The Story Behind the Cover of Assassin’s Creed: Heresy

Assassin’s Creed: Heresy, adapted from the beloved fictional world that started as a video game and has since expanded into comic books, film, and more, hit shelves this week. The team behind the new book, about a templar who digs dangerously deep into the history of both his family and the rift between Templars and Assassins, share the story of its cover.
The Assassin’s Creed® universe has always been cloaked in mystery. The hidden war between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order has spanned multiple types of media: video games, comic books, novels, animated shorts, and, in theaters December 21, the Assassin’s Creed movie. Each iteration brings new layers of depth and richness to the franchise’s lore for fans and newcomers to enjoy.
Assassin’s Creed: Heresy, from New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, is the latest addition to the family. The novel explores the adventures of Simon Hathaway, newly initiated member of the Templar Inner Sanctum, as he explores the memories of his ancestor Gabriel Laxart, a traveling companion of Joan of Arc. As head of Historical Research at Abstergo Industries, he hopes to discover information about the legendary Sword of Eden, rumored to have been wielded by Joan herself. However, Simon slowly uncovers secrets from the past that could dangerously impact both his own present and that of the entire Templar order.
This book features a protagonist brand new to the franchise and is Ubisoft’s first foray into in-house publishing, so we wanted to create a book cover that stood out. Faceout Studio created a cover that caught our eye. Here’s what Jeff Miller, Art Director at Faceout, had to say about the design:
The approved cover design for Heresy came together as one of my first initial concepts. One of the objectives for the cover was to show a dichotomy of past and present—an integral part of the story that is core to the identity of Assassin’s Creed. I thought about several ways of communicating this “split” on the cover—showing two characters in full, showing two characters in their respective settings, and also showing each character in more obscure ways.
After image researching, I was inspired by a few different stock portraits that I found and decided to move forward with. These portraits were lit in ways that really played up a sense of drama. There was a similarity that tied the two characters together, but they were lighted on completely different backdrops—Joan of Arc on black, and Simon Hathaway on white. It made for a nice contrast that caught your eye. Now the trick was bringing everything together.
I wanted to feature the title and the Assassin’s Creed branding in such a way that it didn’t interfere with the characters, but played a key part as the focal point. I also wanted to bring in some more depth to the cover. This was solved by adding unique code, textures, and patterns that provided more context to the story with Simon’s interest in experiencing history through accessing the memory of his ancestor Gabriel, and Gabriel’s relationship with Joan of Arc. It also kept your eye active, and made the cover much more dynamic, with lots of details to keep the viewer interested. I also wanted to stay true to the branded colors of Assassin’s Creed. So pops of red with dark blues and shades of gray allowed for certain elements to stand out. The basic layout stayed intact throughout the design process, but a custom photoshoot was in order to more accurately portray each character on the cover. I teamed up with an amazing photographer, Brandon Hill, by having him reshoot both characters with the same dramatic lighting, same backdrops, but with little details changed for better representation. The end result is the final cover for Assassin’s Creed: Heresy, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Not only does this cover convey the contrast between Simon and Joan’s story wonderfully, but it also features a fresh new look that hadn’t been seen before in the brand. After the photoshoot, all that was left to do was add little details to the composition to refine it. Although the story is mainly seen through the point of view of the Templars in the present day, Joan’s epic adventure features the Assassins. Hence, it was important to us that both the Templar cross and the Assassin crest be represented on the cover.
Aymar Azaïzia, director of content for the Assassin’s Creed brand, as a nod to the curious nature of fans, suggested we add Easter eggs into the cover’s design by inserting hidden messages and coordinates within the code lines. The team then dug through Assassin’s Creed: Heresy’s story and the larger Assassin’s Creed universe for interesting nuggets of information to include.
We decided to go with the concept that the code lines on the cover were the same as the ones the Animus outputs while Simon is using it. The first thing that came to mind was including GPS coordinates of important locations mentioned in the novel, as if the machine were trying to find where to begin its simulation. We then included encoded text in the “Loading Memories…” lines. We don’t want to spoil the fun, so we’ll leave it to readers to discover which parts of the text are encrypted, and what kind of key they’ll need to translate it into something more legible. Finally, amidst those lines of code, we hid a URL that directs to an image central to the plot of the story. With all these elements in place, we knew we would have a cover that does justice to the Assassin’s Creed universe and pleases newcomers and veterans of the franchise alike.
Assassin’s Creed: Heresy is available now.