Ubisoft is more committed than ever to Assassin’s Creed. After reporting a $US500 ($694) million operating income loss for the last year, the French publisher announced it would increase the number of developers working on the hit historical fantasy franchise to almost 3,000. If you thought there were too many Assassin’s Creed games before, just wait.
“As part of our increased strategic focus on our biggest growth opportunities and progressive reallocation of resources, Ubisoft will notably increase the number of talents working on the Assassin’s Creed franchise by 40% over the coming years to fuel its ambitious expansion,” the company announced on May 16. Ubisoft confirmed on a call with analysts that there are currently about 2,000 developers working on the series, with this shift eventually bringing the number closer to 2,800.
To put that number in perspective, 3,000 is roughly how many people worked on Call of Duty in 2021. What will all these new folks be working on? As the company announced last fall, there are currently a bunch of new Assassin’s Creed games in development. Here’s what they are in case you forgot:
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (Baghdad)
- Assassin’s Creed Hexe (Europe)
- Assassin’s Creed Red (Japan)
- Assassin’s Creed Nexus (virtual reality)
- Assassin’s Creed Jade (mobile)
- Assassin’s Creed Invictus (multiplayer)
The move comes as Ubisoft doubles down on its most established and successful franchises amid a difficult couple of years plagued by troubled projects and big delays. The 800 additional developers on Assassin’s Creed will all come from other projects and franchises, Ubisoft confirmed. During this same period, the company plans to keep cutting headcount overall through restructuring and attrition. Ubisoft reported that it’s already shed over 700 people this way since last September as multiple projects were cancelled and various offices were closed.
In recent years, Ubisoft had moved away from the annualization of Assassin’s Creed games, letting the bigger open-world RPGs breathe with seasonal DLC tiding players over until the next release. It’s unclear if the company plans to move back toward a yearly Assassin’s Creed, if the releases will be more varied moving forward, or if 3,000 is simply the number required to sustain the unsustainable budgets and production processes fuelling the next generation of blockbusters.
Ubisoft will reveal more about its plans for the future of the franchise at its summer gaming showcase in Los Angeles in June. Assassins’s Creed Mirage, meanwhile, will likely to arrive sometime in the early fall.
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