With Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection set to be the only major game turnout for the series in 2016, fans of the action-adventure franchise have largely come to accept that the aforementioned re-releases have been mustered up by Ubisoft to act as a stopgap, of sorts, until a brand new entry is ready to be released. But when exactly will that be?
It was previously expected that we would see a new sequel to last year’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate at some point in 2017, allowing Ubisoft to give their flagship property a little time off in order for a formula refresh, but that may not be the case, according to Ubi CEO Yves Guillemot.
Speaking to GameSpot in a recent interview, Guillemot said that while there is a new Assassin’s Creed title in development, it isn’t necessarily tied to a 2017 release date, instead stating that it will simply “be back when it’s ready. That’s when we feel we have something there.”
Fervent fans may be left mildly disappointed that they could potentially be waiting until 2018 for a new Assassin’s Creed, but Guillemot says that the extra development time gives the studio chance to “bring back a greater experience” than what’s come before.
What we saw in the development of the next [Assassin’s Creed] was that we had an opportunity to take it to another level. So we said we’ll take all the time it takes to make the experience fantastic. It was feasible because we have other games. There’s a huge potential in this game to revolutionise the IP, so we said, ‘Let’s make sure we change our model so we have more time and that we can bring back a greater experience.’
Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection, meanwhile, comes to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on November 14. If you’re not quite ready to reacquaint yourself with Ezio and his journey just yet, then there’s always the Assassin’s Creed movie coming in December.