Xiujian has been our partner for many years. Some people think it is the sword that defines us-they are not completely wrong. Without the sword, our achievements will be greatly reduced.

——Ataire Ibn Raahad's Notes Page 13

Hidden Blade is an iconic weapon, and its original design was used for. The main part of the Shoujian is a blade that can be stretched and retracted from the wrist guard or the armour. It is lightweight, concealed, naturally suitable for assassin's stealth and, and allows assassins to kill targets in a concealed state, its design technology usually ensures that the target dies instantly.

The inheritance and evolution of the sneak sword

The Shoujian in the game was first designed and manufactured by the Persian assassin Darius. His Shoujian was worn on the outside of his right arm (so there is no need to cut off the ring finger), which triggered black technology and popped up the blade when he clenched his fist. In 465 BC, he assassinated the Persian king Xerxes I with his wrist sword.

From the DLC promotional picture of "Odyssey", it can be seen that his sleeve sword is placed on the outside of his arm

In ancient Egypt around 46 BC, the Guardian Bayek obtained the Shoulder and wore it on the inside of his left arm. This method of wearing improves concealment, but causes the user to block the blade from popping out when he clenched his fist. Bayek himself accidentally cut off his ring finger during the battle while chasing the ancient orderly "Hippo". Since then, the Finger-Blacking has become one of the induction ceremonies of the Egyptian Brotherhood, but the invisible organization established by his wife Aya in Rome at the same time did not have the tradition of Finger-Blacking.

After this, the Assassin Brotherhood has maintained a broken finger-entry ceremony for a long time (of course, there are also practical factors), and Leonardo da Vinci once said that "the design of the Shoujian ensures the loyalty of its users." However, the feature of excision of the ring finger was too conspicuous, which became the reason why early assassins were easily discovered. To correct this flaw, the mechanism structure of the Shoujian was improved in the thirteenth century by the Levantese assassin mentor Altaïben La Ahad with the knowledge of pioneers in the Apple of Eden (not transformed by Da Vinci in the 2nd generation as is often rumored online). After that, assassins no longer had to cut their fingers, but instead many assassins would tattoo or brand their left ring fingers as symbols of allegiance during the following hundreds of years. But some fraternity branches also retain the ritual of breaking fingers when joining the society, such as the Spanish fraternity.

In addition, Altay also made many functional transformation and upgrading ideas for Xiujian, and the specific matters were written in his secret letter. First, he added a metal plate to the top of the original wrist guard. This allows the user to safely block the enemy's attack with the Shoujian, while also making the Shoujian more durable.

Secondly, he also designed a double-sleeved sword, which is to add a second sneaker sword to his right hand, so that the assassin can kill the guards on the ground or in the air at the same time.

In addition he designed and. The poisonous blade hollows out the sleeve sword and injects it into venom. Because its appearance is extremely sharp and requires hollowing, the poison blade has the disadvantage of being fragile. Therefore, the poison blade is designed as a more inconspicuous weapon, which cannot be used for high-profile assassination, but instead sneaks into the enemy, allowing them to die slowly and attract the attention of other enemies.

The sleeve gun is a far ahead of the invention. It is a lightweight firearm installed on the sleeve sword and used as a long-range weapon. But aiming and loading a sleeve gun is troublesome, and it is as loud as other typical firearms and prone to chaos, so it is not an ideal weapon for assassination; however, it is efficient and deadly as a concealed long-range weapon for instant assassination.

Centuries after Altay's death, Egio searched for Altay's secret letters during his journey. After finding them, Leonardo da Vinci interpreted them and upgraded them to the Shoujian, recreating Altay's many design ideas back then. When Da Vinci was in Rome, he designed sleeve arrows to fire small crossbow arrows and poison darts.

Assassin branches around the world also have their own preferred weapons. For example, the assassins in Constantinople like to use hook blades - it is an attached weapon other than the main sleeve sword, which can be used to quickly slide between high altitudes and avoid enemies. In addition, assassins can use hook blades to increase the range of climbing and jumping. In combat, the hook blade can also serve as a auxiliary function, such as dragging or climbing over enemies.

Chinese assassins often use boot blades, which are a blade hidden on the soles of the boots. They can keep users low profile in areas where they cannot carry weapons, and combine sharp blades and footwork to assassinate unexpectedly. Usually, users must have a basic martial arts foundation, especially the practice of leg skills.

