen. Remember her From the movie. Yeah, leila, you know she in her own words in her own words. She doesn't work by the book She's a maverick She's kind of mean to this diana lady too. She's always calling her a dork and basically telling her to shut the hell up Which I kind of I understand I understand that one. It's like it's like my dynamic with you Yeah, you know, fuck you tim shut the hell up tim. It's it's abusive, but in a charming way Yeah, it's a love hate. Yeah, basically everything that happens in these little modern day interludes is this Very forced kind of conflict where the writers have to invent something for them to argue about So that you feel like a story is happening leila go find the medicine So you don't die from being in the animus too long leila if you try to cross between memory streams It could be dangerous and unpredictable for some reason, but imagine all that in like a high-pitched canadian wine voice Then some obstergo goons show up diana has that full-on shit fit meltdown over the phone trying to warn leila about it and leila has to Assassinate them all it's unclear why this is happening leila works For obstergo mind you and they don't like walk up and attack leila They all just stand around outside the door of her hideout Looking away from the hideout so you can sneak up and kill them from behind And leila's like I have to do this. It's them or me, but I have no idea why So I checked the wiki for some clarity on this and it does not offer much It says leila's refusal to check in with obstergo, which okay that Like is a thing that happens because you know in that Montage diana is like we should check in and leila's like not yet Why it would be advantageous to her not to check in. I don't know she works for this company. She is trying to advance in this company, right So instead these guards come and the stated reason for them showing up is that they're trying to find them because they Haven't checked in which doesn't sound like a we're gonna kill you type of fence She just mercs all of them Lying to your superiors and then killing them when they investigate it seems like an awfully strange way to accomplish that goal After she she finishes her animus shenanimus She wakes up to find william myles sitting creepily in a folding lawn chair next to her animus He's like wow, you've done a real good job with this animus stuff Want to come hang out with me and the cool kids gang? If you stay here obstergo probably kills you considering you've you know, you've killed a lot of their guys It'll be great. The assassins are all about freedom ice cream and good vibes She's like, all right, fuck it I escaped in a helicopter and uh william myles in this moment famously is not voiced by john delancey. So what was the point? Honestly Yesterday you're like, yeah, I get it john delancey is not gonna show up for a cameo. He's an actual actor He was on star trek and my little pony I forgot I said that It's true John delancey doesn't need star trek. He's on he's on it doesn't need did I just say star Need assassins creed He's on star trek. He's on my little pony Anyway, sorry So odyssey Um, do you feel like you understand origins? Do you feel like you get what happened in it? Yeah, she was a starker employee trying to try to impress her bosses. They trying she kills them Yeah, I mean, she's literally finding the origins of the assassin brotherhood You'd think that would be of some value to the templars and that she could make a case She could be like, yeah, that's that's really bad I But yeah, I get it so far so good odyssey picks up in a dingy office in london Layla comes out of the animus and now she has another screechy line punching best friend named victoria bibbo bibbo Um, only this one's actually in the room with her and not just over the phone. So that's perhaps a step up Um between this diana and the assassin lady in gold michelle It seems like the only person ubisoft knows how to write for ac modern day female supporting characters is shouting So I'm not sure I feel about that. I guess alana is okay. She has some voice Stuff that is alana in the comics alana ryan I'm not familiar kiyoshi and alana are also part of their marie band of assassins But you don't see them on screen at all. So they are purely over radio voice chat There's a conversation they have in optional dialogue choices that references both the nicolai comics and brahman So that's nito. Yeah, they talk about how tesla had a staff of Eden of some kind that exploded Um, and they talk about how this version of the animus that layla has whipped up is like Brahman type. I think they say which I don't think is true or logical But I'll accept the name drop. I will If you dear listener don't know what we're talking about We have a couple episodes in our back catalog about the fall the chain and brahman. So give those a listen if you Are lost Then so in the past while you're playing as kassandra, you discover the sealed off city of atlantis Which is guarded by path agorus as in the guy the path agorian theorem, right path agorus is there who Is 150 years old because he is a staff that makes him immortal. Okay And he's also kassandra's real father. Whoa. Yeah So He's her dad and he's like here. I want you to have this immortality staff. She's like cool Um, you wake up and you're like as layla and you're like, hey victoria. We uh, we we found atlantis Let's go there And you do so you go in while victoria and alana and kiyoshi. They kick it on the altar too After you putz around in the sealed off atlantis room You do some puzzle shenanigans to try to unseal it but you can't so then kassandra shows up Wearing a suit to help you out. She's got the immortality staff and has existed for centuries now How how do