The first details of several potential Assassin’s Creed projects have leaked online, which are said to be in the “conceptual and prototype” phases within Ubisoft.
These include a project from Assassin’s Creed Rogue studio Ubisoft Sofia with story elements set in multiple time periods, including the much-requested Aztec Empire, as well as India and the Mediterranean.
The other projects discussed by Insider Gaming sound like smaller spin-offs, like a free-to-play four-player PVE co-op game from Ubisoft Chengdu, a multiplayer project using Ubisoft’s nebulous cloud computing technology from Ubisoft Annecy and Massive Entertainment. and a second Assassin’s Creed VR project.
News of the projects comes as Ubisoft seeks to right itself after a period of poor financial results and ongoing internal problems that led a handful of disgruntled staff to go on strike.
In the wake of underperforming games like Just Dance 2023 and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and a wave of project cancellations, it’s been suggested that Ubisoft will look to its other perennial brands: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Tom Clancy for stability.
Today’s report makes it clear that we probably won’t see any of these Assassin’s Creed projects for several years, even if they all continue in development and become full releases.
“We do not comment on rumors and speculation,” a Ubisoft spokesperson told Eurogamer in response to this morning’s report.
But the details of these games are hardly surprising. In fact, these are the kinds of projects that Assassin’s Creed boss Marc-Alexis Coté discussed with me in Paris last year, when Ubisoft laid out 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 fit well with today’s report on their potential next project.
“I want our other studios to have contributed wonderful ideas to the franchise, like for example, I still use Ubisoft Sofia as an example,” Coté told me last year. “(Sofia) built Assassin’s Creed Rogue, something incredible with (the Valhalla expansion) Dawn of of Ragnarok, and many other gems like her DLC for Origins Curse of the Pharaoh, which was also brilliant.
“So, can a studio like Sofia impress our community with a project that’s not necessarily a 150-hour product? Because when we build a 150-hour product, there’s so much commercially dependent on it, that what “The stakes are so high. Having Infinity will allow for more diversity in both the periods we choose to feature and the gameplay that those games have.”
Ubisoft is currently preparing its Assassin’s Creed Infinity project to be a 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 from the talented Assassin’s Creed Odyssey team at Ubisoft Quebec, and Ubisot Montreal’s creepy-looking Assassin’s Creed Hexe, which seeks to focus on trials. of witches of the Holy Roman Empire.
Today’s report suggests that Red is slated for a 2024 release, while Hexe will follow suit in 2026.
Ubisoft is also preparing a standalone return for the old Assassin’s Creed multiplayer mode. That will reportedly debut in 2025.
Ubisoft’s last big Assassin’s Creed release was the 2020 blockbuster Valhalla, which became one of Ubisoft’s biggest hits in recent years. 2023 will bring the release of the smaller, stealth-focused Assassin’s Creed Mirage, set in Baghdad.