The Spanish Assassin used different swords when he fought against the Inquisition. (The one in the middle is the one with finger cut)

In the 17th century, the length of the sleeve swords of Caribbean assassins and colonial assassins had been significantly shortened compared to the previous European assassins, and the blade became wider, making it easier to wear and use, and it became more suitable for assassination rather than frontal combat... However, in "Black Flag" and "Rebellion", we can still take the lead in "Unshuang".

In the third generation, the former Assassin instructor of the colony, Achilles Davenport, gave the protagonist Connor a sword that can be rotated as a dagger. This sword allows the user to quickly stab, cut, and chop the enemy. It can be used with a long sword, a dagger or wielding, not only can it perform a solid defense, but it can also conduct a fierce counterattack. And Master Kong still uses an ordinary sleeve sword on his right hand. When the game was designed, I wanted to add a rope dart function to the Xiujian, but the rope dart was eventually split into a separate prop.

Time continues to go on, and Xiujian continues to improve. During the French Revolution, the French Brotherhood used a crossbow under the wristband of the wristband and was equipped with two types of arrows: the deadly arrow and the violent arrow.

In "The Legend of the Condor", the protagonist's sister and brotherThe sleeve sword used by the two men looked thicker and stronger overall, and a metal structure that could be used as a finger tiger was added to the metacarpophalangeal joint. In the game, Alexander Bell, the inventor of the phone, improved the Sword as an ally of the protagonists. The most important part is to add hook ropes to the Xiujian, which greatly improves the mobility of the Fry brothers climbing and shuttleing through the city. (Become Batman in London)

The Indian Assassin used a sleeve sword that pops up a blade with a partition, which can be transformed into a three-pointed fork.

The electric shocked cuff sword appeared in the 21st century, but it did not use a steel blade like the traditional cuff sword, but used two parallel blades, which could generate electric current after stabbing into the enemy's body. Originally, I wanted to give the idler cute in the second generation, but considering that the assassin should not compete with the sweet and non-spicy technique, I deleted it. In 2015, some assassins were equipped with electric shocked swords, which used it to ambush and kill advanced members of the Templar in the modern plot of The Hero.

To penetrate into highly defensive areas, the Assassins invented a combined sling that can quickly disassemble and assemble, most of the components used for assembly are daily items such as belt buckles, cell phone boxes, pens and the blade itself. In the live-action movie of "Assassin's Creed", a team of assassins led by Callum Lynch sneaked into the meeting while the Templars were holding a meeting and completed the assembly of the sneak sword in a corner of the entire building. Callum used this sneaker sword to assassinate the Templars and then took them away.

In the novel "The Last Genesis" trilogy, the assassins will use ceramic sleeve swords. In the comic "Uployal", Japanese assassin Kiyoshi Takakura cut off two limbs that grabbed him with a sneaker sword that could pull out wire threads in Spain. In addition, in the comics, the Indian Assassin also has a kind of hug sword with a self-destructing device.

In addition, from ancient times to the present, the Templars have imitated the sneak swords many times... or directly hunted assassins to seize them. The Templars in "The Great Revolution" and "The Templars" have both used pins with sweet and non-spicy logos to assassinate. Perhaps this can be regarded as their snare (but it can only be used for assassination and self-destruction).

What kind of black technology is Xiujian?

From the beginning of "Assassin's Creed", countless fans have tried to make their own sneakers, but this thing is too dark and the official explanations and toys are difficult to satisfy.

In a trailer for the first generation, you can see Altaïr pressing a button to pop up the Shoujian. This design can be seen in some concept art drawings, but such buttons do not exist in subsequent promotional videos and in actual games.

In a video recording Assassin's Creed, Jede Raymond talks about the ring finger that Altaïr lacks and the assassin's induction ceremony. The hug sword was controlled by a ring worn on the little finger - when the little finger pulls the rope on the ring, will activate the device and release the Shoujian. So everyone began to study the line-controlled sleeve sword.

If this is at least one direction, then the Xiujian in the latter few movies of the game is really an unreasonable black technology. After the Second Master improved the Shoujian, there was basically no longer any trigger for ring pulling threads.

In the novels Renaissance and Brotherhood, popping the sleeve sword requires controlling a button by tightening a muscle in the forearm. When the user tilts his thumb to the left, the same mechanism can also control the sleeve gun. I feel that when I arrived at "The Great Revolution" and "The Heroes", I am afraid that the official is too lazy to find a reason to solve the problem of control. I said that's it, it's all right.