you feel about this tim? Uh, it kind of it kind of It kind of makes it weird though that she wouldn't have popped up in any of our other assassin's screen games If she was an immortal warrior I agree It's kind of weird and I feel like we probably will see her like I think they'll they'll Popper into vol or something because you know, there's like a there's a cameo Flash of aya in odyssey implying that kassandra is an ancestor of aya From origins. So I feel like if they just want to like hey Remind you of the character that was in our last game the holo will probably have like kassandra running around somewhere What if you can romance kassandra? That'd be great. I saw the actress who plays kassandra in a terrible shitty Netflix. Oh, yeah will ferrell movie. Yeah that my mom was watching in the living room and I was just catching part of it It's called eurovision song contest the story of fire saga. That is the title of the movie. It's two hours long But will ferrell does have sex with Uh with kassandra in that movie, you know Assassin's Creed right now is all about letting you fuck anyone and everyone but they won't let you fuck yourself Exactly. There's no interactive masturbation in assassin's screen. I'm not a fan We'll get there one day. We will Now, okay, so as soon as kassandra hands the staff to leila She starts to just rapidly age and die immediately. So now i'm kind of wondering and I don't know why this is the first time I've wondered about this since I've played the game twice um she Do you have to be touching the staff at all times to stay immortal? Do you do you have to sleep cradling it like shower with it because that's The only way this scene makes sense to me What I think it what I think happened probably is she like relinquished ownership to it So if I keep the staff in my bedroom and run around the world, I will just never die Yeah, it's yeah, I I see what you're saying. It's definitely like It's a little unclear like she let she let's go of it and she you know ages 100,000 years and so I want to see leila let go of it and also die I mean she wouldn't because she's not Age is like five minutes So that's pretty much it for the modern day in odyssey, which is not really like a story arc at all. It's just They arrive in atlantis and then they're there. That's how it ends. They just arrive at atlantis No, I mean, yeah, they've been it. They've yeah, she explores atlantis Then there's you could consider the kassandra thing being the end of the modern day story even though it's not like they really Accomplished anything like they don't get into atlantis really they save that for the dlc Which I believe has more modern day content in it than the base game So it's revealed in a wire conversation between leila and alana that sigmatine led by our friend juhani atso berg Found the altar year two and spied on their conversations Leila's like cool. And then she meets an iso hologram named alithia Victoria shows up and she's like, are you sure we can trust the hologram lady? Then after an animus session concludes a band of obstergo goons rolls in and you have to fight them and basically what's happening in this modern day story is that Leila is undergoing these trials through Alexios or kassandra in the past Learning what they learn when they undergo the trials to I guess become bonded or paired with the spear somehow so that it keeps them alive and works for them Leila's about to in this fight with all these obstergo goons She's killed two of them and she's about to skewer the last of the guards when victoria gives her the Rutro you're killing people kind of routine and that was like a doi. They're here to kill us Victoria's like there was no reason to mastic her them Which I think she just gave you on actually victoria But no this dlc story has to make a big deal about how leila is being morally corrupted So suddenly these assassins have to have a real issue with the idea of killing Templar bad guys, right? So that's fun clever and original and cool. I love that so good Did you just kill people? Did you just kill the people that were trying to kill me assassin just killed people? Episode two of the dlc picks up leila and victoria. There's how many episodes is three? Oh, wow They're still figuring out really you're trying to milk you out of some money, huh? Leila and victoria are figuring out the atlanta stuff leila was like wow all this Connecting myself with the staff is really making me feel like a million bucks. It's a real spider-man 3 symbiote suit situation because she's just loving it She feels powerful. She feels strong and victoria is like i'm your doctor This shit is changing you leila And she basically thinks that the staff and the bleeding effect from entering demos's memories The most the villain of odyssey who's the other sibling you don't play as She thinks it's turning leila into a violent psychopath At one point at the towards the end of the episode as she's now gone through two-thirds of the trials Victoria's like this has gone too far. It's me or the staff you have to choose So leila pulls the staff Out of victoria's hand and then viciously bludgeoned her in the head with it Setting her flying back like 30 feet, which is cool because you know, that's what you do when you have an argument with somebody Uh, you just you smack them in the head with a powerful precursor artifact Then leila walks over to victoria's battered corpse and she's like i'm just playing get up victoria Victoria get up. Hey victoria any day now victoria victoria Oh, no Now elithia shows up and she's like wow leila You're a real piece of shit. The air of memories would never do this and leila's like i didn't do it It was the staff The staff did it. I don't kill people the staff