It can be said that the Assassin's Creed franchise became popular largely through the fascinating richness of its warring factions. For most of the franchise's existence, the games told stories of the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order, two antithesis organizations who work from the shadows, locked in a seemingly endless global war that has been raging for centuries.
More recently, however, fans of Assassin's Creed have been dealing with a different core faction instead of the coveted Assassin Brotherhood. Appearing extensively in newer installments of the franchise, the Hidden Ones are very important, being the first iteration of what would become the franchise-defining brotherhood.
The History Of the Hidden Ones
The beginnings of the Hidden Ones as an organization were outlined extensively in 2017 with the release of Assassin's Creed Origins. The title conveyed the establishment of the faction by its protagonist Bayek of Siwa, along with his wife Aya of Alexandria over the unjust loss of their son at the hands of a sinister organization.
Originally being formulated in Egypt in the year 47 BC, the Hidden Ones operated purely out of an unwavering commitment to protecting the free will and liberties of the people, doing whatever necessary to preserve these rights against tyrannical forces. This deeply important and commendable ethos was the lifeblood of the organization, and saw the Hidden Ones thrive and expand significantly across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East in the years after the organization was founded.
How the Hidden Ones Became the Assassin Brotherhood
The Hidden Ones existed for quite some time before becoming the Assassin Brotherhood, having significant influence over some of the most defining moments in human history, such as the assassination of Julius Caesar. In all, the organization would last over one thousand years in its original form, before shifting into the Assassin Brotherhood.
This shift in identity came in the year 1090 AD, and can be directly attributed to the Middle Eastern factions of the Hidden Ones. More specifically, the Levantine branch of the organization gained significantly more political power in the region, so much so that they no longer had to operate under the safety of mystery and confusion. Growing much more bold with the help of the newly public nature of their work, the Hidden Ones essentially rebranded into the Assassin Brotherhood after becoming largely concentrated in the Middle East, allowing the public to finally attribute a faction to the numerous high-profile killings that would often occur.
The change roughly coincides with a similar rebranding of the Hidden Ones' sworn enemies. The Order of the Ancients, who were the original reason for the creation of the Hidden Ones, became known as the Templar Order, thus marking the next step in the longstanding Assassin versus Templar conflict.
The Continuation Of the Assassin Brotherhood
Despite the overt change in identity, the newly formed Assassin Brotherhood would maintain the same core ethos as its preceding organization, fighting for justice around the world. The Brotherhood itself would go on to exist for centuries, canonically existing within the franchise all the way up to present day along with the Templars, whom they are still bitterly embroiled in war with.
Under the moniker of the Assassins, the organization fully realized its own potential, becoming an omnipresent, global, and multicultural faction capable of striking at injustice at any moment across the world. Although it took this rebranding and the passing of time into more modern eras to reach this high potential, the importance of the early work of Hidden Ones in the wider lore of Assassin's Creed cannot be understated.