Rumors surfaced this morning detailing the next main entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise and hinting that Ubisoft would be moving away from annual releases in the series.
The rumors first appeared on 4chan by a poster claiming to be a developer working at Ubisoft. The post explained that there would be no Assassin’s Creed release this year, in part due to the ambition of the game, which is supposedly going for more of a “Witcher feel” in terms of world size and scope. They also said that the new project looks to be set in ancient Egypt, will bring horses and boats back, and is being spearheaded by the team that brought us Black Flag. The posts were compiled conveniently on NeoGAF.
As the day went on, gaming news site Kotaku chimed in, claiming their sources confirmed some of those details to be true. According to Kotaku’s sources, this new Assassin’s Creed, codenamed Empire, will be set at least to some degree in Egypt, and would indeed not be coming out until 2017, giving the series more time to cook after the disaster that was Unity. No word yet on time period, but if we were to wager a guess, we would say the time of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great if the 4chan poster’s comment on this starting a new trilogy that would move to Greece and Rome holds any weight.
Considering the recent history of leaks with Assassin’s Creed, the odds of all this being true are strong. It also makes a ton of sense.
Many have complained about feeling franchise fatigue when it comes to Assassin’s Creed, mostly due to the low-water mark that was Unity. Although last year’s release, Syndicate, was a marked upswing—courtesy of new developer Ubisoft Quebec—it still featured a fair amount of bugs and glitches that have become commonplace in the franchise. If Empire has indeed been worked on since 2014, though—and is getting an extra year of development—it could be Ubisoft’s attempt to both alleviate the aforementioned fatigue and address the glitches that have started to become synonymous with the series.
Ubisoft also doesn’t have to worry about the franchise leaving the public consciousness. The Assassin’s Creed movie comes out in December 2016, and the final two chapters in the Chronicles spin-off will come out over the next six weeks. Plus, there’s a potential Assassin’s Creed Collection on the horizon, which was revealed after Ubisoft recently registered the website domain “assassinscreedcollection.com”.
In terms of Ubisoft’s fall lineup, several titles could be plugged into the hole that no Assassin’s Creed would leave, including potentially For Honor, Ghost Recon Wildlands, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and even possibly Watch Dogs 2—which Kotaku also reports is rumored to be set in San Francisco.
As EGM’s resident Assassin’s Creed fanatic, this seems like a smart play from Ubisoft. Considering we’ve had six straight years of Assassin’s Creed experiences that have only grown larger and more complex, the idea of taking a year off to polish what—if the 4chan poster is to be believed—will be the most ambitious entry yet has me excited for the series in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Plus, if the team behind Black Flag is indeed working on it, this only bolsters my hopes that everything from these rumors and reports is indeed true—as Black Flag was, in my opinion, the best entry in the series since Assassin’s Creed II. This move gives the franchise’s biggest fans time to be excited again, and not have the series thrown in our faces around the clock.
Now, we just have to hope Ubisoft comes out and confirms everything we’ve heard today.