kills people So elithia's like we should we should take a break. We should stop seeing each other episode three leila's like, all right. I'm ready to finish my training now with the staff Elithia's like yeah, so the whole part where I deemed you the air of memories and waited centuries for your arrival And got you two-thirds of the way through training to pair with the staff and be the next immortal demigod Turns out the whole you part of that was a miscalculation on my part. So Never mind. You should just leave atlantis and never come back Now we're back in the land of very forced conflict this time between leila and elithia She's like, oh, you know your body and mind are too weak your dna is too human You're you're not going to withstand the third simulation in the process It's not entirely clear why the staff that makes you immortal would also a require you to like train with and pair yourself to it And b take over your body and force you to do evil things There's no reason why that would happen. It's just like a convenient thing to be like Oh, it's the fucking, you know, dr. Octopus arms from spider-man too. It's taking over your body making you do evil Well, yeah, because the because the inhibitor inhibitor chip Basically, we we designed sentient robot arms and we put a tiny little glass button on it to keep it from controlling your mind Um, I don't know why the staff is like this. I'm not sure. There's a great explanation Um, after all this back and forth techno babble arguing Layla was like, can I go back to the do the third trial pretty pleased with the cherry on top? And lethe was like fine After fucking around in the past with some Elysium Juno shenanigans Layla awakens having had her memories interrupted by the arrival of otso burg He's like interrogating her in the little atlantis chamber. Layla's like, what if I use the staff To heal your daughter with cystic fibrosis and he's like shut your goddamn mouth She's fighting with him. She starts being all like villainous and shit. She's like, you know, my favorite part of the staff Being immortal And then she skewers him in the fucking gut Just fucking with the staff. Yeah with the staff I is she not handcuffed? No I guess when I said interrogating it's less that he's interrogate like he has no power He just walks in and they're talking to each other before they fight. Does that make sense? Like he's like, wow You're a piece of shit. Uh, layla and she's like, fuck you otso Like it's okay a standoff would be a better description of what's happening Okay, I just it's so funny me that otso burg just walks and he's like, hey, fuck. Yeah, that's basically what it is He's like, you know how you're an assassin and I'm a templar. That makes me hate you And she was like, yeah, bro, that shit sucks. What if I healed your daughter with cystic fibrosis? Okay, so she impales she impales him like straight up like Death wound He's lying motionless on the floor of the little chamber I thought he was dead in that moment Which I was about to be really pissed off by because it would be such a bitch death For like one of the only characters left Who's like consistently showing up in things and has been around a while Yeah, and like as development and interesting characterization for him to be gone Because of layla of all things would be kind of like watching charlotte delacruz stab juno to death Layla crouches over victoria's dead husk, which is still just Chill in there in the chamber Evan she's not even like throwing her in the water or anything. She's just letting that corpse decay right in there She's like, man, I'm really I'm really sorry. I killed you. Remember when you cooked me dinner one time I'm sorry. I said you couldn't cook I didn't paraphrase that that's that's what she says really that's what she says to her dead friend who she killed Because they were arguing I'm sorry. I said you can't cook. How about sorry for fucking murdering her layla You fucking psychopath. All right. Have it your way. I like your cooking Then she uh, she she takes the comms unit off of victoria's ear Because hers doesn't work for some reason but victoria's does and alana's like, oh victoria I'm glad to hear from you and layla was like, oh, this is layla and alana's like, why are you using victoria's comms unit? And she's like, uh, we'll talk about that later We got the artifact I finished the trials. Otto burgers having a nap. We can talk about the whole victoria thing later, I guess And that's pretty much where it ends That's it. That's it. Okay. So Otto burgers like presumed dead. I think he's at least in assassin captivity He's clearly alive like they show him breathing And she's like, yeah, he's he's yeah, he's he's still breathing Yeah, but what I hate is there's no explanation about like how the fuck did they get out of the desert without all the Templars just murdering them Like how did they get out of egypt? No, no from uprising Because last we saw them it was atsoberg the lina kiyoshi chat And they were just like all standing outside of the base where charlotte just died and that's it Like they don't escape like how the fuck did they get out of that? Oh, that is not addressed in the games at all No By the time we're in odyssey, they've all they're all ganging out in a london like cell basically Oh Yeah, so as you can see the problem with assassin's creed modern day is that it's dumb and bad and also incoherent and also stupid Wow Yeah, I really wasn't missing out on much, huh? Neither was I I guess I mean I would have liked to see some familiar faces in that comic seems like they do a little who's who of whoever's still around but They're still doing such a terrible job of making the actual stakes of the conflict clear Because technically