Next year’s Assassin’s Creed game will take place in London during the 19th century, Kotaku has learned. Farewell, Napoleon; hello, Jack the Ripper?
This new entry in Ubisoft’s annual open-world action series, slated for release in late 2015, will take us through the dirty back alleys and rattling stagecoaches of London during the Victorian era, a historical period that fans have wanted to see in an Assassin’s Creed game for quite some time now. This new Assassin’s Creed game is called or code-named Victory — like Victorian! — and it will be out next year for PS4, Xbox One and PC, according to a person familiar with the game.
Victory is something of a shift for the series in a few ways. For one, this is the first Assassin’s Creed game helmed by Ubisoft’s Quebec studio, as opposed to their primary Montreal office, which has led development on the biggest Assassin’s Creed releases since the first game in 2007. Earlier this year, the Ubisoft Blog teased that Quebec would be heading up a future game in their annualized series, but they didn’t say much more about it. This is that game.
Of course, just about every major Ubisoft game is developed by teams of hundreds that work across all of their studios across the world, from Canada to China. But it’s significant to see an Assassin’s Creed game led by a new team. Ubisoft Quebec also developed downloadable content for Assassin’s Creed III (The Tyranny of King Washington) and Assassin’s Creed IV (Freedom Cry).
We also hear that this will be the only main Assassin’s Creed in Q4 2015 — unless something changes, we won’t see two separate entries like we did this year with Unity and Rogue, according to a person familiar with goings-on at the company. Next year, Assassin’s Creed is sticking to current-gen platforms and seemingly leaving the Xbox 360 and PS3 behind.
The annualized Assassin’s Creed franchise is in a strange spot at the moment and has seen calls from some fans to take a year off, something that doesn’t appear to be happening. And given how impressive Victory looks so far — and the implication that it must be pretty far along to already be looking this good — perhaps it doesn’t need to. Still, it was just a week ago that Ubisoft had to apologise for the technical problems marring its newest major game in the franchise, Assassin’s Creed Unity. Tepid reviews of Unity haven’t helped, and a humble Ubisoft has opted to no longer charge fans for that game’s major expansion, Dead Kings.
Some Assassin’s Creed fans among the Kotaku readership and elsewhere online point to Unity, delayed from October to November yet still having launched in sub-optimal condition, as a sign that 2015 should be a skip year for the ubiquitous series. Ubisoft has instead appeared to be as ambitious as ever about its top franchise, releasing the old-gen AC Rogue last month as well and planning an AC sidescroller set in China for release some time in the next few months.
Earlier this year, we told you about Unity and Rogue before they were announced. Today we can tell you about Victory, thanks to a seven-minute “target gameplay footage” video seen by Kotaku that demonstrates what Ubisoft’s dev team expects from the upcoming Assassin’s Creed game. The video is surprisingly slick and could pass for an E3 presentation, and although it may not represent what the final game looks like, the beginning of the video proclaims that it was produced entirely in Anvil, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed engine. In other words, it wasn’t pre-rendered.
To the eyes of Kotaku staffers who have played recent AC games — and likely to those of you seeing the shots in this article — Victory appears to be using the version of the Anvil engine seen in Unity, the best-looking incarnation we’ve seen so far.
The video begins with an assassin, presumably the game’s protagonist, climbing up a tower and looking out at the city of London. We get a quick overview of the city as the camera flies from alley to alley, showing us some of the game’s potential side activities (gambling in a pub, street-racing with carriages, and so forth). We then cut back to the assassin, who leaps down to the street, makes his way into a nearby horse carriage, and accepts an assignment from a mysterious masked woman. The task: kill a man named Roderick Bulmer, who has been trafficking little girls for the assassins’ ancestral enemies. “The templars must receive our message,” says the woman. “You must send it in blood.”
Mid-conversation, the carriage is attacked, so the assassin makes his way out and takes out several enemies — who are bearing templar insignias — while keeping his balance atop the moving buggy. It’s frantic. A few quick kills later, the assassin arrives at the Charing Cross railway station, where he swaps his hood for a top hat and runs through the crowd, ignoring side quests (“stop that thief!”) as he hunts down Bulmer, who is standing among the crowd in the middle of a train plaza.
