Creative director Patrice Desilets wrote:

Amid the scattered accounts of the assassins, one piece of information emerged as a particularly evocative, a motto that was said to have been the guiding principle of the order- "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." As soon as I read that phrase, I thought, there's a game there

It's very close to Taoism or Buddhism - everything is an illusion, and you can do whatever you want. Beyond its potential for interactive gaming, the creed itself also served to pinpoint the forces that the assassins would find themselves aligned against. In the organized religion of the time, regardless of faith, the people were encouraged to believe that everything they were told was true, and almost nothing they wanted was permitted. In the mythology of the game, this is the idea that the assassins struggle against.

Game Informer article wrote:

The moment of the kill, as the center of an assassin's job, is being meticulously designed to offer a wealth of emotional experiences for players in the brief seconds that it lasts. Excitement mixes with the gravity and horror of taking a human life, as you'll often bear witness to the fear and pain etched on the victim's face.

Yannis Mallet, CEO Ubisoft Montreal wrote:

I think that video games are for adults, but they're very good at triggering emotions that we used to feel when we were kids.

Corey May, scriptwriter wrote:

As the target dies, Altair will always try to make a point of offering respect and honor to him. Our reference for the scene of the assassination is from Saving Private Ryan, when the German kills the American with the knife, and he says: 'Shhh...Shhh'. There's a moment between two human beings. And that's important to me.