the hidden blade has become one of the most iconic unique weapons in all of video games it's one of if not perhaps the most identifiable thing with Assassin's Creed it's the one constant companion of every assassin and best said by air many of the Assassin successes wouldn't have been possible without it so with the hidden blade being such a powerful and effective weapon Altier thought it would be a good idea to enable assassins to use two of them one on each wrist not only does that increase the versatility of the blades as an assassin may have one arm pinned down or unavailable and enemies may not be expecting another blade on the other arm as it's much easier to disarm one arm than both of them at the same time but it also made double assassinations more doable though Arno proved you can still pull them off even with only one blade it also made the hidden blade more viable in combat encounters as well the concept of dual hidden blades as we just learned in Mirage was initially conceived even for Altier by an ottoman Assassin from the Constantinople Brotherhood who excitedly and willingly chopped off his other ring finger in order to dual wield hidden blades in the 9th century this was just one isolated instance though as the dual blades that didn't require any finger sacrifice were created and first used by alier and only reserved for master assassins as the material that was used to make the hidden blades during aer's time was scarce and the Codex for this design was discovered by Etso centuries later who gave it to Leonardo da Vinci who then enabled iio to wear two blades with all of his fingers intact as Assassin's Creed 2 was the first game in the series to let us use dual wielding hidden blades and for a long time every game from Assassin's Creed 2 onwards featured a protagonist with dual hidden blades as it became more common practice for brotherhoods across the world and I don't know about you guys but I thought this was pretty awesome I've really come to miss having dual hidden blade not only with just the fact that it was more practical but I quite missed the aesthetic of it as well Assassin's Creed Unity was the first game since the original to feature only one hidden blade only this didn't make too much of a difference in gameplay as Arno was still able to perform double assassinations by either skillfully moving his hidden blade from one target to another or using his off hand to break the other person's neck he was very creative with those assassinations however there is confusingly an air assassin animation in unity that seems to imply that Arno has two hidden blades even though in all the other animations he only ever uses one in fact he goes out of his way to use that singular blade and we never see him receive a second blade in the story which may have been the result of them maybe planning for Arno to eventually get a second blade when he became a master assassin or something but then that idea was cut and this animation was left over or maybe the animator just forgot he had one hidden blade in this instance or maybe Arno has has a very small even more hidden blade on his other wrist the hidden hidden blade if you would but I think the reason they opted to go with a singular hidden blade for Unity was partly out of nostalgia for ac1 and because the French Brotherhood are traditionalists arguably to a fault the Brotherhood in unity is the most formal and ceremonious since the first game they're more of a cult they make Arno go through all these tests just to find the Brotherhood they make him drink hallucinogens to be inducted into the Creed so this idea that the French Brotherhood are traditionalists and extremists fits in well with them only giving their assassins a singular hidden blade and perhaps reserving double blades for only those of master rank or choosing not to use them at all meanwhile though in other brotherhoods like the colonial and Caribbean assassins dual hidden blades had become the custom for all assassins as is mentioned in Black Flag two blades as is the custom custom even in Syndicate the fry twins do actually have dual hidden blades though it's extremely hard to tell as many of the animations are borrowed from Unity where Arno only used one hidden blade and the second hidden blade is a lot more concealed as there is no big Gauntlet for it but it is there as most notable in one of Jacob's unique assassinations but since Syndicate dual hidden blades have not appeared and they haven't actually been very usable in gameplay since AC Rogue there is of course a good reason for this as every game since Syndicate has been before the time Altier created the Codex for dual blades and edio started the trend of every assassin using them in these games so therefore Bak A4 and basm all use one hdden blade even though they realistically could have used two and it would have worked especially aore since they wore the blade on the forearm and didn't have to worry about losing a ring finger like Bak did however aar's blade was a gift from basm and he only gave aore one so why would he have two right I'm honestly a bit surprised though it took all the way until the 9th century for a hidden one to finally have the idea of trying to dual wield hidden blades but maybe others tried in the past we just don't know of so while I missed dual hidden blades I appreciate them at least keeping the lore consistent by limiting each protagonist from before the time of Altier to one blade although they still could have had double assassinations had they wanted to as again Arno proved it was possible with one hidden blade but then that raises the question of why doesn't na way from the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows have two hidden blades it takes place in the 16th century so well after Altier has created the codecs and used them himself and it's about 100 years after iio started using dual blades yet Nai only has one blade or at least from everything we've seen she's only had one and it's a pivot Blade no less the double assassinations in Shadows can only be performed with the hidden blade and Tonto combination equipped so now way probably doesn't have a second hidden blade which I feel like this would have been the perfect opportunity to bring double blades back but there are a couple reasons I can surmise as to why this isn't the case the first one being I believe Nai receives her hidden blade as a gift from her father I just talked about this in a recent video but in this cut scene where Nai seemingly first gets her hidden blade you can see a figure that's dressed very similarly to her father just out of frame implying he likely gave it to her and so you know if only had one hidden blade to give her she's only going to have one hidden blade we don't know how much she'll actually interact with the Japanese Brotherhood so she may just have this one pivot blade from her father for the entirety of the game that's probably my leading theory it's also possible that double hidden blades isn't the custom of the Japanese Brotherhood at this time again it kind of seems to differ for each Brotherhood some only give dual blades to Masters some give it to all assassins some don't seem to use them at all like the French brother Ood and since it's only been about a century since Etso started using dual blades maybe it hasn't become as common place around the different brotherhoods across the globe as it is by the time of black flag and AC3 I still think they could have given na way to hidden blades if they wanted to and it would make sense but the hidden blade and Tonto combo does seem pretty cool and unique so I'm not torn up about it I'm just glad double assassinations are finally back those were long overdue to return I I do hope to see dual blades return eventually though as I think it looks awesome and I miss a lot of those double blade animations perhaps in code name hex say but if you were ever wondering what happened to assassins dual wielding hidden blades in these games or why now it doesn't seem to have two there you have it I hope you enjoyed and potentially learned something new if you did I'd appreciate it if you considered leaving a like and subscribing if you're new and other than that thanks for watching and have a great day assassins oh [Music]