the assassin's the fact that they now have this staff. They talk about it like it's a big win I'm not sure what it actually strategically accomplishes for them But I mean that's all these games sometimes are is like let's find the magic thing before they do But it really is like like an ac gold They're like back to being like the underdogs But in uprising, you know, they're like these super tactical awesome super heroes. Yeah They can't they they aren't clear about what the actual Relationship is in terms of like who's winning? What's at stake? What are they trying to accomplish anymore? Because for a lot of these pieces of Eden, it's not clear how You know, how would the Templars use this to enslave the world? How would the Assassins use it to free the world what's gonna happen then? There's also a lot of what I know would personally bother the shit out of you It's sort of butchering of like the assassin mindset because specifically in order in odyssey Layla says something to alethea about you know, I used to fight for order But now I fight for freedom and chaos I'm like, I don't think that's what the assassins are. Yeah, sounds a little Yeah, that sounds a little much Sounds a little over the top joker. What is what's going on? Um Am I so serious We both talked in the last episode about how we really enjoyed the syndicate modern day So we don't really need to rehash a lot of those opinions, but You know, I I used to have a lot of and I know you did too a lot of like Expectations of I mean we spent a good few years like desperate for playable modern day And they've given us playable modern day and it's it's it's worse. It's more garbage Yeah, I mean that's a big part of what Like that's a big part of what was keeping me from playing the games also. Yeah It was like, okay, cool play on modern day is back, but is it even close to syndicate quality? No, and I like I reference syndicate so much because like syndicate was like the last time Where modern day like impressed me and I've gone back and we watched the syndicate modern day like a few times since I've played it I can't say that for a lot of the modern day sequences throughout the series even the good ones Yeah, so snag it did something right And the thing is is it was like everyone was all the characterization of the characters were correct Yeah, like odds of Berg was odds of Berg glena was glena Sean Rebecca was Rebecca. Yeah, that was because I think it was your halem. Yeah, now that Darby's back I'm thinking he will inject some like coherence in these characters. You know, I mean if he's bringing back Rebecca That's a good sign you know that he's Like because really what when you do an inventory of like, what does assassin's creed have as far as Characters and story elements that we really want to see more of right And I think we do want to see more of Sean and Rebecca because they're the og's And it makes us happy when we see them and we see them down. Well, we want to see uh odds of Berg because he's a good villain and he's been well characterized and developed for many years now What I You know, I think we need a shift to like the the the uphill battle that they're facing is Now that assassin's creed has existed for so long in so many different arcs and so many different forms of media the story that you can tell about someone getting recruited to the assassins is is is limited because Every time they do the same exact shtick of like here's a nobody that has this Deep lineage that's getting pulled in which we've already seen with Desmond Callum charlotte uh Aliyah, I think whoever the main character of gold is I don't want to see that again You know, obviously because that'd be boring. We'd be like, why should I care about this character? But I they still need to treat them like characters and they still need to give us reasons to care about them because Layla has no personality and no Traits that you typically look for to make a character likeable. She doesn't have a struggle that's relatable She doesn't have a goal that's relatable and it's really hard to be emotionally engaged with her because She's pretty boring and she's pretty annoying and I don't like her Yeah, I I you know, I think a lot of the problems of the modern day has been very well dedicated and it's just I don't I don't know if they care so much anymore when you get a guy like Darby Obviously, they're gonna care, but I'm worried that that's not a priority anymore because they always like to talk like it is They always like to talk like modern day is this big deal of them because it's a big deal to us It isn't I don't believe that anymore in and hey When the the guy who did the soundtrack for syndicate, he was on a podcast recently and someone sent me a sent us a clip of Him basically saying, you know, he was talking to the producers. He was talking to ubisoft You know, I know how you want it to sound for the past, but If I make compositions for the present day storyline the sci-fi stuff Should that stay pretty close to what i'm doing in the past or should that be different? Like he's trying to ask thoughtful questions about what the music landscape of the of the modern day should look like And they were like, dude No one cares Bro, dude, fuck off dude. Fuck out of the modern day, dude. People just want to play the historical shit They don't care about the modern day. So just make them that bigger. Don't even make any music for it You know, but just don't even make a soundtrack for it. We'll just use the music from the from the past Uh, they and according to austin wintery, they just didn't use music at all now They did use his song that he made for syndicate underground over the over the bound Which is a very memorable and effective moment in the