Assassin's Creed Liberation
Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Liberation stands at a unique intersection in the history of mainstream gaming. By centering a Black woman, Aveline de Grandpré, in 18th-century New Orleans, the game gestures toward a radical break from the whitewashed narratives that dominate both gaming and colonial historiography. On its surface, the very act of casting Aveline as protagonist seems an act of resistance. Yet, upon closer inspection, the narrative and gameplay mechanics betray a deep ambivalence.
Fanon reminds us that colonial society is not simply a backdrop but a structure that molds consciousness. In Liberation, the plantation system is present, but only in fragments. Slavery is acknowledged, but rarely interrogated with the depth or violence that shaped the lives of the colonized. Instead, the player moves through these spaces as if on a tour of historical tableaux, where oppression becomes a backdrop for familiar stealth mechanics. The game risks transforming structural violence into aesthetic set-dressing—spectacle without confrontation.
The game’s much-advertised “persona system”—where Aveline dons the roles of lady, slave, or assassin—mirrors Fanon’s own reflections on the masks forced upon the colonized subject. Yet the mechanic is flattened into a puzzle of infiltration and disguise, its political weight defused. Rather than exposing the psychic fractures of identity under colonial rule, it reduces them to tactical advantages. The radical possibility of showing how identity is fractured, constrained, and performed under empire is left unexplored.
This is not to say Liberation is without value. Its very existence marks a moment when mainstream gaming flirted with telling a story beyond European protagonists. The glimpses we get—of Aveline navigating elite society while connected to enslaved resistance, of her double inheritance as both French and African—suggest the potential for a profound narrative of in-between spaces, hybridity, and revolt. But these glimpses remain unfulfilled, constrained by a design philosophy unwilling to embrace rupture.
In the end, Assassin’s Creed Liberation risks enacting the very dynamic Fanon critiqued: the colonizer’s apparatus offering the colonized the illusion of recognition while maintaining structural limits on their voice. Aveline is present, visible, even heroic—but her liberation is fragmented, her struggle subsumed into the rhythms of a franchise unwilling to wrestle with history’s violence. What emerges is not a revolutionary cry but a muted echo: freedom promised, but not fully realized.
Fanon reminds us that colonial society is not simply a backdrop but a structure that molds consciousness. In Liberation, the plantation system is present, but only in fragments. Slavery is acknowledged, but rarely interrogated with the depth or violence that shaped the lives of the colonized. Instead, the player moves through these spaces as if on a tour of historical tableaux, where oppression becomes a backdrop for familiar stealth mechanics. The game risks transforming structural violence into aesthetic set-dressing—spectacle without confrontation.
The game’s much-advertised “persona system”—where Aveline dons the roles of lady, slave, or assassin—mirrors Fanon’s own reflections on the masks forced upon the colonized subject. Yet the mechanic is flattened into a puzzle of infiltration and disguise, its political weight defused. Rather than exposing the psychic fractures of identity under colonial rule, it reduces them to tactical advantages. The radical possibility of showing how identity is fractured, constrained, and performed under empire is left unexplored.
This is not to say Liberation is without value. Its very existence marks a moment when mainstream gaming flirted with telling a story beyond European protagonists. The glimpses we get—of Aveline navigating elite society while connected to enslaved resistance, of her double inheritance as both French and African—suggest the potential for a profound narrative of in-between spaces, hybridity, and revolt. But these glimpses remain unfulfilled, constrained by a design philosophy unwilling to embrace rupture.
In the end, Assassin’s Creed Liberation risks enacting the very dynamic Fanon critiqued: the colonizer’s apparatus offering the colonized the illusion of recognition while maintaining structural limits on their voice. Aveline is present, visible, even heroic—but her liberation is fragmented, her struggle subsumed into the rhythms of a franchise unwilling to wrestle with history’s violence. What emerges is not a revolutionary cry but a muted echo: freedom promised, but not fully realized.
Mini Review: The game dares to center a Black woman within a colonial order, yet shackles her voice within repetitive mechanics and shallow gestures toward liberation. The plantation is rendered but not interrogated, its violence dulled into spectacle. In offering fragments of freedom without depth, it risks becoming another mask that flatters empire rather than dismantles it.