Our assassin hops and leaps to a platform overlooking the trains, takes out a guard, then uses what appears to be a new item — a grappling hook — to swing over to Bulmer and stab him in the chest.
Once Bulmer is dead, the assassin jumps onto a moving train and fights off more templar soldiers while crossing the River Thames. As the video draws to a close, our protagonist leaps from the train into a conveniently-placed haystack, then staggers forward as the camera pulls toward the London horizon. Then the logo: Assassin’s Creed Victory.
The takeaway from the footage isn’t just that Assassin’s Creed is in a new place and era yet again. It’s that, apparently, Ubisoft is pushing for some gameplay innovation. We can see that in the multiple fights on moving vehicles. And we can see that in the introduction of the grappling hook, which seems, at least when used inside a massive, covered train station, to allow the player-controlled character to create literal jumping-off points on the fly. If that grappling hook works the way we think it does, then players would be able to walk into any covered space in Victory, shoot at the ceiling to drop a rope from it and then swing over to assassinate a target — or maybe escape into a crowd? This could significantly change how these games play and how gamers move through an Assassin’s Creed world.
It appears that Victory will build on the same internal Ubisoft graphics engine — Anvil — that made Unity‘s Paris so striking. One hopes that Ubisoft will have its tech and its game better bug-tested for Victory. If so, this could be a good one, as the setting and the gameplay look like winners.
We asked Ubisoft for comment about the timing and platforms for the game. If they decide to say anything, we’ll let you know.
Comments
84 responses to “Next Year’s Big Assassin’s Creed Is Set In Victorian London”
Is it the best time to release this teaser now? Won’t it just make people question why they put so many resources in to victory while releasing what they must have known was a broken unity?
Not really. It’s a different studio so no resources were diverted. The people working on Victory have probable had Unity for months now and have been learning from its mistakes. This doesn’t surprise me or make me angry at all. And honestly, I think Unity doesn’t deserve the shit it’s getting thrown at it. Yes it had some bugs but really it isn’t as bad as everyone is making it out to be
The condition Unity was released in shows a shocking disregard for the consumer.
Given that modern games can’t be returned because the online codes are used, they need to be polished before being shoved out the door. I hope the drop in share prices and loss of revenue shows the shareholders that while gaming is a business and they will make money from us. We need some respect and a product can’t be released prematurely.
Games need a it’s done when it’s done policy not a Start Date and an End Date tied to quarterly profit projection.
You do make some good points. I don’t think it’s good practice to release an unfinished product. It’s bad for business.
As for the policy you suggest… That can’t really work. It would be nice in theory but not possible. There needs to be deadlines in projects, goals to strive for. Managing a project as large as this is really hard work and doing so without start and end dates is not really possible. Also, the people who actually make the game are kind of ruled over the people who are in charge of the money aspect. They have to go by their deadlines. So have a little sympathy for the people whose art had to be butchered for the sake of the money people. That would really suck.
I have sympathy for the Developers, and I realise that didn’t come across. I know the Developers don’t want to put out a hot buggy mess, I know the Beta Testers found all these bugs, and I happen to have heard a rumor that an executive deleted the Bug database, to get his bonus which set back the process months. Bug reports have to be detailed and more importantly repeatable. It’s not enough to know that sometimes jumping in the hall crashes the game, you need to know that jumping on tile 3 while running and carrying the super spear which you just picked up crashes the game.
And I have to say look at companies like Nintendo, Blizzard and Valve who do have a it’s done when it is done policy. Yes these companies have deep pockets, but they treat games more like an art form, there is a deadline. There has to be it’s basic time management but these companies aren’t afraid to ignore it if that means a better product. Look at WoWs recent problems they where caused by excessive demand rather than technical difficulties and they solved it pretty quick.
In this era of online everything I am fine with patches tweaking things. If a certain thing in game is so powerful there is literally no point in using anything but it, that needs a nerf and other choices need a Buff. Day 1 patches that are multiple gigabytes to fix problems that should have never been released are not fine. We as the consumer should not accept this.
