Netflix's 'Castlevania' Showrunner Announces an 'Assassin's Creed' Anime Series

Adi Shankar is a welcome creator to the slowly improving world of modern video game adaptations, and that is before his upcoming adaptation of Castlevania is even released. As the showrunner and creator of Netflix's highly anticipated animated Castlevania series, Shankar has given hope to legions of gamers everywhere who have felt let down by nearly every other video game adaptation over the years. Castlevania's first season releases on July 7th, 2017 and Shankar's animation looks like it might be one of the best adaptations of a video game.

With the anticipated success of #Castlevania, Shankar took to Facebook to officially announce his next project.

I’m happy to let you guys know that I’ve selected my next project! I played the first edition of Assassin’s Creed the year I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dream. At that moment I knew absolutely no one in the industry and could never have imagined that one day Ubisoft would ask me to take the world of Assassin’s Creed and create an original story set in it as an anime series. If anyone tells you not to follow your passion in life they are wrong.

Assassin's Creed is one of the biggest gaming franchises in recent history, so it makes sense that with the impending release of the anticipated Assassin's Creed: Origins, Shankar would be tasked with developing an anime series set within the limitless world of the assassin brotherhood.

Ubisoft is taking the right risks with the franchise.

Overall Ubisoft has chosen to take time to refocus their creative teams on the AC franchise by stepping back from the annualized new game release to deliver something that looks truly special in Assassin's Creed: Origins. This decision to change things up is exactly what the franchise needed to stop it from stalling out.

Then the bold move to invite Shankar, a rebellious non-traditional Hollywood director, after 2016's live action Assassin's Creed film was a critical and financial failure. With Shankar having a knack for pushing the envelope with a good balance of satire and R-rated aesthetics. With his producing credits of The Grey, Dredd, Lone Survivor and a series of incredible shorts like The Punisher: Dirty Laundry, Power/Rangers and Venom: Truth in Journalism - Shankar is just the man that is capable of delivering a brilliant story within the Assassin's Creed universe.

What can we expect in an Assassin's Creed adaptation?

Considering that the partnership between Ubisoft and Adi Shankar is still fresh and new, there is really very little we know about the series. But what we do know is that it will be an original story as an anime series.

This offers a lot in terms of interpretation, especially when you know the deep lore of the games themselves. The game series itself covers thousands of years with the inclusion of the upcoming Origins set back in ancient Egypt, and crosses countless other borders (England, Italy, Spain, France and even the United States) so the location could legitimately be anywhere in the world or even time.

Yet, the exciting part of this news is that Shankar says it will be an anime series, which broadens the possibility in terms of storytelling and art style. Considering that Frederator Studios (Adventure Time) did the art for the upcoming Castlevania series, the possibilities are endless for the right animators to step on board and design a graphically brutal action series around the assassins.