Everything we know about the next installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
Assassin’s Creed has become a familiar gaming franchise, with a new mainline installment appearing just about every year since Assassin’s Creed 2 was released all the way back in 2009.
Just as Assassin’s Creed was becoming one of the old faithfuls of the gaming world, though, Ubisoft surprised us in 2016 by taking a year out. There was still a film and two Assassin’s Creed Chronicles titles in the meantime but no sprawling mainline game.
You don’ t realize what you have until it’s gone and after just one year of being away people are clamoring to hear about what the next game will bring. After this break, though, expectations are raised.
In 2015 Assassin’s Creed Syndicate barely managed to pull the series back from the precipice Assassin’s Creed Unity had pushed it towards. Ubisoft wasn’ t exactly firing on all cylinders.
With an extra year to refocus and get things right, though, fans are expecting the series to return bigger and better than ever, particularly as Ubisoft itself stated in 2015 that it was taking this year “to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we’ re delivering on the promise of Assassin’s Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences that make history everyone’s playground.”
We’ re now a good bit into 2017 and with a recent Twitter announcement and E3 just around the corner rumors around the next game are naturally piling up.
Ubisoft announced its year release break prior to the launch of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate in 2015. After there was indeed no mainline release in 2016, we’ re now expecting to see the next Assassin’s Creed game sometime in 2017.
Traditionally Assassin’s Creed games have been launched later in the year (every mainline game in the series to date has been released on console in November or very late October) so we’re expecting a similar release window for this next title.
In a recent fiscal report, Ubisoft stated that its intention was to release the game by the end of the current fiscal year which ends in March 2018 so we can expect to see it before then.
E3 is rapidly approaching and it’s reasonable to expect that there’ ll be some kind of official reveal at Ubisoft’s June 10 press conference with a loose release window attached, especially now that we’ve seen the game confirmed on Twitter and Ubisoft has confirmed the game will be part of its lineup.
Sharpen your blade. The Assassins will soon step out of the shadows… pic.twitter.com/nUrM4A57J0 May 16,2017
It looks like we may have our first look at the next Assassin’s Creed game.
Though we recommended taking the image with a pinch of salt, it’s looking increasingly likely that it’s legitimate after Eurogamer has said that three separate sources can confirm it’s the real deal.
A Reddit user has posted a screenshot on the Assassin’s Creed subreddit under a disposable account that’s now been deleted and you can see it below:
The screenshot does look like it matches up with the other rumors floating around that the game will be set in ancient Egypt and will feature a massive open world that can be explored using boats.
One of the missions on the top right hand side of the screen tasks players with following «Shadya to Khenut’s villa» and a quick google search reveals that Khenut was a queen of Egypt during the Fifth Dynasty.
Naturally, Ubisoft isn’t commenting on the veracity of the image.
Comic Book has reported that it’s been provided promotional merchandise from sources with close ties to Ubisoft. The merchandise in question is a T-shirt sporting the Assassin’s Creed logo on the back but this time with an Egyptian Eye of Horus twist in the center.
The front of the shirt appears to be emblazoned with the game’s protagonist holding a bow and shield as well as wearing hidden blade gauntlets with Egyptian-style engravings.
According to this developer the new game will take a fresh approach to more than a few things. Firstly, there apparently won’t be any towers. Towers have pretty much defined the landscape of Assassin’s Creed since the very first game; they were slightly less prominent in Black Flag but still necessary for unlocking the map.
According to this developer, players will now use a pet eagle to scout ahead of them. This makes sense in terms of making the map more open and natural but it is a fairly big change, reminiscent of something from Far Cry: Primal.
It’s not a big change but it’s one many would love – there’s a chance you’ll now have a choice over whether or not you have your hood up or down at different points in the game.
Obviously there’s a new assassin to play but according to this developer, there’s also going to be a new present day character for players to engage with. Unlike Desmond, this character will apparently already be a trained assassin so if this is true, it has the potential to make present day segments of play more exciting than they’ve been previously.
For a while now the next Assassin’s Creed title has been referred to as Empire after a report from Kotaku suggested this was the code name being used for the game’s development.
Kotaku’s report also suggested that the game would be set in ancient Egypt.
A more recent report from WWG, however, has suggested that though this setting is correct, its final title will be Origins not Empire.
WWG claims to have spoken from sources at Ubisoft and reports that these sources not only confirmed that the game will be revealed at E3, but that the “vast open world adventure” has been called Origins because the game’s story will explore the original assassin’s guild in Egypt.
From a marketing point of view the name also establishes the game as a fresh start for the series.
Exactly how the game will explore the original assassin’s guild is unclear. The most likely scenario is that it’ ll delve into how and why the guild was started but this is just speculation.
According to WWG’s sources, the game will feature two protagonists – a man and a woman like Assassin’s Creed Syndicate — but it’ ll be much less linear than previous games in the series and character progression is “less tied to the story.”
One source apparently repeatedly compared the game’s approach to progression and story to Bethesda’s Skyrim.
The report also states that Origins is “huge”, the biggest Assassin’s Creed game to date, and that though it is set in ancient Egypt players will be able to explore beyond this, possibly as far as Greece.
This kind of exploration in this time frame naturally means boats, and the sources have suggested that naval exploration and combat will feature. As massive fans of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, we couldn’t be happier with this news.
Unrestrained progression and exploration is indeed a significant change for the Assassin’s Creed franchise and it’ ll be interesting to see how a more open-ended playground approach would work, if that is the direction Ubisoft is planning to move in.
By this point Assassin’s Creed’s gameplay has become extremely familiar but with Ubisoft stating that it intends to “evolve” the mechanics we’ re excited to see what could change.