modern day Um, and it's it's part of what makes it so awesome Is that cool song and that cool fight sequence? I gotta say that whole sequence is probably the best I'll just go ahead and say it. It's the best modern day We've ever seen that sequence right there the underground sequence. Absolutely without it. So I I don't know if you disagree Send us a hate mail, please Well, if you disagree you need to provide me with facts as to why you need to provide me with facts and logic about why Why syndicate isn't the best modern day? And you can say well, it's not playable and I'll say shut up Yeah, I can't and since that happened I can no longer agree that modern day has to be playable to be good It just has to have good characterization and momentum Yeah, and it's like when layla pisses around lanus for you know an hour or whatever like that doesn't that doesn't matter to me Exactly Yeah, we need stakes. We need characters that we like we need you know personal Stakes with desmond It was really easy to relate to a guy who's been plucked out of his Normal life as a bartender and now he's the center of a global conspiracy and a conflict that has existed for centuries When he feels despondent when he feels down on on himself and and that we relate because boy if if I was in his shoes, I I'd go through the same struggle And he wants to be great because he has all these expectations placed upon him Is it a pretty bog standard like chosen one narrative? Yes But there's a reason that you can give us star wars and harry potter and do the chosen one thing over and over again And we'll enjoy it because it's it's effective I don't want to see them do it again, but I want to see them do something that is effective, right Elijah Miles from what you're saying kind of sounds like an interesting setup to a character He's kind of grown up in this conflict and had an interesting role in it now What what is he going to grow up to be like is my question because If you if you come back to him and he's 17 now or whatever Like what does his life look like at this point? He's not really being raised by anyone. His parents are dead um And his whole life has been part of this crazy You know situation. I want to know what what he's going to be up to I imagine that William Miles is trying is going to try and track him down He didn't care much about his son. So i'm not sure he'll care much about his grandson William Miles. Yeah, what do you mean since when? I mean, he seemed like a pretty shitty father I mean, he was he was a tough. He was tough, but he obviously that's what ac3 was kind of about Well, he's obviously mourning desmond. I mean, he wasn't perfect But I think maybe that would be a fuel for him to have an interesting relationship with Elijah If he feels like he fucked it up What doesn't he could be like i'm gonna raise you like i'm gonna do this the way I should have raised desmond That could be cool And you know like ubisoft every time I asked him to do something every time I think wow would be cool If they do this they do it bad But do it worse than you thought they ever thought they could have i'm like they should make a movie I'm like they should bring back playable modern day I'm like they should make these games more like the witcher Everything I asked him to do they do poorly So by this by that logic, they're going to bring elijah into it and he's going to be the dumbest most Unlikable most unrelatable And stupid character we've ever seen in the modern day. I can't wait Leila's set a pretty low bar, but he'll come under it somehow well Fuck We know that Valhalla we've got these animus anomalies. They're gonna try and clearly be doing something kind of Interesting I guess maybe a little bit you can exit the animus and clearly you're going somewhere and talking to someone In the real world at some point I have no hope for Leila to suddenly be good or interesting like that's I mean She is who she is and I don't think even darby could make me care about her at this point So really the only thing I can hope for is that Valhalla completely closes the book on Leila's story Maybe even kills her and then we can start fresh next year. You know, that would be great That'd be all I can ask for at this point. I'm almost I'm almost team reboot at this point like this continuity is so Fucked let's just wipe it out I hate to say it because I'm I'm okay with yearly releases when it's good, but at this point It's like we have so much I just I just I want to clean slate. I want the good shit to come back I want the bad shit to go away. It's become really hard for someone telling an assassin's creed story to Have any sort of new perspective on the conflict on The I think to the point where as we've seen for the last few games The best strategy in their mind is to get rid of it entirely and not talk about assassins or Templars You know, how do we like that that can only be the result of the people working on these games of the people working on these games feeling burdened by those Those tenets of the franchise and wanting to Just escape it Yeah, I'm I'm I am team reboot right there with you. I don't know what I would want to see in a reboot That would be substantially different from what we like I don't want them to just do the same story again Soft reboot full reboot or otherwise like I don't want You know, your average bartender gets sucked into a world. He doesn't understand but I do want them to have maybe the freedom to Create new mysteries and create new intrigue because there's no facet Of the assassin's creed world that we know about that we don't fully understand by now We understand all the factions. We understand the pieces of Eden. We understand the isu pretty damn well we understand The sages and