Arno Victor Dorian is a fictional character in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed video game franchise. He serves as the protagonist of the 2014 game Assassin's Creed Unity, in which he is portrayed by Canadian actor Dan Jeannotte through performance capture, and voiced by Godefroy Reding as a young child. The character's other appearances include the novelization of Unity, also released in 2014; the 2017 mobile title Assassin's Creed Unity: Arno's Chronicles as its titular player character; as well as cameo appearances in the 2014 game Assassin's Creed Rogue and the 2016 live-action film adaptation of the series.
Within the series' alternate historical setting, Arno was born into a French-Austrian noble family who have long been loyal to the Assassin Brotherhood, a fictional organization inspired by the real-life Order of Assassins. Arno is orphaned as a child after his father is murdered, leading to his adoption as a ward by the de la Serre family, who are secretly members of the Templar Order, the mortal enemies of the Assassins, in turn inspired by the Knights Templar military order. The romantic relationship between Arno and his childhood friend Élise de la Serre is central to the story of Unity, the events of which are set in motion when Élise's father is killed. Arno resolves to investigate the reason behind the murder and join the Assassins at the onset of the French Revolution.
The character has received a mixed critical reception, with some reviewers criticizing Arno as dull and not being particularly memorable as a series protagonist, while others praised him as a likeable character with an interesting backstory.
Creation and development
Scriptwriter Travis Stout, who wrote the story for the single player campaign of Unity, explains that Arno Dorian is a lead character who constantly questions the Brotherhood of Assassins' legitimacy and belief system. He created Arno as a "very well educated young man, raised in a noble household, with access to tutors and books, and thus is very well-read", and that he has a tendency to use humor to deflect whenever he is emotionally vulnerable, and habitually quotes classical texts whenever the opportunity arises. Stout claimed that he "tried really hard" to develop an interesting character that feels like a real person, "the complete opposite of the usual grizzled tough guys spouting one-liners that gamers are used to seeing in action games and movies". He addressed the particular spelling of the character's first name, and explained that besides the fact that the phonetic spelling makes it easier to pronounce, it is in fact an older French/Germanic variation which is less common than the more conventionally French Arnaud. Stout grounds this naming in the Dorian family history, explaining that Arno's family "is a very old one and they've been Assassins for a very long time so we wanted to give him a slightly more antiquated name".
In an interview with Game Informer, Unity creative director Alex Amancio explains the conflict between Arno's character arc and Élise's goal for vengeance. Amancio emphasized that Arno joins the Assassins with the ulterior motive to resolve the mystery behind the death of Élise's father. Arno eventually develops a belief in the Assassins' cause and what they stand for, he is still constantly questioning their methods and refuses to follow their values blindly, especially since the man who raised him and the father of his love interest is a Templar. Amancio explained that both characters have the same goal though their starting point are based on different reasons: while Élise is purely driven by revenge for the murder of her father, Arno strives for redemption and attempts to find out why it occurred in the first place.