After rumours surfaced last month about Splinter Cell and Watch Dogs movies potentially being in development, it has become increasingly clear that Ubisoft is getting serious about bringing their video game properties to the big screen. Now this week we have a pretty huge announcement regarding their upcoming Assassin’s Creed adaptation. We heard back in October that Sony had landed the rights to an Assassin’s Creed movie, but apparently that deal fell through because Ubisoft wanted to maintain creative control over the project. Now it appears that their determination and desire for a quality product has resulted in them securing a pretty big name actor for the project: Michael Fassbender has reportedly signed on to star in the film.

According to Variety, Fassbender will star in the film and also co-produce. It is assumed that he will be playing Desmond Miles, the main protagonist throughout the series who relives the memories of his ancestors in various historical periods through a virtual reality machine known as the “Animus.” The plot is said to revolve around “a man who learns his ancestors were trained assassins after he is kidnapped by a secret org with ties to the Knights Templar, and sent back in time to retrieve historical artifacts.”

Julien Baronnet, CEO of Ubisoft Motion Pictures, says that Michael Fassbender was their first choice and that he is “an extremely smart, talented, versatile and committed actor.” He brings a good balance of both acting chops and geek cred, having starred in such films as Shame, X-Men: First Class, and Prometheus. It will be very interesting to see if Ubisoft can break the string of terrible video game adaptations by taking matters into their own hands. Ironically, they are trying to avoid another Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which still ended up being the highest grossing video game movie to date. What do you think… with Michael Fassbender attached, could an Assassin’s Creed movie actually end up being great?