Shortly before Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was released, I wrote that Ubisoft had an end in mind for the long-running series. Basically, Ubisoft had some leeway as to how many films it would eventually produce, but there is a clear conclusion to the Assassin's Creed story, and the company will get there one day.

As a fan of the series since the first game, I believe that "someday" has arrived.

For 13 years, fans have eagerly awaited a new installment of this ambitious action/stealth hybrid. And almost every year, they have been rewarded with a film that has been, at worst, passable and, at best, incredible. But now that I've spent over 40 hours immersed in "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" and enjoyed most of it, there doesn't seem to be much left for this series to say.

What began as an ambitious sci-fi/thriller tale based on actual history has settled into an endless tug-of-war between two vaguely defined fictional entities. And while there is nothing wrong with "Assassin's Creed Origins," "Odyssey," and "Valhalla" from a mechanics standpoint, the games keep getting bigger and bigger, with little narrative payoff to match their length and breadth.

I know it's hard to remember anything before 2020 at this point, but if you can, think back to 2007, a magical year for gaming with the debut of series like "BioShock," "Mass Effect," "Uncharted" and "Portal. Assassin's Creed, another 2007 project, debuted on November 13, just before the holiday rush.

From the outset, fans and critics alike were divided on "Assassin's Creed. Nearly everyone praised its original concept, tight parkour, and lush graphics. However, the game's structure was (and still is) controversial: unlike games like Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla, in which you travel through a vast world and complete various side missions, the original AC was laser-focused and sparse in mission variety

The premise of the game was to be a "laser" game.

The premise of the game was quite simple: the game was divided into seven "memory blocks." In each block, you would explore a part of the city, complete a few side missions, and then plan and execute the perfect assassination of a high-profile target. Open combat was still present, but stealth was the main focus here.

Every activity in the game was geared toward these assassinations: climb the Eagle Tower, synchronize your viewpoint, and a side mission will appear. The side missions help you gather information about your target. The more side missions you complete, the more resources you have for assassinations. Then you plan your attack, take out your target, watch a long explanatory cutscene in which your target painstakingly explains his motives (at least this part hasn't changed), and escape. That's it. Aside from a few boss fights, that was all there was to the game. And like it or not, one has to admire the focus.

But what made "Assassin's Creed" interesting was that it didn't just play out a completely fictional story. The protagonist, Altair, had little "personal" story or goals to accomplish. Instead, the game was based on a very real event, the Third Crusade, and the two very real organizations that fought in it, the Assassins Creed and the Templars.

It would take an entire history book to explain these two organizations in detail, but "Assassin's Creed" covers the basics of both. The Assassins were a group of Syrian hit men who took out key targets among European invaders. The Templars were a knightly order made up of Christian soldiers who believed the Holy Land belonged to them. The only major liberty the game took was to assume that both groups had become secret societies and survived to the present day.

(It is worth noting that Assassin's Creed is not the first medium to make this connection, as Templar intrigue is common in thriller fiction. Indeed, in Dan Brown's bestselling Robert Langdon series, both Assassins and Templars play major roles

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In short, "Assassin's Creed" emerges as a grounded and focused game centered on a profound ideological conflict: does the modern world belong to religious fundamentalists, or to dangerous men who oppose religious fundamentalists by any means necessary?

But as the years passed, the focus of the series shifted and blurred. The Assassins and Templars were not simply a medieval secret society. Instead, their roots went back to ancient Greece and were connected to the "pioneer" race of enlightened humanity known as the Isu. Thus, the conflict no longer had the overtones of "Islamic Golden Age versus Christian barbarism": the two secret societies were forever at war, and neither could gain the upper hand.

The goals of the Assassins and Templars also became ambiguous. The Templars seek to dominate humanity, but their reasons and goals are not clear. The story is broad enough to fill in the banks of various historical backgrounds, but it is not a compelling meta-story.

(The Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla trilogy is at least commendable in its attempt to engage the new contemporary protagonist, Leila Hassan, and the alternate real-world threats that require her immersion in the animus; Assassin's Creed Unity was a particular rock bottom for the contemporary.)

In the meantime, the series has shifted its emphasis to more personal stories about its protagonists. Bayek of Siwa needed to avenge his son, and Alexios needed to reunite his family. In "Odyssey" and "Valhalla," the hunt for Templar agents is not even part of the main storyline. Thus, the Templars do not have a strong connection to the story, nor do the protagonists have a strong connection to the Templars.

As of this writing, I have spent about 45 hours on Assassin's Creed Valhalla and I think I am about halfway through the game. Although I have met several Assassins and have performed missions for them, Aver is not an Assassin and has no desire to join their organization. He wears the Hidden Blade openly and hunts Templars only because one of them has personally wronged him. Whatever else can be said about the game (and I generally like it), I have no deep interest in conspiracies, secret societies, or hidden knowledge - ideas that make the whole "Templar conspiracy" subgenre work, including the first "Assassin's Creed".

I don't necessarily think Ubisoft should stop making historical action games, but I do think they could do something that would be distinct from the "Assassin's Creed" franchise. Ubisoft already knows that Assassin's Creed will have to end at some point, and that seems a preferable outcome to another half-dozen more spinning storylines.

At its core, Assassin's Creed is a series that asks, "What if the history you know is colored by powerful forces outside of your understanding?" It's a great premise and a great send-off. Whatever Ubisoft decides to do, I hope they send this series off in style.