2024 Olympics: Parkour Spectacle on Paris Rooftops
- 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony featured Assassin's Creed parkour.
- Ubisoft's icon helped deliver the flame in Paris.
- Included French culture elements like Zinedine Zidane.
- Ubisoft teased the cameo with posts.
- Mixed reactions on social media about the ceremony.
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News
The 2024 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony Goes Full Assassin's Creed Parkour on Paris Rooftops
Ubisoft's hooded icon helped deliver the flame to kick off the 2024 games in France.
By Ethan Gach
Published Friday 5:40 PM
We may earn a commission from links on this page.
I didn't know the 2024 Olympic Games were starting today.
Or that they were in France.
So I was extra surprised when the opening ceremony looked like a scene out of a classic Assassin's Creed game.
Apparently, everyone else was too.
The opening ceremony for this year's Games kicked off in Paris on July 26 and runs through August 11.
It featured everything you need to know about French culture, including:
- Soccer star Zinedine Zidane
- A beheaded queen
- A mysterious revolutionary-era figure in a hood leaping off rooftops
All it was missing was a giant baguette.
Ubisoft, a French company, appeared to tease the surprise cameo of its history-defending killer in a couple of posts earlier today.
One winking at the official Olympics account and another sharing a trailer for Assassin's Creed Unity, the one that takes place in France during the French Revolution.
It's still not entirely clear how much this was a direct homage to the country's video game heritage rather than a vague gesture in the direction of a brand activation.
"We were impressed by the opening ceremony and very proud to see that Assassin's Creed was one of the inspirations for the show's talented creators," a spokesperson for Ubisoft told Streamers Visuals in a statement.
"It is a true testament to video games' influence on popular culture."
While seeing gaming recognized IRL is always a neat surprise, not everyone was impressed with the opening ceremony more generally.
"Budget Olympics" began trending on various parts of social media, with online onlookers critiquing the fact that the event wasn't held in a stadium and felt more "dollar-store Eurovision" than Hollywood Super Bowl halftime show.
I am not in a position to judge.
Maybe those naysayers would have felt differently if the assassin had jumped off a restored Notre Dame Cathedral into a giant cart of hay.
If the Olympic Games in France have you pining for a getaway you can't afford, Assassin's Creed Unity isn't the worst alternative.
The infamously buggy game at launch plays great now and will let you explore some of Paris' most famous landmarks in between many grisly but necessary murders.
It's $30 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but you can also rent it for a paid month of PS Plus Extra or Ubisoft, both of which are under $20.