On a related note Halo MCC gets a little consideration for supplying the multiplayer as free DLC, considering the Disc was full of 4 games 2 of which where recently remastered. It fails for having issues out of the gate.
TL:DR I feel sorry for the Developers/Testers who worked on the game, I say Boo to the Execs who care more about dollars than customers. I think the guy who pushed AC:U out knowing of the bugs should be fired, he cost the company a lot.
I was going to say something about beating a dead horse…. Then I realised that would be beating a dead horse….
So i did it anyway… It’s the Ubisoft way!
Ubisoft shares dipped MAJORLY with Unity, they lost a lot of money allegedly. So now, they’re in massive damage control. They seem to be pandering to the crowds now, giving them what they want. Wouldn’t be surprised to find out this was knocked out in a few months after seeing Unity not delivering before it’s release to soften the blow of its shittacularness.
Either way, this is damage control, plain and simple, expect to see an announcement of a Feudal Japan one in a year or two at this rate.
Yeah, you can tell these bullshot images were quickly thrown together. The HUD is very limited and the minimap doesn’t exactly match up to the image (even if it’s not damage control it’s at least proof of concept).
this was a leak, not a planned release. there’s an update on the US version of the Kotaku stating Ubisoft are disappointed it leaked early because their focus is on fixing Unity.
Don’t care.
Why bother to comment or read the article?
Because we don’t care.
BUT…WHY?
Pfft you wouldnt understand *takes drag from ciggarette and flicks fringe*
I’m sorry but smoking is BANNED from this area. Read the sign *points*….and fringes were also banned 5 years ago. But now it’s okay to wear dress shoes with no socks.
Jeez, man! You made me do a spit take with my tea! 🙂
Ubisoft don’t seem to understand that people don’t care. They keep acting like it’s loved the way it was at first, but that’s changed. Generally I agree with you – people like different things, and that’s okay – but in this case? Shouting is needed.
Personally I think they screw up Unity and it is too early for Victory to even be leaked or announced at the current state of the Unity. Not to mention the game is build on the same engine from Unity, the same bugs will exist.
Game is still buggy, companion app that locks content out of the game is still not working. AC initiates that provide reward for people that played other AC games is broken as well.
These things will not get fixed until at least early-mid 2015, this is just like the same situation as BF4. BF4 was completely broken and before they even fix it, they announced Hardline but Unity is at even worst situation than that. Look at the priority of the patch that Ubi is doing for Unity, number 1 top priority, providing correct amount of Helix credits purchased in game. Frame rate issue is the lowest priority.
To be honest I don’t care as well but I won’t even bother expressing myself to say “don’t care”. Just hypocritical to even bother to comment when you don’t care. You know what I mean?
I am just playing AC for the sake of playing them out of my love for the series from AC2.
TL;DR
I don’t care to the point I won’t even comment “don’t care”
To be fair, technology-wise AC3 was a new engine too and it was also a mess at launch, but by the following year they’d ironed out most of the issues and AC4 was fairly solid. Would expect that’ll be the case here too.
Not sure I care any more though.
I bet the voice cast use French accents.
Hahaha yes!
Tehehe
Or you could play unity with spoken french and turn on english subtitles, atleast the option was given. I suggest watching valykrie that was horrible in the sense the germans sounded like they needed a scone a cup of tea and quite possibly followed by a polo match
Tired of the same ol revenge plots in these games.
I’m more tired of having to witness the origin of an assassin every game. Why not just start a game as an already established assassin and cut out the part where your parents die?
Rogue did that. Revenge is still the plot point but it begins during the main characters days as an Assassin.
This is why Brotherhood was the best one – we got Ezio’s origin story in AC2 and AssBro jumped straight to the good stuff.
I can only hope they all have French accents.
i’m probably part of the problem…i probably buy the yearly assassin’s creeds like many ppl buy the yearly call of duties
Tsk. For your actions which facilitate your own enjoyment and don’t affect any of us in any measurable way, I say: SHAME! Shame on you! Shame and censure.
I think you just became the living Internet :0
BOUNDLESS IS MY RAGE AGAINST THE CURRENT THING OF THE oooh kittens…
It’s only been about a month since the latest AC was released. This is getting ridiculous, just stop with the yearly releases already. They don’t release Far Cry or Splinter Cell games every year, why do they have to milk AC so hard?
