The PR stunt that foreshadowed Assassin’s Creed Origins’ eagle vision

One fateful day in 2015, the Assassin’s Creed Syndicate PR team made a move that would change my life.

They strapped a camera to a bald eagle and set it loose in London to capture “eagle vision.”

Tamoor Hussain of GameSpot is, to my knowledge, the only person to have written this up. I am eternally grateful to him for two reasons.

1. I have read this article about 20 times since its publication, and every time I’ve laughed until I cried.
2. If it weren’t for his service, we might never have known about this incredible, foreshadowing power play by Ubisoft.

At the time, the “eagle vision” gambit seemed, dare I say, a little silly. Eagle vision, in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and every preceding Assassin’s Creed game, did not involve looking down from the sky as an actual eagle. It was more like being able to see through walls.

And now, two years later, I am shamed and cowed.

Assassin’s Creed Origins came out today. And it took me this long to put the pieces together. In Origins, which tells the story of the very first Assassin, eagle vision is indeed a feat that involves launching a live eagle in the air and seeing through her eyes.

The eagle, Senu, can be controlled by the player and used to mark targets and find objectives in Origins. It’s literally eagle vision as described in this PR stunt, and I am screaming.

Is this the world’s weirdest coincidence? Am I losing my mind? Is Ubisoft playing the longest game, and laughing at us all?

I don’t have the answers. All I can say is that I have learned my lesson about laughing at PR stunts. You never know when they’ll come true.