Ubisoft has big plans for the Assassin’s Creed franchise in both the short and long-term, which they outlined during the Ubisoft Forward event on September 10th. The French publisher has re-worked their development pipeline into two tracks as the series moves into what they are referring to as its “third period”. Ubisoft Quebec – the studio behind Odyssey and Syndicate – will handle development of Assassin’s Creed RPGs going forward, while Ubisoft Montreal – the team responsible for Valhalla and Origins – will develop more unique experiences for the franchise. First up in the pipeline however is a final piece of DLC for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla called The Last Chapter, which will be free to players and will tie up the story of Eivor.
Coming in 2023 is the previously announced Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which takes place 20 years prior to Valhalla in Baghdad and will feature Basim as the game’s protagonist. Mirage is a shorter, narrative-driven game that focuses on the series’ core traits of stealth, parkour, and assassination. It will also be the final game in the series to release on last-gen consoles, as they move to a new version of their internal Anvil game engine and a longer six-year development cycle on projects, with new titles releasing every three years. In fact, when Mirage launches in 2023 it will be the longest gap between mainline games in franchise history, which Ubisoft vice president & executive producer of the Assassin’s Creed brand, Marc-Alexis Côté, says is what players can expect moving forward:
"We're also shifting our development model to make it more sustainable for our teams, as previously we used to average about three years for each development cycle on Assassin's Creed," says Côté. "So we're moving to longer dev cycles to make them more sustainable from a human and technological point of view, so that we can truly build on the shoulders of one another and then support our games for a longer period of time."
Following Mirage, and presumably coming sometime around 2026, is Assassin’s Creed Codename RED, an open-world RPG set in feudal Japan featuring a female protagonist. It is being developed by Ubisoft Quebec and is led by Jonathan Dumont – the former creative director on Odyssey.
The third mainline game announced was Assassin’s Creed Codename HEXE, which Ubisoft said is not an open-world RPG, and the teaser trailer hints at connections to witchcraft. Previous rumors claim that HEXE will take place during the 16th century European witch hunts, and is also suggested by the fact that “hexe” is the German word for witch. HEXE is in development at Ubisoft Montreal and is being led by Clint Hocking – a newcomer to the franchise and former creative director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, and Watch Dogs: Legion.
Ubisoft also announced Assassin’s Creed INFINITY, which will serve as an Animus-like central hub for Assassin’s Creed games and experiences going forward. RED and HEXE will be the first mainline games incorporated into INFINITY, but Ubisoft is also investigating how to bring past titles into the hub as well. INFINITY will also be where the present day storyline (which Ubisoft has now termed the “meta story”) will take place for all future games. Multiplayer is also returning to the franchise in the form of Assassin’s Creed Codename INVICTUS, which will be a new standalone experience incorporated directly into the XFINITY hub. INVICTUS is being developed by a separate team so that Quebec and Montreal can focus on their single-player projects. And finally, Ubisoft also announced that a free-to-play, AAA action-adventure RPG set in ancient China called Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade is coming to mobile devices.
Read more about the future of Assassin’s Creed at Ubisoft’s website site here, or watch the full Assassin’s Creed showcase below:
