During a recent episode of The Ones Who Came Before podcast Rally The Creed, myself and my co-host Colum Blackett were talking about what a Assassin’s Creed game set during the Black Death would look like, the origins of the bubonic plague and a fear system. I just couldn't shake the idea from my head. 

We discussed that it could be a sequel to Hexe in time but not as a direct sequel, more of a spiritual successor. A new era in the franchise, the “Dark Era” and it was in that conversation, that I realised it wasn't just an idea to be spoken about on a podcast. It needed to be written down and shared. Something that demanded life on the page before it could ever exist in a game. 

The idea of a “Dark Era” isn't about heroes in shining armour, nor sweeping tales of conquest. It's about survival in the shadows of human failure, about morality bending under the weight of desperation. It's about a city drowning in death and a man whose sins are not just his own, but those of a whole world. Assassin’s Creed: Black Eden exists in that space between faith and fear, love and obsession, death and the memory of what could have been. 

Marseille, 1348 - The City of Plague

Marseille in 1348 was not a city. It was a graveyard pretending to be a city. Smoke clung to the roofs like soot stained ghosts. The river ran dark with filth and blood. Bells tolled endlessly, calling out the dead while the living recoiled at each other’s breath. Shops and marketplaces deserted. The only commerce left was fear, and even that was precious. 

People whispered that the air itself had turned against them. Some spoke of angels who had abandoned the city, of saints who no longer listened. While others wore amulets, some carved protective symbols into their doors; some even prayed so fervently their hands ached and their knees became blistered. 

Marseille was a city where superstition had become law, where despair shaped every step. And above it all, moving between alleys and rooftops, someone was watching. Someone who had once believed he could save lives through control. Only to learn that salvation came at the cost of the city’s soul.

Lucien de Montfort - The Templar Who Wept

Lucien de Montfort had once been a man of reason. An alchemist and a Templar scholar. He believed in the grand design, in the orderly flow of history. In the Templar promise that control could cure chaos. And that's why he helped the Templars with the creation of the Black Death. He did not do it out of malice but out of misguided devotion. 

Every vial, every calculation  and every careful release of the plague was intended to prune humanity. To cleanse what he and the Templars deemed unfit. 

He loved once. A brilliant, beautiful and terrifying woman called Lilith LaMort. Together they studied the apple, or what was left of it. But obsession and fear coiled around their work, experiments went wrong and people died. One day an accident happened and destroyed their lab. Both Lilith and the Apple were destroyed with it. Everything the two of them had built was gone.

He buried both his love and his faith in the same grave. 

Now months later, the plague begins to strangle the city and he is alone. A man haunted by the faces of the dead, as he moved among the living. He was searching for absolution but he might never find it.

The Rot of Eden: The Black Apple

The Apple isn't just a relic, it's a weapon. A piece of divine technology that has been corrupted over centuries. Once golden, radiant and pure. It had been warped by the Isu’s war code into an Apple of obsidian black. Its carvings were gold and oozing a hissing, thick sap.

Lucien called it the Rot. it was able to prune a population, the Templars deemed unworthy. It accelerated decay and manipulated life itself. wells , wine and incense all distilled into tools by the Templars. Under the guise of salvation but in reality they were tools of control and power. 

And yet to Lucien, it was more than just a weapon. The Rot was a part of him, after the accident. A constant reminder of his complicity. To him, every death whispered his name. Every coughing child, every corpse was a testament to his sins and failure. The Apple isn't something you wield lightly; it was something that carried the weight of life and death. Lucien had been the one to tip the scales.

Faith, Fear and Masks

The city devoured itself in silence. Fear spread faster than the plague. It turned every home into a fortress and every neighbour into a threat. Trust soon became a relic. It had been buried and forgotten, even feared as much as death.

Lucien adapted. He became what the city needed and what it wouldn't question. He became a plague doctor. Cloaked in soot stained robes and wearing a beaked mask that reeked of herbs and despair. He drifted through the streets like a penitent spirit. 

The mask was both his sanctuary and his prison. It granted him passage through guarded alleys and restricted areas. Behind the glass eyes, Lucien watched as the world around him continued to rot and he wondered if he could ever atone for the things he had done.

