The Assasin's Creed Controversey: Why didn't it happen?

Looking back on Assassin's Creed I can't believe that it didn't make more of a controversy than it should have. If you look back to interviews with developers on the topic of the game's setting they were very serious about how culturally sensitive they were trying to be with the game. The first thing you see after popping the disk in your 360 is a notice on how it was made by people many faiths and races. I couldn't blame them for their worry at the time either with a militant middle east that takes such things as blasphemy generally whenever they appear. The kids who played in the Kite Runner were evacuated from their country before the movie came out because of the portrayal of Islam. Or the comic writer who had a jihad announced on him for his portrayal of the prophet Muhammad.

On the opposite side you have the Christian church who arguably has an even ability to cause controversy. I mean look at their history with games in the past two years. The church cried out against the portrayal of a destroyed Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Recently a church in the United States has decided to have a burning of violent games. Or how they attacked the Halo in church controversy. Let's not get started on what could have happened with Grand Theft Auto 4 ( still surprised there wasn't much on that front though). Forgetting how all around intolerant the church can be, I'm still surprised about how Assassin's Creed wasn't attacked. The game received no short amount of popularity since it was hailed as one of the best games of 2007.

Take a quick look at what each party could have taken offense at:

Let's start with the Christian Church:
1)Let's not forget that the crusade were a holy war to retake the holy land so it was backed by the church. This game isn't exactly kind on the look of the crusaders. For the most part the crusaders are portrayed as violent invaders with no divine right.
2)The game seems to play Saladin's in a greater light than the crusaders. Remember he is the reason why the fourth crusade failed.
3)The portrayal of the ark of the covenant in the beginning of the game, generally the church hasn't taken kindly to portrayal of biblical artifacts in any form of media, especially ones that allow you to control the mind of others, I believe the word for that would be heresy.
4)Your master makes several references to Christianity that are completely neutral but could be taken as an insult to Christianity

Now what Muslim culture could take offense to:
1) Every Muslim you meet in the game is generally corrupt or a death dealer of some sort, I know some of you may find this link to be weak but people have taken offense to it before.
2) Same as Christianity in the game, even though everything is referenced in a neutral manner the story of the game requires some shots to be taken.

Frankly I have to say that Christianity stands to have more to be upset about than Islam. This may be from the bias I have being raised loosely as a Greek Orthodox Christian and my general lack of familiarity with Islam, I tried to cover only things that I was sure of, as I don' want to upset UbiSoft or either of the Religions mentioned. At the end of the day I believe that Assassin's Creed was one of the greatest games I have played ever and I am in no way upset with it, frankly it just seems to me as though it had a great potential to cause a lot of controversy and nothing came of it.

Now lets look at what could have deflated any righteous anger towards the game.

Christianity:
1) The main enemy of the game is the Knights Templar who were excommunicated and burned at the stake by the Catholic Church.
2) King Richard is played in a kind light as an honorable man.

Islam:
1) Let's face it, in no way is Islam the focus of the story or displayed as the bad guys in any way, in fact while the religion of the assassin's wasn't specified they seem pro Islam.

I plan to cover other games in a similar manner, but frankly I always thought this one was an oddity. Hope you enjoyed

-Ichi