Ubisoft, in collaboration with their internal visual effects company Hybide Technologies, has released the first episode of their live action Assassin’s Creed: Lineage short films, revealing the backstory behind the events of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed II.

The episode is of an extremely high quality, especially for a production not backed by major Hollywood dollars, but there’s still a bit of a ‘made for TV movie’ vibe about it… maybe that’s a bit harsh, and we should just enjoy it for what it is; a really good live action adaptation of an intriguing videogame story, which is more than most Hollywood studios can manage…

Watch the first episode of Assassin’s Creed: Lineage after the jump:

Two more episodes of Assassin’s Creed: Lineage are to be released in the near future, so be sure to look forward to those while waiting for the release of Assassin’s Creed II on November 17th in North America, and November 20th in Europe, on Xbox 360 and PS3.