Give us a break.
Not yet at least
People are still complaining about Unity, should they really be announcing a new game already?
Trying to sweep Unity under the carpet already. I get the feeling that Ubisoft calculates budgets based on week 1 sales and then anything else is a bonus. Unless there are reviews for Victory at least a week before it launches I will not be buying until well after launch.
I initially thought this was a screen grab of the The Order 1886. The irony is Ubisoft will probably have this out before that game – HA!
Assassin Creed: Dishonoured!
Perfect!
Ship it!
Sold!
No thanks. Give us Assassins Creed feudal Japan please.
Nothing nothing nothing nothing GIANT CASTLE! Nothing nothing nothing.
But I bet the characters will still have French accents.
People are asking Ubisoft to skip a year, but why would they do that if they lose a billion dollars in sales? I feel video games are becoming like TV series, yearly releases, or ‘seasons’, and if it sells, then why not?
First reaction was a heartfelt scoff – then I realised a lot of people will be well into this. There’s obviously a market for it, and people are still enjoying it – so who am I to judge?
Nef, I love you.
Believe it or not, you were one of the first people that came to mind! You and your collection of AC statues.
Every night I pray to that statue shrine.
Strip out half the free to play stuff, and the companion app chests… and I’d be heavily into this.
I love London.
I feel like although this is a money spinner for Ubi, they should have a year or two off from the franchise and build a brand new game and re-imagine the world of AC. It is starting to feel a bit stale. They can change the location every year but it is not really offering anything new anymore.
I agree, but the problem is Victory has probably been in development for a couple of years. To pull the plug now would be a huge loss to Ubisoft, and well, people are going to buy Victory anyway
They could keep it in dev for another year. Maybe ensure the game works at launch…
While it looks great that wasn’t the problem with Unity. I’m interested though as I love that period of history and also being English so I’m more interested than normal. The first hurdle I find with any AC is getting into the time period they’re based in and that’s put me off a lot of games before. Just listen to what the gamers want Ubisoft
So what happened to them making a non assassins creed pirate game?
Black Flag was almost a year ago. Games take 2+ years to make. So since Ubi are fucking retards, don’t expect to see Ass Pirates 2 before the end of 2015. A more likely estimate is mid-2016, since they need to create additional teams and budget time.
Well this is current Ubisoft we’re talking about…
The ‘retards’ thing was more of: they somehow didn’t realise that no one cares about their shitty assassin future-world story, and that pirating around blowing shit up is fun. It literally caught them by surprise. Which is…surprising.
It was released a couple of weeks ago on pre-gen.
You play as a Templar, so it’s not an AC game 😛
I’ve got it and i really enjoy it for what it is. But it aint no sea dogs.
I’m going to roll the dice (having been extremely critical of Ubisoft in recent weeks) and guess that this game will actually be really good.
That they pumped Unity out half-baked to milk a quick buck (and some good-will) out of the franchise shouldn’t shock anyone who’s been silly enough to get excited for Ubisoft products over the past 5 years.
It doesn’t change the fact that some of the Assassins Creed games have been great and that has normally happened the year after a shitty entry into the franchise. With the transition to new hardware and Ubisofts clear preference for hitting deadlines over adding polish we shouldn’t be in any way surprised to see both Watch Dogs and Unity under-deliver put I kind of expected their (inevitable) next annual releases to be the kind of improvement that Assassins Creed II was over the first game.
That said, whatever you do don’t get excited and FOR GODS SAKE DON’T PREORDER THIS GAME! No matter how many pre-order bonuses they offer you! It’ll still be on shelves for you to buy if the (certainly embargoed) reviews are good.
I’m actually keen for this the more I go back to it. Unity was them dealing with new hardware and a new engine and like you say, with their deadlines they’ll run into more problems than not in that situation.
Yep, a publisher with respect for its customers or franchises would make sure that they give themselves time to adjust to new hardware and properly finish the game but that certainly doesn’t describe Ubisoft!
