Highlights
- The dark themes and setting of Assassin’s Creed Hexe suggest a focus on European witch hunts during the Holy Roman Empire.
- The religious and political context of the Holy Roman Empire dominated witch hunts during the 16th and 17th centuries.
- With a potential female protagonist, Hexe could accurately portray the persecution of women during the witch trials of the era.
There is still a lot of secrecy surrounding Assassin’s Creed Hexe, with very little information being available about the upcoming project other than its 2022 teaser trailer. Despite this, the dark themes of the game have clearly captured the attention of many fans, with a huge range of theories still making their way through the community regarding what kind of title Hexe will turn out to be.
The teaser trailer of Assassin’s Creed Hexe, as well as its name, has led to a dominant theory that the game will follow a coven of European witches, most likely during the reign of the Holy Roman Empire. This era of human history is ripe with the kind of prejudice, power struggles, and political scheming that the Assassin’s Creed franchise usually employs in its narratives, and fans of the upcoming game may want to know all they can about Europe’s infamous witch trials before playing.
How Assassin’s Creed Hexe Could Incorporate a Magic System
Assuming the rumors about its setting and protagonist are true, Assassin’s Creed Hexe could figure out a realistic way to incorporate a magic system.
Assassin’s Creed Hexe: Germany Was Once a Place of Extensive Witch Hunts
The teaser trailer for Assassin’s Creed Hexe takes place in a dimly lit forest, with a crackling fire and a twig effigy of the Assassin’s Brotherhood symbol being the centerpiece of the short video. This, combined with the current codename of Hexe, has led many fans to theorize that the game will primarily portray a group of witches. While a hex is a curse commonly associated with witchcraft, the spelling “hexe” is the direct German translation for the word “witch,” being a huge indication that the title will be set in Germany.
Like a lot of mainland Europe, Germany has a storied history when it comes to the persecution of alleged witches, which was rampant across the continent between the 16th and 17th centuries. This widespread persecution largely came under the reign of the Holy Roman Empire, which dominated swathes of Europe for almost 1,000 years until the year 1806.
Religion and Politics Dominated the Witch Hunts of Assassin’s Creed Hexe
While the Holy Roman Empire was made up of many smaller kingdoms, many of them were bound by a deep devotion to religion, namely Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. The enforcement of these religions was massively important for the Holy Roman Empire, with a lot of more historical religious practices like Paganism being labeled as satanic and morally corrupt.
To completely solidify the beliefs of the dominant religions of the time, witch hunts and trials were very frequent during the Holy Roman Empire, primarily in the areas of modern-day Germany. These witch hunts peaked between the late-1500s and mid-1600s, leading to the executions of thousands of people, with the vast majority of these victims being burnt alive.
While men could be tried and executed for witchcraft, women were by far the most persecuted group during the witch hunts of this period, and Assassin’s Creed Hexe would be wise to have the story of these women at the forefront of its narrative. Theories already point towards Hexe having the first standalone female protagonist for the AC franchise, and it is clear that Ubisoft has a lot of real-world history that needs to be taken into account and accurately portrayed within the upcoming project.
While it seems very likely, a German setting with a focus on witchcraft has not been officially confirmed by Ubisoft for
Assassin’s Creed Hexe
.
