One of this fall’s big Assassin’s Creed games, called or code-named Unity, is set at least partly in 18th-century Paris, according to early leaked screenshots obtained by Kotaku.
These screenshots, sent to me by a source who requested anonymity, show Unity‘s new assassin roaming around what appears to be Paris. You can see Notre Dame, the Seine River, and other Parisian landmarks, and the shots are very clearly from an early version of the game.
What’s more, this is just one of two major Assassin’s Creed games that will be out later this year, according to a number of sources. Unity will be for the current-gen consoles — Xbox One and PS4 — while a second game, possibly called or code-named Comet, will be released on Xbox 360 and PS3. Presumably one or both versions will also be on PC. Sorry, Nintendo fans: I haven’t yet heard anything about Wii U.
This information comes both from web chatter and our own conversations with developer sources. For months now we’ve heard rumours and rumblings about what could be the next instalment in Ubisoft’s popular assassin-parkour series, which has been released on an annual schedule for five years now. There’s been a new major Assassin’s Creed every year since 2009.
Interesting as all this is, the prospect of two major AC games this year is particularly noteworthy. Some might be excited that Ubisoft is liberating their teams from the shackles of cross-gen development for Unity, which won’t have to make any compromises to fit into last-gen hardware. But some critics have already accused Ubisoft of milking the Assassin’s Creed franchise — in the past five months alone we’ve seen Black Flag, the mobile game Pirates, the HD remakes of Liberation, and an Assassin’s Creed board game called Arena. Two new games this fall could add to Assassin’s Creed‘s reputation as an overused series.
A few weeks ago, rumours about Unity popped up on the gaming forum NeoGAF, and were later corroborated by Examiner‘s Nicholas Gigante, who has been correct about Ubisoft-related rumours in the past. The gist: Unity is one of two Assassin’s Creed games this fall; Unity is set during the French Revolution; Unity stars an assassin named Arno. This all matches up with rumblings we’ve heard in conversations with our own developer sources. It also meshes with the screenshots we’ve obtained (all posted below).
Last month, Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond told AdWeek that the next game in the franchise would be set during her “favourite historical era.” A fake internal email in last year’s Assassin’s Creed IV hinted at a number of potential historical settings for future games in the series, one of which was the French Revolution . Last year at E3, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot told Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo that they had three Assassin’s Creeds in development .
When reached by Kotaku this morning, Ubisoft declined to comment on this story.
You can see all of the leaked screenshots below. It’s worth noting: these are early screenshots of an unfinished game. The final product will likely look different, and we hear the textures will look much better when Unity is out later this year. (Also, some of these city plazas will probably look less empty.)
One notable new feature: there are now buttons to “parkour” up and down. I hear this is part of a new Assassin’s Creed navigation mechanic that will debut when Unity releases this fall.
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.
Comments
55 responses to “Leaked Images Reveal One Of This Year’s Two Assassin’s Creed Games”
Ah, Paris in the Fall!
M’sieur Stobbart!
Looks like Revolutionary era France
Paris?
I’m listening…
Have y ou heard of this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saboteur
That’s one of the games in my ever growing pile of shame.
Same. Played a couple hours only. It’s got parkour/climbing like AssCreed, pretty fun game.
Play it, it’s clunky but damned good
Yeah, but 1800s Paris was a really interesting time. Coming off the end of the Napoleonic wars and French Revolution, and later on heading into the eras of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas novels.
Ah, different era. 🙂 Hope one of these fits the bill for you.
Victor and Hugo, they are the bunglers in crime!
‘Ugo and Veector.
That’s what I zink anyway.
I loved ACIV (AssPirates), but c’mon Ubisoft, ease off the gas a little will ya.
lmao never thought of it as ‘AssPirates’ hahahaah
AC: Brotherhood was known by me as AssCreedBro.
Really?? AssPirates??… Go on…
yes, much like real pirates, they roam the waves in search of booty
Still excited. But please don’t go the way of GH, BH and CoD: oversaturating the market.
We’re at what, the 7th or 8th game by now? A tad too late. lol.
It’s been like that for a while. In fact, I believe one of the reasons why people disliked AC3 was because it was the 4th game in a row and people were burnt out.
Pretty much, that and it felt like a giant step backwards in that it was a segmented map after we got open maps for the last 2 games, streamlined combat etc and its combat felt stunted etc. 4 came along and felt like a breath of fresh air compared to 3. Unity, I’m hoping has some sort of mechanic to seperate itself from part 4 though, that’s going to be a hard act to top? 4’s main drawcard was not the assassin parts, they were serviceable, but it was the ship to ship naval combat, the sailing etc that blew everyone away.
The main reason people disliked AC3 was that it wasn’t very good. Fatigue might have contributed slightly, but the core issues were more around how tightly linear the game is a lot of the time (in a game where the tagline was “everything is permitted”) and how the systems and feel of the game felt like they’d gone significantly backwards since AC2: Brotherhood. Even AC4 has the same flaws during the story segments, where the freedom and openness and ability to take the challenges presented to you any practically way you want is suddenly yanked away. It just does it a lot less and has a much better open world around that.
