Assassin’s Creed – AKA What The Macbeth Clan Did Next – reteams Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and director Justin Kurzel for another epic-feeling tale that will weave its way through the pages of history. The new issue of Empire debuted a pair of exclusive stills from the movie showing Fassbender’s two characters, 15th-century swordsman Aguilar and his modern-day ancestor Callum Lynch, in action, Empire Online reports.

Judging by those manacles and that burning pyre, Aguilar, the hero of Ubisoft’s stellar gaming franchise, looks like he’s just escaped a Macbethian fate here, possibly at the hands of the shadowy Knights Templars.

Meanwhile, his contemporary, Lynch, the equivalent of the game’s Desmond Miles, is a man forced to relive his ancestor’s exploits via a VR machine called the Animus. No, this isn’t an outtake from Hunger. The shorn and noticeably gaunter Lynch is incarcerated either as a criminal or a madman, presumably with the Templar’s corporate avatars exploiting his connection with the past for their own nefarious ends.

It’s a truism to say that there’s never been a successful video-game adaption. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider had its moments, Silent Hill has its fans, Prince Of Persia has Jake Gyllenhaal riding an ostrich; none stood repeated viewing. But with Duncan Jones’s Warcraft: The Beginning and especially Kurzel’s Assassin’s Creed, 2016 could well run that old cliché through with a scimitar. Expect parkour and action galore, but with Kurzel’s track record, also expect hefty dramatic beats.