Elias - The Modern Assassin

Centuries later, in a quiet lab, Elias Moreau strapped into the Animus. He wasn't anyone special, just a field operative; trying to make a difference. He followed orders, gathered intel and blended into the world unnoticed. 

But this time it was different. His mentor’s words still ring in his ears “if we are to understand what Covid is. We need to find the Black Apple. You need to walk the streets of Marseille and see what Lucien de Montford saw” and with that Elias entered the Animus.

And in a heartbeat, the modern day began to fade from his eyes. The plague choked air, the tolling bells and the fear on the street became as real as anything he'd seen before. He could feel Lucien’s guilt crawling along his spine. He could hear Lucien’s whispered prayers to the dead and the smell of the rot that lingered in every corner of the city. 

The Animus was supposed to be a tool, a window to history. But for Elias it was now a bridge connecting him not only to Marseille but also to the sins of his bloodline. As Marseille began to unfold around him, Elias thought “Death is not the enemy, it is the relief of pain and the end of suffering to those around him” 

The Whispers of La Maitresse Noire

Even as Lucien moved through the plague ravaged streets of Marseille, a shadowy figure lingered. The city whispered of a woman only referred to as La Maitresse Noire. No one knew her true identity and if they did, no one spoke it. Her cruelty was legendary. Entire families vanished overnight. 

Experiments gone wrong turned into tales of horror. She commanded through fear, her intellect was as sharp as any blade. Her heart, cold and barren. 

Templars tremble at her name. When they die, their last words weren’t of battles or hatred. But of her, The Maitresse surpassed them all. Lucien now looking at people he once trusted and respected, realised that they all served her and they were merely instruments to her ambition.  

 The Kiss of the Maitresse

Lucien had begun to piece it together, the patterns and the names in the ledgers. The whispers of la Maitresse Noire. Every lead drew him closer to the truth. She wasn’t just a myth, she was real. She was orchestrating everything, the plague, the fear and even the city’s slow decline.

Lucien cornered a Templar alchemist in the catacombs beneath Marseille, who once looked up to Lucien. The man begged for his life, he mumbled about salvation and sacrifice; as Lucien towered over him. Lucien ignored his pleas and drove his blade home and the Templar looked into Lucien’s eyes and smiled.

The pain came later, Lucien felt his veins burning and the bitter taste of iron in his mouth. His vision became blurred and his limbs trembled. In the dying man's hand, Lucien saw it. A broken vial. He had been injected.

The Maitresse had turned the plague against its creator. Days bled into nights, fever consumed Lucien. His mind unraveled between flashes of clarity and delirium. Every cough was now a reminder that he is one of the infected and is a reminder of the countless souls he has doomed, in the name of order.

Even as sickness ravaged his body, Lucien’s resolve was only sharpened. If this was to be his end, he would make sure it means something. He would drag this plague and Maitresse Noire with him into hell.

The Final Act

Lucien returned to where his story began, the laboratory buried beneath the cathedral. Once a beacon of Templar ambition, now left to rot and is nothing more than just ash and the echoes of the past. 

He thought he was alone, that is until a voice calls out to him “I knew you’d come back home, mon cher” from the shadows crept, a figure; La Maitresse Noire, but her veil was gone and Lucien saw a face that had haunted his dreams. Lilith LaMort.

Her beauty had not faded, she stood there; like something otherworldly. She wasn’t the same woman he once knew, as she stood there half divine and utterly terrifying. The Black Apple clutched in her hand. Lilith circled Lucien with a predatory gaze. 

Lucien lunged at her, steel clashed. Assassin against former love & false divinity. Every blow echo screamed through the shadows. Lilith falls to her knees, she reaches for him with her blood soaked hands. A faint smile across her face. “You can kill me” she whispers “but not what I’ve set in motion. This plague will end only when the Apple can’t corrupt anymore” Lucien knew that the Apple couldn't be destroyed. 

Gameplay Mechanics

When I started imagining how Black Eden would actually play, the goal was simple: build systems that make the world react to Lucien, not the other way around. The plague isn’t just a backdrop,  it’s the heartbeat of the entire game. And every mechanic stems from that idea.

Trust System

In a city collapsing under fear and superstition, nobody is going to welcome a stranger with open arms, especially not someone poking around crime scenes and plague zones. So trust becomes a core mechanic.