Also AC3 was the fifth game, not the fourth – you’re forgetting AC2: Revelations, and that one was definitely skipped because people were burned out. It’s an okay game but it felt completely unnecessary and a lot of people skipped it or didn’t finish it because of how much of a retread of the previous two AC2-era games it was.
The game wasn’t that linear, and wasn’t as bad as AC1.
and I didn’t forget any games, I said in a row. There were a couple of years between AC 1 and 2.
Oh damn, I never considered Ass.Creed in the Revolution. Assassins and Templars running through the bastille, fighting during the revolution, the Assassins trying to help overthrow the royals etc. This could be amazingly fascinating…
I read Bastille then thought of Dark Souls 2 then thought of that 3 knight boss fight then I thought fuck that.
Hah! I haven’t played DS2 yet. I’m in Uni atm and know if I do get DS2, I’ll never see the light of day again… hurry up holidays!
In the Bastille, you approach an area of enemies from another direction to draw the attention of an enemy away from an exploding barrel. After killing him, you push the barrel down a flight of stairs into a wall, watch it/make it explode and the wall crumbles to reveal a bonfire and blacksmith.
Hey, spoiler tags man.
What spoilers? The game is covered in red messages.
I’ve had my fingers crossed for the French Revolution since AC2 came out and made everyone start thinking about the potential for different historical settings. I am so hyped for this.
We’re learning about the revolution in a romanticism course for my english degree at the moment at Uni, a truly fascinating point in history. This is going to be quite interesting to see who pops up?
So long as we can role play as the Scarlet Pimpernel it’s going to be great.
They seek him here, they seek him there…
Sounds good. I’m game. Also – does the logo look different?
I think its kinda got a guillotine look to it, which was popular for beheading aristocratic criminals.
“This year”
“Two games”
Fuck off Ubisoft.
No one makes you buy them dude.
You don’t have to buy them for it to dilute the franchise though.
Hnnnnnnnnnnnngh
HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH
I love these games and I love the fact that even though the game play can feel familiar at times the radically different settings make up for it. 4 was brilliant. I am hoping for a non ass creed stand alone pirate game From them though. With more depth to the combat and more ships that you can upgrade too. A sea dogs 2 if you will.
Paris + 1700’s = OMG.
I desperately want a French Revolution Assassin’s Creed and this is definitely leaning toward it. Trying not to get my hopes too high though.
So here’s a map of Paris from 1802….looks like a great size for an AC city…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/1802_Chez_Jean_Map_of_Paris_in_12_Municipalities,_France_-_Geographicus_-_Paris-jean-1802.jpg
Oh god, I’ve wanted this for years.
Would be amazing if the French Revolution began being facilitated by the Assassins and then taken over by the Templars, leading to the Terror (yes, I’m one of those odd folk who likes the backstory).
Looks awesome! Cant wait to play it 🙂
Well, I’m burnt out on the series and I haven’t even played the last 4!
So was I…. but I picked up the latest one and it was amazing. Best one yet.
Damn it! I want Meiji-era Japan!
So do I, but I remember them scoffing at Japanese or Chinese settings a while ago. It’s probably never going to happen.
They did no such thing, in fact they already crafted lore for different periods of Asia and even had a few pieces of concept art.
Their main concern was how overused period era Japan is and badly the idea was received when they polled members on their Japanese site.
They try to makes their games appeal to all audiences and felt that unexplored settings were better for now.
(And lets face it, the more re-used assets the better)
Personally I don’t really want to go back to Europe again either.
They most certainly did scoff at a Japanese setting: http://www.totalxbox.com/40413/ubisoft-ww2-japan-and-egypt-are-the-three-worst-settings-for-an-assassins-creed-game/
They? You mean Alex Hutchinson? Has worked on a single AC title? How do you take the opinion of one man as Ubisoft scoffing at the setting?
He worked on AC4 as a creative consultant as well, AC3 was just a title card role as creative director. He’s also a company representative reasonably high in the creative area, he’s in a position to make statements like that. So yes, I take the comment of a senior creative staff member of the studio that feudal Japan would be a bad setting for the franchise as the developer scoffing at the setting.
So a former Creative Director voices his opinion and you take it as Ubisofts standing on the matter? Hmm
So what about the opinions of other staff like Ashraf Ismail that go the other direction? Or Jean Guesdon’s (The creative director of Black Flag) comment that Japan remains a possible setting for future games?
Until Ubisoft officially announce it, developers opinions are just that.
He’s a current senior member of the creative staff, who has worked on the last two Assassin’s Creed main sequence titles. All statements are ultimately made by individuals, you could use your ‘but it’s one person’ excuse to dismiss just about anything.
I never said their view couldn’t change, I said they snubbed the idea of feudal Japan as a setting at some point, which they did.
What happened to the Pirate spin off game?Doing repetitive Assassins Creed stuff in Paris isn’t very appealing.
I’m turning in my hidden blades,
NOOO!!!! don’t turn in hidden blades! they might make another as good as AC brotherhood was at the time of release
it sounds really cool but I don’t know if it will run on my PC