Arno Victor Dorian is a fictional character in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed video game franchise. He serves as the protagonist of the 2014 game Assassin's Creed Unity, in which he is portrayed by Canadian actor Dan Jeannotte through performance capture, and voiced by Godefroy Reding as a young child. The character's other appearances include the novelization of Unity, also released in 2014; the 2017 mobile title Assassin's Creed Unity: Arno's Chronicles as its titular player character; as well as cameo appearances in the 2014 game Assassin's Creed Rogue, the 2016 live-action film adaptation of the series and the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.
Within the series' alternate historical setting, Arno was born into a French-Austrian noble family who have long been loyal to the Assassin Brotherhood, a fictional organization inspired by the real-life Order of Assassins. Arno is orphaned as a child after his father is murdered, leading to his adoption as a ward by the de la Serre family, who are secretly members of the Templar Order, the mortal enemies of the Assassins, in turn inspired by the Knights Templar military order. The romantic relationship between Arno and his childhood friend Élise de la Serre is central to the story of Unity, the events of which are set in motion when Élise's father is killed. Arno resolves to investigate the reason behind the murder and join the Assassins at the onset of the French Revolution.
The character has received a mixed critical reception, with some reviewers criticizing Arno as dull and not being particularly memorable as a series protagonist, while others praised him as a likeable character with an interesting backstory.
Creation and development Scriptwriter Travis Stout, who wrote the story for the single player campaign of Unity, explains that Arno Dorian is a lead character who constantly questions the Brotherhood of Assassins' legitimacy and belief system. He created Arno as a "very well educated young man, raised in a noble household, with access to tutors and books, and thus is very well-read", and that he has a tendency to use humor to deflect whenever he is emotionally vulnerable, and habitually quotes classical texts whenever the opportunity arises. Stout claimed that he "tried really hard" to develop an interesting character that feels like a real person, "the complete opposite of the usual grizzled tough guys spouting one-liners that gamers are used to seeing in action games and movies". He addressed the particular spelling of the character's first name, and explained that besides the fact that the phonetic spelling makes it easier to pronounce, it is in fact an older French/Germanic variation which is less common than the more conventionally French Arnaud. Stout grounds this naming in the Dorian family history, explaining that Arno's family "is a very old one and they've been Assassins for a very long time so we wanted to give him a slightly more antiquated name".
In an interview with Game Informer, Unity creative director Alex Amancio explains the conflict between Arno's character arc and Élise's goal for vengeance. Amancio emphasized that Arno joins the Assassins with the ulterior motive to resolve the mystery behind the death of Élise's father. Arno eventually develops a belief in the Assassins' cause and what they stand for, he is still constantly questioning their methods and refuses to follow their values blindly, especially since the man who raised him and the father of his love interest is a Templar. Amancio explained that both characters have the same goal though their starting point are based on different reasons: while Élise is purely driven by revenge for the murder of her father, Arno strives for redemption and attempts to find out why it occurred in the first place.
Amancio said the development team wanted to highlight the bond between Élise and Arno, and that a serious and mature love story is something Ubisoft had been wanting to portray in a video game for a long time. Amancio claimed that the developmental team saw an opportunity to develop this plot for the eighth generation of video game consoles. Amancio noted that love stories "are always a hard thing in video games because ultimately they can very easily become a tangent," and that by concepting Élise as a Templar and making that a core part of her identity, it forms part of the character's actual struggle and prevents it from becoming a "B-plot or a tangent". Inspiration was found in video games from the 2000s like Ico and Passage which also depict nuanced love stories within their narratives. Amancio noted that both are bound by the laws of their respective organizations, who are mortal enemies of each other, and the narrative explores their divergent ways of approaching a situation, and that "the closer Arno gets to Élise and her methods, the more he will stray from the Assassins and their methods. Ultimately, their goal is to obtain something and it's really what each of them willing to do to reach that goal." Amancio describes the dilemma Arno faces when it comes to choosing between love and duty as an "impossible choice".
Amancio explained that Arno does not get very involved politically in the French Revolution, with the ideals and extremism of the historical period merely provide a compelling backdrop for his personal struggles. Arno's goals with the Assassins align in that they are trying to prevent needless or senseless death; as explained by Amancio, the French Assassins are "trying to prevent the power from exploding, but they're trying to get the least involved as possible, because they also believe people have to go through their mistakes again. However, they are worried that somebody might be pulling the strings, so they're trying to find out who that is and what they're trying to accomplish."