everything like I have no burning questions But when I send myself back in my mind to playing ac2, you know, learning the truth it's like It took to that game to really understand How much the conflict had permeated through all of history The possibilities that it opened up for what you could do with history and with the franchise were immense And those little nuggets of information that we were getting about the precursors about the isu were fascinating because It is mysterious to imagine that there's a whole precursor race that came before us and What did they do and what were they about and why aren't they around anymore? But now all those questions have more or less been answered. Yeah, I mean they blew in a load Yeah, but it's but like Especially coming out year after year. They're like people just give them a little bit more for a save And they stopped caring. You're like, oh, you just give them all a first save whatever and also When you have all these different development teams, they don't want to play Off of what, you know, the last group did so they just keep doing their own different things I wonder who if it's like azazia amar or whatever is the the head of transmedia Like I want to know who makes the call who's like You know what? Juno don't bother with it. We'll do it in a comic You know what I mean? Like I want to know who pushes that button, right And why are they go? Oh new players will be too overwhelmed by all this back Context. Let's just get rid of it. I think they've proven Time and time again That they have no real capability of setting up something and then paying it off Valhalla is going to give us more leila at least It's going to have maybe rebecca in it Remember Lee what what would they have to do to redeem themselves in your eyes? Uh, give us give us a main character to follow Yeah, like obviously as a you know showing in syndicate. It could be a cast of characters Just put us on the all tier two and leave us there. Let us deal with those people Let us, you know, hang like let us hang out with those people. I don't I don't need I don't know. I I think I always thought that a good modern day Would set us with a new main character on the all tier two We can go around interact with different assassins on the boat go do missions with them all that stuff I think that would be what I want ideally in a playable modern day. Here's my radical pitch for modern day. Are you ready? Yes, set a modern day story in the past Not like the distant past But they've had animus technology That we've seen in the 40s in the 80s in the 2000s that was all differently capable I think maybe putting us in like the 80s in a really like beige blocky 80s animus with like a young warren vitic I think that could be cool. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like like, I know I actually think that'd be really fun like like like a subject one or some shit I think uh galena Her mother was like there was a story in in initiates or something that her mom was in An 80s animus prison sort of situation basically the descriptions of it were pretty haunting it sounded like a pretty nasty and Mentally psychologically fucking ridiculous place to be a lot of the best stories about the animus and about the modern day Have really leaned into the psychological horror of the idea of having you be Pasted to this bed for hours reliving the memories of your ancestors. What would that do to your mind? Lean into that go a little psychological horror on us in Assassin's Creed We can take it we're grown-ups get a little creepy with it. Why not? I want to see an 80s animus As the quote-unquote modern-day overarching storyline and use it to maybe unlock some insights about The origins of the animus tell some interesting stories about What they were really up to at that time why they thought this was a good idea, you know Yeah, I mean if anything that would work as a as a like a comic a kind of like the fall absolutely or Alternatively what would be really cool is if I'm just playing a video game on the helix server And I'm the main character And then this lady like named bishop or something could just I don't know say words at me and cut I'm pretty dope actually actually that'd be cool, right? I would take it over this layla shit. I would I'll do it. I'll say it right now unity modern day better than origins modern day. You can find me about it I'm laying it down. It's not good. They're both very bad, but At least one of them didn't pretend to be better than it was This has been both Fascinating and exhausting timothy. Yeah, I'm gonna go take a nap. Yeah I'm gonna take a fat nap in the meantime You guys can send us some hate mail In our in our comment section. Yeah guys make sure that uh make sure I didn't miss anything From up right. Yeah, please go through everything we said and and just anything important that you feel like we left out Correct us as condescendingly and And aggressively as you can in the comments. We would yeah, enjoy that say that I'm a fool tweet tweet at us and call us losers Like the video if you're on youtube Comments if you're on youtube if you're on spotify I mean good for you just fuck off just leave just I mean there's nothing you can provide us without you Navigating to the youtube Doing something there But hey, there are a lot of ways you can support what we're doing on our show You can retweet our clips that we post on our twitter pretty much every week of our highlighted moments Um, and if you have friends who like assassin's creed and like podcasts you can let them know what we're doing And send them a cheeky little link and see what happens. See how it goes. All right I think that does it me too. I I've been the blade I've been the hook. Thanks for listening