In the novel "Black Flag", Edward Kenway activates the cuff sword by tightening his muscles and flicking his forearm and fist. Although this is closer to the performance in the game, it is completely incomprehensible.

The arrival of the sneak sword is even more mysterious. When his ten fingers are sound, he can pop out the sleeve sword with just shaking his wrist. After cutting off the ring finger, there is a piece of leather connected to the sleeve sword through a line at the broken finger, which is also mysterious.

We once hoped for the official Hunting Sword Toys released by Ubisoft, and wanted to see how to use relatively simple methods to achieve precise control of one-handed expansion and contraction. Then the result is...well...that toy needs to be popped up by pressing the switch and then manually put away. Nowadays, fans make sleeve swords mainly divided into gravity, telescopic format and direct jump type, and some have also made side jump type and electric type.

By the way, the most common civil configuration used by poor middle-aged teenagers is to remove the slide rails of the drawer and then sharpen their heads... Last year, someone in France was caught by the police with this thing.

So is the sneak sword reliable in actual combat?

Let's first talk about the conclusion: The Shoujian can be used in actual combat, but it is of little significance. Compared to directly grabbing an ordinary dagger, Xiujian does not provide any obvious advantages except being more handsome.

Don’t rush to stab my kidneys in the family, please clarify here: We all know that the Xiujian is just an artistic design in the game. Like the leap of faith, it is treated exaggeratedly and has special effects. Assassin's Creed itself is a series that tells fantasy stories (fog) in a historical context. This is my favorite game series, and I don't want to say that one of its most classic elements is unreasonable, we just want to try to find reality in the virtual world.

Because the cuff sword is too small and has a fine structure, it may cause damage when using too much force during attack, so the cuff sword was not designed for frontal combat at the beginning. With the help of Apple of Eden, Altaïr discovered a lost formula for a mysterious alloy used by ancient races. When he reached the end of his life, he completely wiped out all the secret recipes for fear that this alloy would be stolen or even occupied by evil forces.Go and bring the secret to the grave. Although the Hunting Sword developed by Altaïr using the pioneer alloy temporarily erased the vulnerability of Hunting Sword, because this metal is very rare, he had to pay attention to the supply of Hunting Sword, and not all assassins have the opportunity to use this special Hunting Sword. Therefore, most assassins prefer to use more convenient weapons like that in open conflict, while the hug-sword is only used in assassination operations (but it is another matter to fight in the game).

But even if we put aside the frontal battle and only talk about assassination, Xiujian's performance was not satisfactory.

The biggest advantage of the Shunjian should be hidden. The blade is almost difficult to detect when it is closed, so the assassins can approach the enemy without being alert, pretend to push or pat the target person, and then spread their length to leave behind the slowly falling bodies and passers-by screaming and running away. But in fact, we can also hide a dagger in our sleeves relatively easily, especially clothes with loose sleeves like the 2nd generation old pervert. Of course, if you want to take it out and use it, it is not as convenient and fast as the Shunjian. However, most of the assassins in the game do not seem to have the habit of hiding An Youyouxiujian's wristband in their sleeves - Darius, the original user of the Xiujian, even put the Xiujian on the outside of his arm. If I don't think about it carefully, I can remember that the few people who hide the existence of Xiujian are Helson of the third generation, Shei, the protagonist of "The Rebellion", Sean in the modern plot of "The Hero", Nikola Olelov in the chronicle, and De Metz in the novel "Here". Among the four of them, Helson and Shay are assassin-trained Templars. Sean hardly participates in frontal battles. Nicholas wears much colder clothes, while De Metz is instantly noticed by Simon Heatherway, the director of the Templar's historical research department, and notices the identity. Considering that the Templar once hunted assassins with a broken finger as a feature, I think a hooded man with a strange wrist guard would probably receive more or less special attention.

Another advantage of the Shunjian is that when you put away the blade, you can use your hands to hold the main weapon, climb or do something else. This is a good point, because it is always good to be able to free your hands. Although a person can also take an extra dagger when holding other objects, it will certainly be more convenient to be able to completely empty your hands. Whether he wants to use other weapons more flexibly, or wants to climb up and down more quickly... or just want to unbutton his pants and go to the bathroom. Although the same effect can be achieved by retracting the dagger back into the sheath, the same sentence is still the same: the sneaker sword should be more convenient and fast (using the black technology effect in the game as the standard).

