Ubisoft announced a mysterious new project called Assassin’s Creed: Codename Witch on the Ubisoft Forward live show, and somehow the name sounds familiar, almost like we’ve heard it before.
Well, even the otherwise well-informed leakers didn’t have the trailer for AC Hexe to offer, but it doesn’t reveal much more about the setting or gameplay either. At least at first glance:
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The trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Codename Witch leaves many questions unanswered
But at GameStar, we love to unravel mysterious game announcements for you. We therefore analyzed the approximately 30-second video in detail: What do you actually see there – and what does it mean? We were also able to find out more details in an interview with the Ubisoft bosses and summarize all the important information from the live stream.
What we know for sure about Assassin’s Creed witch so far
- According to executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté of publisher Ubisoft, Codename Hexe will be “a different kind of Assassin’s Creed”. In another interview with GameStar, Côté said Codename Hexe should be based more on the older parts of Assassin Creed; So it won’t be an action role-playing game like Odyssey, but probably an action-adventure without a talent tree and experience points.
- The game is being developed at Ubisoft Montréal (AC Valhalla) with creative direction by Clint Hocking (Watch Dogs Legion).
- Codename Hexe will appear as part of Assassin’s Creed Infinity, just like Codename Red, set in feudal Japan. The latter becomes one online platform, in which all future AC parts and their players should be connected in an Animus-like interface. A separate multiplayer game called Invictus is also in development.
- A leak by the usually well-informed industry insider Tom Henderson speaks of the codename witch set in 16th-century Europe, at the height of the witch hunt. The release is planned for 2026.
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Trailer Analysis: Do the Runes Have a Hidden Meaning?
What secrets does the first teaser for Assassin’s Creed: Codename Witch reveal? First the obvious: the video shows a gloomy forest at night, in which leaves fall from the trees while mist wafts between the trunks. The familiar AC logo, recreated from twigs, hangs from a branch while dogs bark in the background. At the end you see the logo again, surrounded by several runes and lines.
We asked GameStar author Christian Schwarz about the meaning of the characters at the end; Christian studied Scandinavian Studies and Communication Science, his master’s thesis dealt with the function of language in video games. He has researched and speculated for us, but points out that his conclusions are in no way confirmed facts.
Christian cannot assign or translate the runes right away, they seem(!) to be neither Scandinavian nor (mainland) Europeic, Japanese or Sumerian. When you look at the characters in the outer circle, »you can see that they are words with a different number of letters. Identical runes = identical meaning/letters.«
This is where Benedict Grothaus, editor of our sister site, can help out Mein-MMO. He believes that the characters from the Alphabet of Magicians and translates them – without guarantee – as follows, beginning with the outer ring:
WE WORK IN THE DUNQEL TO SERVE THE LIGHT
MEPHISTO
RACE
HATE/HOUSE
The first sentence in the outer ring is thus part of the Assassin’s creed, which continues with »We are »Assassins. Nothing is true. Everything is allowed.”. These words can be heard in Assassin’s Creed 2 and Origins, among others, and were spoken by Ezio Auditore and Bayek.
The middle part, on the other hand, could refer to the story of Assassin’s Creed Hexe; Mephisto is probably best known to you as the name of the devil (e.g. in Goethe’s »Faust«). Witches were often credited with making a pact with Mephisto in order to acquire their supposed supernatural abilities. Revenge and hatred could take up the motif of witch hunts.
So much for the characters. But what about the pentagram? Christian Schwarz pored over several books for this:
“Behind the assassin’s stick logo is an eight-cornered circle. It is about according to this page around an ‘eight star’. It is important: The star must have been formed by a continuous line (similar to pentagram and Co.). There is also an octagon, which is formed by two squares placed one on top of the other – but that’s not it (that’s a figure of eight).
Im Lexicon of symbolic language it is said that the eight-pointed star is the sign of legal entities, judges and notaries. It is a symbol for the scales, the ever-balancing justice and neutrality, for the natural equilibrium. The seven and the seven star describe the earthly measure of things and the end of a path. The eight (infinity!) and the eight star show ‘both sides of the coin’ – the beginning and end of a path, earthly and cosmic justice – i.e. supernatural justice.
Each new path results from the constant interplay between life and death as well as the various turning points that promise the beginning of a new era.«
Christian Schwarz points out that the depiction of the ax star in the book consists of two squares, so it is different than in the trailer for Assassin’s Creed Hexe. “However, I think (!) that the excerpt above reads VERY like Assassin’s Creed (balancing justice), especially in connection with witches (earthly and cosmic, etc.)”, explains our expert.
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According to Christian’s personal opinion, it could actually be the eight-pointed star described in the video, and the optics as a “pentagram” with eight corners was chosen because of its wider distribution in pop culture and the resulting easier marketing. “Maybe the author only illustrated one of the two variants,” says Christian.
Finally, Christian Schwarz draws our attention once again to the gray lines that run around the circle with the runes and the eight-pointed star framed in them. You can hardly see them in the trailer, so we brightened the picture afterwards:
For Christian, “it suggests that the eight-pointed star in the graphic is framed by a larger eight-pointed star – perhaps symbolic of something bigger that we can’t quite grasp.” Whether his analysis is accurate or the developers of Assassin’s Creed Hexe thought something completely different with the logo? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Tell us your theories in the comments!