My Favorite Masks

I’ve always found masks fascinating. To me, they seemed like cheat codes that let you become someone or even something else.

The first mask I recall is from my school days. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the last game in the Sands of Time trilogy, had just come out. The game’s story revolves around darkness unleashed inside the protagonist, the Prince. The darkness transformed him into the Dark Prince. To me, this new personality represented freedom to express suppressed anger and anxiety. I did not play the game since I didn’t have a good enough PC. But I read as many reviews as I could and watched a lot of gameplay videos.

Prince of Persia evolved into Assassin’s Creed, and so did the focus of my fascination. By now I was in college and had a good computer, so I played the first Assassin’s Creed. There was a lot to like! A cool costume, a secretive brotherhood, and a cool-sounding creed: “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted.”

The second game in the series, Assassin’s Creed II, and its follow-ups Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood are still one of my favorite story arcs to this day. Ezio Auditore was a relatable protagonist. His story and Jasper Kyd’s soundtrack made me love the game. Here’s Ezio in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood attire:

Years later, I even cosplayed as Ezio during my graduate school Halloween costume competition:

The Dark Prince was a transformation of the Prince. Donning the Assassin outfit, Ezio was different. He started as a novice looking for revenge. But with effort, he learned more and became a master Assassin.

Around the same time, I discovered Christopher Nolan’s The Batman trilogy and Rocksteady’s Arkham video game series. I knew about Batman but hadn’t read the comics. The movies converted me into a fan of both Christopher Nolan and Batman. The storytelling from the movies, Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack, and the excellent combat and movement from the games enthralled me. I still recall all the time spent reading the reddit threads and all the discussions on how Bruce Wayne is the mask, not Batman.

In between all of this, somewhere, I played Dishonored. In the game, our protagonist, Corvo, the royal protector, is accused of murdering the empress. While in prison, he is visited by a supernatural entity, granting him superpowers. With these superpowers and a cool mark, he unravels the conspiracy. Dishonored’s main innovation was the movement power, blink, which let Corvo teleport over short distances. Later, he got others like pausing time or control enemies. And look at that mask, along with rest of the cool attire:

The Dark Prince, Ezio, Batman, and Corvo are among my favorite characters. For me, the masks represented transformation. With a mask, these characters did more than they normally could. They served as a reminder that sometimes, you have to transform yourself to achieve things you previously thought unachievable.

In a bit of a sad twist, the artists behind these masks have largely faded.

The Prince of Persia series made a bit of a comeback with 2 platformers, but then the Sands of Time remake was canceled this year with no further word.

The Assassin’s Creed series became a weird RPG that I no longer enjoy. I haven’t played anything after Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. Both Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia IPs are owned by Ubisoft, who are facing a grim future after multiple rounds of layoffs in the past 2 years.

Rocksteady moved on and tried to make the live service Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which flopped and lost them $200 million. They had multiple rounds of layoffs in 2024. Arkane was acquired in 2010 by Zenimax, who were then acquired by Microsoft in 2021. Several Arkane Studios were then sacrificed on the altar of live-service games after Redfall flopped. They’re trying to find new owners after the most recent Microsoft layoffs in July 2026.

Perhaps the best ending was for The Dark Knight trilogy. Christopher Nolan finished it and moved on.

The studios behind these franchises have closed, the people have moved on, the stories are done. For me, the creators achieved ten-folds of what they set out to do.

I did not expect to be sad at the end of this essay when I started writing it, but here I sit, mourning the loss of these fantastic studios. But I’m also different. Wendy Beckett wrote, “Great art changes you”. These games, movies, and stories have changed me. They inspire me to create things, to inspire people in similar ways someday. And they’ll keep having that effect for a long time. That’s what these masks mean to me.

I wrote this post for July 2026 IndieWeb Carnival hosted by Joe Crawford: Masks, Identities & Cosplay.