Arno's fighting style involves the smooth executions of his targets. He is capable of swiftly running up to an enemy, kick their legs out from underneath them, and puncturing their chest with the Assassins' signature Hidden Blade. Arno also has new weapons at his disposal like the Phantom Blade, a crossbow-like attachment which adds a projectile mechanism for his Hidden Blade, and is ideal for stealthy or long-range kills. The Dead Kings downloadable content pack also introduces the Guillotine Gun, an axe that also functions like a grenade launcher or blunderbuss with a long-range attack that strikes multiple enemies at once.
Portrayal Dan Jeannotte provides the motion-capture and voice performance for Arno Dorian in Unity. Jeannotte praised the script and writer of Unity for telling a complex and emotional story, which originally drew him to the project. Jeannotte described Arno as relatable and admirable, who uses humor as a defense or coping mechanism in the form of snappy remarks or sarcastic one-liners. Jeannotte noted that Arno is a skeptic who always questions everything about the Brotherhood of Assassins, including their cause and how they operate, and that Arno's snarky personality and tendency to raise legitimate questions is necessary in a video game where there's a necessary amount of suspension of disbelief for the plot to make sense.
Although Unity is set in Paris with many French characters, their lines in English are not delivered with French accents. Like other characters in Unity, Jeannotte used a British accent for Arno, with comparatively few dialogue or words being delivered in French. Jeannotte explained that while the developmental team had considered French accents during discussions, the final decision was made "using the cinematic conceit of having historical British accents like you would in something like the movie Gladiator". Jeannotte felt that it was appropriate as he personally did not believe that English spoken in a French accent comes across as "cool" as a British accent, and claimed that it is commonplace in cinematic depictions of foreign language settings in the English medium.
Jeannotte estimated that the script for the main storyline of Unity to be between 350 and 400 pages, which excluded dialogue for optional side missions; by comparison, a typical film script would usually come to about 120 pages at the most. The script for sound effects, such as one-liner quips or grunts when the player character gets hit, would come to about 60 pages. Jeannotte said there was not much opportunity for on-the-spot improvisation in the form of creating new or improvised lines, though he grew to understand the character quite well and would have his own interpretations of how the character would react under specific conditions. He noted that the producers are open to collaborating with voice actors, and readily take in feedback proposing potential changes to a dialogue line or movement in a certain way.
For the motion capture aspect of the character, Jeannotte wore a suit fitted with reflective markers as well as a helmet attached with a camera and microphone. He would perform in a studio set up with a large quantity of cameras that would capture movement from numerous angles; as he enacts a scene, his movements would also be followed by a few handheld cameras and booms. He recalled that the facial capture helmet took time to get used to, and he had to learn what actions are possible or impossible within the framework of the device. For a romantic scene with involved kissing between his character and another, he would rehearse it once with his scene partner without their helmets on so they could understand what the scene was like and grasp the right emotional tone for it. They would re-enact the scene with their helmets on, but with a foot far from each other. Jeannotte concluded it was "such a treat" to be able to wear a motion capture suit as a means to "embody the character physically", which helped him perform his lines better.
Appearances
Assassin's Creed Unity Arno is the protagonist of the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed Unity. Within series lore, he was born in Versailles, the Kingdom of France, in 1768, to Charles Dorian, a French Assassin, and his Austrian wife Marie. Arno's mother left the family when he was a young child after discovering Charles' affiliations, leaving him to raise Arno on his own. Like other protagonists in the Assassin's Creed series, the memories of his life and exploits as an Assassin are explored by another protagonist from the modern era, using a device capable of recreating the genetic memories of a historic individual via DNA samples.
While visiting the Palace of Versailles with his father when he is eight years old, Arno wanders off with a girl he just met, Élise de la Serre. Minutes later, Arno finds that his father has been killed, and treasures the last thing he has left from him — a gold pocket watch. Now orphaned, he is accepted by the de la Serre family as a ward. The head of the family, François de la Serre, is the Grand Master of the French Rite of the Templar Order, but out of respect for Charles Dorian's memory, he never lets Arno know about his father's true affiliations or the circumstances of his death. Arno grows close to his new kin, in particular with Élise, with whom he falls in love later in life, but has to face death once again when François is killed in 1789. Framed for the murder, Arno is arrested and sent to the Bastille, where he befriends a fellow prisoner, Pierre Bellec. Having personally known Charles Dorian and recognizing Arno's potential, Bellec teaches him how to sword fight and invites him to join the Assassin Brotherhood after they both escape during the Storming of the Bastille.