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Early details of several potential Assassin’s Creed projects have leaked online, which are said to be in the “concept and prototype” phase at Ubisoft.
These include Assassin’s Creed Rogue’s Ubisoft Sofia project, with story elements set in multiple time periods, including the highly coveted Aztec Empire, as well as India and the Mediterranean.
Other projects being discussed by Insider Gaming sound like smaller spin-offs, such as a free-to-play four-player PVE co-op game from Ubisoft Chengdu, a multiplayer project that uses Ubisoft’s nebulous cloud computing tech from Ubisoft Annecy and Massive Entertainment, and a second Assassin’s Creed project VR.
The news of the projects comes as Ubisoft tries to rectify the situation after a period of poor financial results and constant internal problems that led to the strike of a handful of disgruntled employees.
Following the underperformance of games like Just Dance 2023 and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, and a wave of project cancellations, it has been suggested that Ubisoft will look for stability in other evergreen franchises: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Tom Clancy.
Today’s report makes it clear that we probably won’t see any of these Assassin’s Creed projects for several years, even if all of them continue to be developed and become full-fledged releases.
“We do not comment on rumors and speculation,” a Ubisoft spokesperson said in response to today’s Eurogamer report.
But the details of these games come as no surprise. Indeed, these are the types of projects that Assassin’s Creed boss Marc-Alexis Coté spoke to me about last year in Paris when Ubisoft outlined the future of its biggest franchise.
Coté even mentioned Ubisoft Sofia’s future work on the franchise to me at the time – something that now seems to align well with today’s report on a potential next project.
“I want our other studios to bring great ideas to the franchise – for example, I still use Ubisoft Sofia as an example,” Coté told me last year. “(Sofia) made Assassin’s Creed Rogue something amazing with (Valhalla expansion) Dawn of Ragnarok and many other gems like their DLC for Origins Curse of the Pharaoh which was also brilliant.
“So can a studio like Sofia impress our community with a project that isn’t necessarily a 150 hour product? Because when we make a product that lasts 150 hours, so much depends on it commercially that the stakes become so high. Infinity will allow for more variety both in the time periods we have chosen and in the gameplay these games have.
Ubisoft is currently gearing up its Assassin’s Creed Infinity project to become the new hub for future Assassin’s Creed games of all shapes and sizes.
These games will include Assassin’s Creed Codename Red, a major new action-adventure RPG set in Japan, developed by the talented Assassin’s Creed Odyssey team at Ubisoft Quebec, and the spooky-looking Assassin’s Creed Hexe from Ubisot Montreal, which focuses on witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire.
Today’s report suggests that Red is poised for a 2024 release, while Hexe will arrive in 2026.
Ubisoft is also preparing a standalone return to the old Assassin’s Creed multiplayer mode. It is supposed to debut in 2025.
Ubisoft’s last major Assassin’s Creed release was 2020’s blockbuster Valhalla, which has become one of Ubisoft’s biggest hits in recent years. 2023 will see the release of a smaller stealth-focused Assassin’s Creed Mirage set in Baghdad.
