Assassin's Creed books cancelled

A trilogy of books based on the upcoming Ubisoft title, Assassin's Creed which we previewed recently, has been cancelled it appears after problems arose with the content.

The books were to be penned by Steve Barnes, a best-selling author and screenwriter. Seems book tie-ins are more popular than ever at the moment as well, with Halo and Mass Effect notably getting prequel novels for fans to read more about the game universe in.

Barnes claims in his blog that the books were coming along fine and that the first title was pretty much done until problems arose when the descendants of the actual assassins group featured in the game and book got in touch. The group is now part of the Ismaeli sect and is led by the Agha Khan in India. More importantly, they weren't very happy with Barnes or Ubisoft.

Kush says that threats were made - though he isn't specific on what threats they were - and that the book had to be changed dramatically in order to keep the group happy.

Independent experts were brought in and the title was radically rewritten to more fully reflect the actual events. The copy then had to be sent to the Agha Khan for approval, but by then it was too late. The publisher was annoyed, Ubisoft wasn't happy and the entire lot was scrapped.

It raises the question of whether or not the descendants can make a legitimate claim that they are being slighted. What do you think? Let us know in the forums.