People judge Lucien based on what they see. If he helps gather medicine, deliver food, guide families to safety, or take down corrupt officials, their trust rises. If he sneaks where he shouldn’t, draws attention, or appears too often near death, they pull back.

Trust isn’t just a meter; it affects everything:

    •    What missions unlock

    •    Who speaks to you

    •    Whether an area will hide you or betray you

    •    How easily you can move through the city

It’s not “good vs evil.” It’s “do they believe you’re here to help, or here to harm?”

Disguise System

Disguises in Black Eden aren’t cosmetic, they’re social tools with consequences.

Plague Doctor Disguise

Lucien’s signature look. Great for accessing quarantined districts and moving through zones thick with corpses and infected. Guards assume he belongs there. But regular citizens? They keep their distance. Some won’t talk to him at all. He smells like death, and no one wants to trust a walking omen.

Commoner / Peasant Disguise

Safer, more social, more immersive. People open up. Hidden pockets of the city become accessible. But guards won’t respect you, and certain areas become blocked entirely.

Each disguise opens one door while closing another, making identity itself part of the strategy.

Rot Vision

Rot Vision is Lucien’s twisted version of Eagle Vision, born from the Black Apple fragment embedded in his palm.

It works just like Eagle Vision structurally, but the feel is different:

    •    Infection patterns spread across walls and streets

    •    Trails of sickness reveal where outbreaks started

    •    Corrupted enemies glow with inhuman intensity

    •    Hidden paths and clues appear like veins beneath the city’s skin

It’s powerful, intuitive, and story-driven, but every use chips away at Lucien. The player sees the world decay as he does.

Parkour & Movement

Lucien isn’t a superhero. He’s agile, fast, and trained but grounded.

Movement would feel closer to:

    •    Unity’s precision

    •    Mirage’s responsiveness

    •    Shadows’ clean, intentional platforming

The rooftops of Marseille become escape routes, ambush paths, and lifelines. There’s no sprawling open-world parkour circus, just tight, dense, believable navigation through a dying city.

Combat

Lucien fights like a man who learned from two worlds, Assassin training from his father, Templar discipline from his mentors. Simple but lethal.

    •    One hidden blade

    •    One sword

    •    Fast, brutal counters

    •    Precise strikes

    •    No heavy RPG stat nonsense

    •    And a combat feel very close to Assassin’s Creed Shadows

It’s intimate and unforgiving. Every fight has weight.

Stealth

Stealth is the backbone of Black Eden. No modern gadgets, no overpowered tools but just shadows, timing, and disguise.

You can:

    •    Blend into crowds

    •    Slip through alleys

    •    Use darkness as cover

    •    Distract guards with environmental tools

    •    Disappear into plague smoke or church candlelight

The goal isn’t to erase entire fortresses, it’s to make the player feel hunted, cautious, clever, and resourceful.

Conclusion

When I started shaping Black Eden, I wasn’t trying to reinvent Assassin’s Creed. I just wanted to tap back into what made the series special in the first place. The atmosphere, the tension, the blurred lines between good intentions and terrible outcomes. And as the idea grew, it naturally evolved into something that felt both familiar and completely new.

Lucien de Montfort isn’t a chosen one or a mythic hero. He’s a man whose brilliance and mistakes cost lives, and he spends the rest of the game trying to make sure no one else suffers because of him. That’s the heart of this pitch. Not destiny, just responsibility. Not spectacle, just consequence. And it fits the Assassin’s Creed universe better than anything flashy or supernatural ever could.

The gameplay systems, the trust mechanics, the disguises, Rot Vision, the grounded stealth. they  all push the game toward a more reactive, human style of play. People don’t automatically trust Lucien. He has to earn it. His disguises open doors but close others. His connection to the Black Apple gives him insight but slowly destroys him. Everything he gets comes at a cost, which is exactly how an AC game set in the Plague should feel.

And then there’s the modern day, Elias trying to navigate the fallout of a life he didn’t live but still feels. It brings back that personal, present-day urgency the series has been missing for a while.

If Assassin’s Creed ever decided to explore a story like this; something darker, more intimate, more morally tangled. I genuinely believe it could mark a turning point for the franchise. Not a reboot, not a throwback, but a new era built on what made the originals resonate so deeply.