Fans of the Assassin's Creed series certainly are not starved for content. Between films, comics, novels, upcoming TV series, a board game, and near annual releases of the video game entries, there is a lot of content for fans of Assassin's Creed to choose from.
Now fans will soon have one more entry into the world of Assassin's Creed to consume should they desire. The first volume of the new manga series called Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun will be released in February 2021, though no specific date was given by Ubisoft.
The manga which is already available in French and Japanese is being published by Viz Media for its English release. The story stars assassin Shao Jun, last seen in Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, as she works to take down the Iron Tigers, templars that destroyed the Assassin's Order in China.
Blade of Shao Jun is drawn by Minoji Kurata and Ubisoft provided a video that gives a behind the scenes look at Kurata's creative process. The video also explains a staple of the Assassin's Creed series; that being that each protagonist is actually effectively a memory being relieved by their descendant in the present. Which often has a lot of clever uses in the video games that improve immersion such as the fact that if the player were to do something against what the historical figure actually did, it's just written off as "desynchronization" which explains how there can be player input and error in something that is supposed to be a memory. Some games, especially recent ones, have messed with this idea a little bit, but the general concept remains the same.
Some players may be unfamiliar with Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China if they have only been playing the mainline Assassin's Creed games. Chronicles was a series of spin-off platforming games with settings in China, India, and Russia. Shao Jun's game was the first one released in 2015.
Shao Jun is also notable because she was trained by renowned assassin of the series Ezio Auditore, who starred in his own trilogy and whose own debut, Assassin's Creed 2, is considered by many to be one of, if not the best, entries in the series. Assassin's Creed Chronicles as a whole kind of flew under the radar given it was a spin off and it received mixed reviews from critics. For those that did enjoy the game however, or for those who simply could always use more Assassin's Creed in their life, the English release of Blade of Shao Jun should be a welcome announcement.
Source: Ubisoft