The Poetics of Form and the Politics of Identity in Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation

Abstract

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation (Ubisoft, 2012) is a stealth, open-world adventure game about chattel slavery. A third-person historical fiction, Liberation presents a rare example of an exceptional black female revolutionary, and the first heroine of the highly successful franchise. Modeling an intersectional visual/cultural studies approach, I focus on three levels. First, I consider the cultural context into which this character is introduced. Second, I deconstruct the game’s aesthetic origins, unveiling its poetics of form. Third, I analyze the central player-character, Aveline de Grandpré, and the mobilization of her unique Persona System, elucidating the connections between cultural content and game mechanics.