‘Assassin’s Creed’ Set Photo Creeps Up on Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender is currently in production on Assassin’s Creed, the long-awaited adaptation of the hit video game series. But “Progress requires sacrifice,” or at least that’s what we’re led to believe in the first photo from the set of the film, which reunites Fassbender with his Macbeth director Justin Kurzel and co-star Marion Cotillard — and with that kind of talent in front of and behind the camera, we may be looking at the first genuinely good video game adaptation.

Fassbender’s DMC Film posted the first official photo from the set of Assassin’s Creed:

It’s not really clear what we’re looking at here, besides Fassbender’s back — though he does appear to be in costume as Callum Lynch, the protagonist of the series. The film will go back and forth between present and past, as Lynch utilizes a futuristic technology that accesses his genetic code and allows him to travel back in time via his ancestral memories. That ancestor is Aguilar, a member of a secret society known as Assassins who have been battling the Knights Templar for centuries. As you can see in the photo above, it would appear that the marks on the back of Fassbender’s neck are from using this technology, known as Animus.

Fassbender and Cotillard co-star in the upcoming film with Michael K. Williams, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Ariane Labed. Kurzel, who made his feature directing debut with the gritty Australian true crime film Snowtown, recently directed Fassbender and Cotillard in the upcoming Macbeth.

Assassin’s Creed hits theaters on December 21, 2016.