For the first time since 2009, Ubisoft will not release a big Assassin’s Creed game this spring, the publisher said today. It’s a huge shift for their tentpole series.
Kotaku first broke news of this change last month, when we reported that the next big Assassin’s Creed game, which is code-named Empire and set in ancient Egypt, won’t be released until 2017.
“This year, we also are stepping back and re-examining the Assassin’s Creed franchise,” Ubisoft wrote on their blog today. “As a result, we’ve decided that there will not be a new Assassin’s Creed game in 2016.”
Ubisoft’s spokespeople pointed toward 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity, which was panned for bugs and poor design choices, as one of the catalysts for this decision. Last year’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate was significantly better, but sales suffered; Unity had clearly left a bad taste in many fans’ mouths.
“Since the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity, we’ve learned a lot based on your feedback,” Ubisoft’s reps said on the blog. “We’ve also updated our development processes and recommitted to making Assassin’s Creed a premier open-world franchise. We’re 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.”
Comments
32 responses to “It’s Official: Assassin’s Creed Is Skipping 2016”
Skip 2017 and 2018 also.
Agreed. The assassins creed games for me have become synonymous with the madden games. The future story is utter garbage. The gameplay is ok at best and they are now getting outperformed by other games at their own formula (shadow of mordor). Personally I think they should ditch the stagnant assassin/templar rubbish and focus on the last amazing innovation they had with the series (pirate battles). Let us all pray for an awsome pirate creed game
Best decision. Clear the air. Maybe also go back to an earlier historical period because they were quickly running out of room to do anything.
EDIT: Ubisoft says that it’s primarily so they can spend more time polishing the games after they’re done, so expect it to go back to a yearly cycle again after this. They’re trying to skip a repeat of Unity, and the games definitely have lacked that feeling of cohesive polish for a while.
I feel it’s a trick and what they are actually gonna do is work on 2 games in that time so there’s more polish on both games as it adds a longer development cycle
It’s an odd idea, but at the same time it is kind of difficult to believe that they could’ve sold the pitch to investors unless they really think they can double their sales.
Killing the brand will cost them more if they keep pumping out boring games though. Probably the best thing for everyone involved to take a step back and make a quality game.
Assuming they can remember how.
Well yeah, I think basically they’re going to continue the churn, but they’ve bought an extra year to polish the games they already have in development.
Suspect the next one is ambitious, using a new engine and stuff, and they don’t want a Unity repeat. What they should have done is made Rogue the AC for that year (it was a pretty solid game) and pushed Unity and Syndicate both back. Too late for that now I guess.
AC project Sun, set in the meiji era that’ll sell
Everyone keeps asking for that but the franchise is done the instant they say ‘fuck it all, Ninjas’ IMO.
I’d say going to Egypt would be the earliest entry into the assassins series. Provided we are talking Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, with historical figures being portrayed in previous games you’d assume so
I really hope they bring back the modern day story. It was on such a grand scale, and after the cliffhanger of ACIII they just kinda pretended it never happened. There were pretty big consequences for all of humanity that haven’t really been addressed or explored.
I also miss running around the present day versions of these places as you uncover info, it felt much more important than just watching video of people doing modern day things like the last 2 or 3 games
I’m still yet to play or even really look at an Assassin’s Creed game…just doesn’t seem that interesting to me.
Try black flag
Yeah, I’ve heard that’s decent just on the basis that it’s the only one that people ever seem to recommend from that franchise.
Solely on the fact it’s so different, you’re still collecting random objects but for the most part of it captaining your own crew is pretty cool
AC2 is awesome and you can get it cheap as hell on sale these days. Black Flag is also a good choice.
If they did a cycle where it was
Year 1: Far Cry
Year 2: Watch Dogs
Year 3: Assassins Creed
And repeated that pattern, so every 3 years you got a sequel to each, I honestly don’t think anyone would truly complain… it’s, as we all know, when yearly crap happens that we get sooooo tired of it.
I’d make the following amendments:
Year 1: Far Cry / Prince of Persia
Year 2: Watch Dogs / Tom Clancy game
Year 3: Assassins Creed / Something else
Hell, maybe even spread it over 4 years.
also Ubi should totally be putting out more cool ‘indie’ style games like Child of Light & Grow Home alongside the big franchises.
Yep I’d be 100% happy with that. If a sequel comes out once every 3 years, I personally think that development time is *fine*. 3 years is enough time for development and quality control to produce something damn good as has been proven multiple times in the past by many, many projects.
But if they sell the same game with small alterations each year then they make 3 times as much money because people keep buying them!! $$$ for life.
Yeah, I loved every AC, played them all the way through in 2-3 days. Once AC: Unity was released, I stopped buying them due to micro-transactions.
Since then it’s been nonstop releases so I really don’t have the time, money or energy to play them all.
I wonder if this means a ps4 Rogue instead sometime this year?
Good. Franchise fatigue is a thing & AC has it.
9 main series games & 11 spin-offs / supplemental games in 7 years
MAKE A NEW PRINCE OF PERSIA GODDAMNIT. ITS BEEN 8 YEARS.
A new POP game about the REAL POP not that terrible “I cannot die” POP game… let’s go all the way back to the Sands of Time! Such an incredibly gorgeous game, so magnificent. I would be ALL OVER a remake of that game. Not a remaster, a remake, a retelling, an expansion to it, a redo… a restart to THAT franchise.
for what its worth, I loved PoP 2008.
The art style, the combat, the flow of movement… most of all i loved the characters & their interactions.
having said that, the first Sands of Time is my favourite game of the PS2 generation. Absolutely sublime & I’d play the hell out of something similar.
Though the rumors of that 2010-ish cancelled PoP game had me intrigued; you play as the young Prince’s bodyguard during a civil uprising / military coup sorta thing. the kid prince ‘learns’ from your play style & emulates it & his character is shaped by observing your actions.
I didn’t mind it as a game as per se (I didn’t ‘mind’ it, I didn’t think it was great, I didn’t like the fact I couldn’t really die, kept getting rescued, but I guess that’s not really different to Sands “No no no that’s not how it happened”), but it should have been it’s own ‘thing’ and not ‘Prince of Persia’. It struck me as an odd way to do the property. I think labelling it as POP actually worked heavily against it tbh. Then again the third POP game worked against itself with how it went grimdark and ‘edgy’ too…
No, no, no. Got it all wrong.
If you want to go back then do it properly, Prince of Persia (NES) is where it’s at. Spent many hours playing it when I was younger 😛
You got it all wrong 😛 Want to play it properly? Go way back and play the original two games on PC 😛
Assassin’s Creed actually started out as a new PoP game before they decided to turn it into a new IP. If they went back to PoP we’d probably just end up with a reskinned Assassin’s Creed.
Prince of Persia assassins creed crossover 😀
You do know that the original AC game was first prototype was as a PoP game, yeah? Look up Prince Of Persia: Assassins….
I hope they don’t go back to yearly releases – the reason people are burned out isn’t because of the quality as much these are 20 hour games, much more than that if you do everything in them
COD is 5 hours of story and a smorgasbord of game content where you don’t have to do everything and that still takes me (a parent with a job) about a month to get through the campaign! AC is a time sink which means every one of these games you buy takes away your opportunity to play other games – so that’s why games whose sequels only surface every four years of so (Deus Ex, Metal Gear, Fallout) look a lot more interesting than these annual mainstays.