New official look at Michael Fassbender in ‘Assassin’s Creed’

Ubisoft’s historical fiction-action-adventure series Assassin’s Creed stands as one of the most popular video game franchises ever created, selling more than 73 million copies and spawning comic books, novels, animated short films, even its own hard-cover encyclopedia in addition to popularizing some 20 series-related titles.

So you’d be forgiven for assuming that before Michael Fassbender signed on as star and producer of December 2016’s mega-budget Assassin’s Creed movie adaptation, he had probably picked up the joystick to play the game at least a couple of times — that the Oscar-nominated 12 Years a Slave actor had some conceptual grasp of what an Animus does or, perhaps, strong feelings about the wonders of the Bleeding Effect.

But you’d be wrong.