Elise and Arno: Star-Crossed Romance in Assassin’s Creed Unity

With a little more than two months to go before gamers get their hands on Assassin’s Creed Unity, Ubisoft has released information to pique fans’ interest even more. 

In a recent interview with Game Informer, the game’s Creative Director Alex Amancio talked a little about the romantic arc in Unity and about Elise, the main character’s love interest. According to Amancio, the main character, Arno Dorian, and Elise are on opposite sides in the game’s story. 

Elise is a Templar, the enemies of Assassins like Arno Dorian. Because of this dynamic, Amancio believes that players will care more about the romance between these two characters than romances in past Assassin’s Creed games. “By making Elise a Templar,” Amancio said, “it’s part of the actual struggle of the character. It prevents it from becoming a B-plot or a tangent.”

The sides Elise and Arno have chosen should definitely make for an interesting and more complex romance between the two characters. At least that is what Ubisoft is hoping for.

“We felt that with this generation it was a good opportunity to crank it up a notch and have a story that’s a bit more serious and more mature.”

-Alex Amancio

Fans are already showing a mixed reaction to Elise and the romance in Unity. Some people seem genuinely enthusiastic, while some are still a little hesitant after statements Ubisoft made about female characters, earlier this year.

In the interview, Amancio assured fans that a great deal of consideration went into making Elise: 

We wanted to create a smart intelligent, multi-layered character that didn’t represent any cliches that any character may have…When we create any character, whether it’s Arno or Elise, we treat all of them as characters. Gender is something that is an intricate part, but it is never a deciding factor in anything of how that character will be. All that’s important is that she’s a strong character.

Fans can judge for themselves whether or not Ubisoft succeeded with Elise when Assassin’s Creed Unity releases for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Windows PC on October 28th.