Ubisoft says Assassin's Creed V won't be in Japan — so our best guess is India

If you want to know where Assassin's Creed V will take place, don't ask Jade Raymond — because she isn't telling. Raymond, managing editor of Ubisoft Toronto, did say in an interview at Adweek, however, that Assassin's Creed V won't take place in Feudal Japan. She's cool with the idea, and it's one of the most requested settings from the AC fanbase, but not everyone at Ubisoft has agreed that the samurai era makes for a good AC.

Back in 2011, a Ubisoft survey asked gamers where they wanted to see the next Assassin's Creed take place. The top-three responses were World War II, Feudal Japan, and Ancient Egypt. That didn't go over well at Ubisoft, though. The following year, in an interview with OXM, Alex Hutchinson, creative director for Assassin's Creed III, shot down all three of those locations. Those are "kind of the three worst settings for an AC game," Hutchinson said. "People on the internet suggest the most boring settings."

Well, no, Hutchinson. The internet didn't exactly suggest those. Ubisoft suggested those settings by placing them in a survey.

But that still leaves the other locations that were batted around the 2011 survey: Medieval China, Victorian England, the Portuguese and Spanish Invasion of the Americas, the Russian Revolution, and Ancient Rome. (The American Revolution was another choice and, voila, then there was Assassin's Creed III the following year.) Of course, it's quite possible Ubisoft has abandoned those other locations altogether.

Hutchinson also stated that Assassin's Creed III writer Corey May "really wants to do India. I would, too. I'd really love to do the Raj." The British Raj was the British rule in India between 1858 and 1947.

In the Adweek interview, Raymond said Assassin's Creed V will feature her favorite historical era. But that's as detailed as she'd get with her hint. She doesn't want to ruin the surprise.

Past Assassin's Creed games explored the Holy Land, Renaissance Italy, Constantinople, the Caribbean's Golden Age of Piracy, and Colonial America.

The series has always stuck close to Western Civilization's roots and influence. So (if you'll forgive me while I take a wild guess here), if Assassin's Creed V were to head to India, it could fudge an Assassins vs. Templars storyline involving the East India Company and the early British Raj (plenty of bad guys to choose from), plus it could incorporate AC's popular naval exploration and combat (because East India Co.), not to mention the ability to freerun over classical Indian architecture (because it's insane), and, yes, Hutchinson and May would both have their Indian AC dreams come true. Oh! The newest feature could be elephant-based combat!

So, you heard it here first. My own rampant speculation tells me that Assassin's Creed V is finally going to take Ubisoft's flagship enterprise to the Indian subcontinent.