After talking about the advantages, let’s talk about the disadvantages. First of all, its mechanical structure leads to certain risks in use. Let’s talk about the second part of this article. We still don’t know the principle of the Shunjian we saw that day, but we only know that we must need some kind of device to control the expansion and contraction of the Shunjian. But whether it is wire-controlled or gravity-controlled, it will be very easy to touch by mistakeAny simple but inaccurate action will cause the blade to pop up unexpectedly. Then, in GG - The official novel "The Bottom World", the fried sibling father Ethan Fry likes to support his left hand with the siren under his chin, and was almost injured by the siren that popped up unexpectedly. At this time, we need to install a piece of insurance to prevent accidental touch, but in this way, we need to use another hand to open the insurance. Isn’t this the same as the plastic toys produced by Ubisoft? And since we have used the other hand anyway, why don’t we just replace the sleeve sword with a dagger and tie the scabbard to our upper arm?

In addition, the mechanical structure of the cuff sword is not necessarily reliable. This is actually similar to the previous one - the cuff sword will fail, get stuck, and rust, in short, there may be problems. Also in "The Underworld", Indian Assassin Ajay was captured by the Templar because his sneak sword was stuck in the battle, which triggered a series of events that followed. If you think about it carefully, you will understand that the more refined and complex the structure is, the more likely it is to fail, because while the functions and mechanism of the equipment increase, the probability of problems in each part also increases. If carefully maintained, it may reduce the chance of the sling sword breaking down, but in order to achieve the same effect, you have to spend more time to maintain than ordinary weapons and risk losing the chain at critical moments. Is this worth it? For example, Yano shot a phantom arrow and Accord threw a flying knife, which exploded an enemy's head. In terms of results, Bagua No's handsome little crossbow did not allow him to gain a greater practical advantage than the ordinary flying knife of his fried brother. (Phantom Blade CG is so handsome)

The biggest problem is that the way the cuff sword itself is unreasonable, at least not so reasonable. When you stab the enemy, the blade will undoubtedly be subject to resistance, so the entire forearm wearing the sleeve sword will be subjected to pressure opposite to the direction of the stab. Because the cuff sword is fixed to the wrist guard, it may even be like Daizi Meng, not even tied to the arm directly, so the only way to prevent the cuff sword or wrist guard from deviating from its original position is friction, and in the end it will make the wrist guard or strap very loose. Basically any weapon designed to stab will have a handguard, one of which is to prevent the weapon holder's hand from sliding onto the blade due to resistance and hurting itself. With the mandrel not slipping away, we can apply more pressure and insert the weapon deeper into the target. The Xiujian does not have a handguard structure. In addition to the above, we also mentioned that Master Kong's Xiujian has a structure that can be popped out and rotated and held as a conventional dagger. This design is much more reliable... However, this is just his left hand, and the Xiujian in his right hand is still a Xiujian for ordinary straight-forward stabbing. However, the wrist guards and gloves in the Great Revolution and the heroes are relatively integrated, which should improve their usefulness to a considerable extent.

There are also bugs in the sneak sword

In addition to the ancestor Darius, generally speaking, assassins carrying single sneak swords will take the sneak sword.Wear it on the left hand so that the right hand uses other weapons, but Ayu's bug attribute causes this to sometimes be biased. For example, in the propaganda CG of the Great Revolution, Yano appeared in his right hand when he jumped to kill.

Darius wears a sleeve sword in the original painting of the second generation and in the DLC of the Odyssey.

The plastic villain of Aquila, the protagonist of the movie produced by DAMtoys, also had a broken finger on his right hand.

Conclusion

The first generation will make a super loud sound every time the sneaker stabs people, and the second generation can poke everything as they please. It will have a strange but chic function among the heroes of the Great Revolution, and it will be upgraded to kill enemies in seconds. It will only appear in DLC in the Odyssey (it is only for viewing but not for use). Perhaps its symbolic significance has become greater than its actual significance. And the Assassin series itself is constantly changing. No matter what Ubisoft does, it will be criticized for all kinds of reasons that have been said to be bad... although sometimes it should be criticized. But we can still hope that one day it will once again bring eye-catching works, allowing players to feel the shock of the past again.