It doesn’t mean they don’t have a bunch of talented people who can deliver a great game if given time, it’s just that every time they try to make a progression of any significance (AC I, III and Unity) they churn out a half finished product and then follow it up with a less progressive version that’s a much better game (AC II, IV and….. this one?).
Rest assured though, if this game hits snags during its development (which happens to even the best of studios) you’ll still be able to pick up your pre-ordered, review embargoed box containing a game in whatever state it’s in this time next year, even if only the pre-order bonus content, DLC and obnoxious free-to-play parts work!
Unity wasn’t dealing with new hardware. PS4 and XB1 are basically PC’s. They made Black Flag on the PS4 & XB1 with little problem.
Unity was dealing with a new engine. Black Flag was not.
Does anyone know if Unity is fixed yet?
Patch 3 seems to have helped a whole bunch. In terms of PC, it’s still a bit of a guessing game as similar builds are reporting very different performance
I’m keen to get it, but I played at a mates and was bit of a mess on ps4 at launch.
Maaaaaayyyyyybe we should stop pre-ordering and buying within the release month.
Calling it now (well, re-calling it since I remember having a twitter conversation about this a year ago, before Unity was announced as having a French setting) but I bet the protagonist of the London-based AC is a female and forrest gumps into the Whitechapel murders – all those innocent prostitutes were the mistaken identity victims of a Templar hunting YOU.
Sorry, but modeling female characters will take too much out of the budget and schedule.
That’s a cool idea. Therefore, don’t expect Ubisoft to use it 😉
Hmm. Unless the combat is completely overhauled I’m not interested.
Now taking bets for which comes first:
1) Ubisoft run out of time periods and settings.
2) Customers stop buying into this crap.
It’s gonna be a close one!
Agreed too close to call.
Boring!
Give us Feudal Japan!
Haven’t you heard?
– Alex Hutchinson, Assassins Creed team leader, apparently not aware people have played a lot of World War 2 games when coming up with the Unity finale, or aware that Order 1886 and Bloodborne are due out the same year as their new Victorian London title.
Yeah that is weird how that happens – like when all those volcano movies came out in the same year – or Armageddon and Deep Impact hitting at the same time!
Design wise the location has that vista which seemed to inspire Bloodborne. Hell, this sorta reminds me of Bloodborne. Shit, now I want to play Bloodborne, so I definitely think I’m gonna play Bloodborne instead of this game.
I don’t care if there’s a secret level where you get to blow smoke out ur ass I ant falling for this again.
Throw some teleportation in that sucker and BAM! Dishonored.
I don’t get the joke on French accents being in a game set in France.
I get the joke behind them switching to english whenever they cry for help, but not the use of localized accents in their corresponding areas.
Bugs aside, wasn’t Unity when it worked meant to be good?
I held off buying it, but I do plan to at some stage.
I quite liked Blag Flag, but despite many hours playing it. MANY. I barely got into the single player. Around the 50% mark. Which is fine for me. I had my fun. I keep thinking I should finish that first though. The problem with the ‘Ubi’ game format is. When you’ve played it before you just spend so much time doing everything but the story.
Not sure how i feel about this! I love AC, but Unity was a Huge let down in the story dept. It was fancy but had no soul. Arno and generic love interest #12232 were incredibly boring and predictable. Could see the ending a mile away.
Am I wrong in wanting an Assassin Creed game with no free running?
If thy want to go into damage control, make the protagonist female. I kind of rolled my eyes when people complained there weren’t any women playable in Unity because i had mistakenly given Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt, now i can’t help but roll my eyes when i see the protagonist is flat-out uninteresting. Making the character female doesn’t necessarily fix this but as a guy, i’m so damn tired of seeing things from the same damn perspective for how many games now? I thought Connor would be interesting, how could it not be? You’re native american during the continued colonization of america, it should have been amazing and insightful!
Nuh-uh. Don’t want to actually present a controversial time as such.
Just ACTUALLY give people a new perspective instead of only cosmetic changes and core-audience pandering. Expand, try something FFS. Make it so my partner doesn’t feel like the games she enjoys don’t respect her section of the audience. (As well as others) Seriously, it’s like they don’t get their audience has not just grown but grown up; they can take it.
AC ASIA AFTER PLZ