Despite Syndicate representing a marked return to form, Ubisoft has shelved plans to launch a new installment in the Assassin’s Creed series in 2016, affording the franchise an extended development window ahead of next year’s release.
Rumored to be set in Egypt with the codename Empire, mooted reports have claimed that the Assassin’s Creed of 2017 will herald a rebooted trilogy, with each new installment jumping to a new location and possibly time period. But Ubisoft remains coy on whether the series will return to its regular yearly release plan.
Quizzed about the proposition of annualization, Yves Guillemot – CEO at the publisher – revealed that placing AC back on an annual cycle is not the immediate goal.
“The goal is not automatically to come back on annual cycle but to come on a regular basis,” he said. We saw it was time to give it lots of time so [developers] could really work on the property and all the mechanics to make sure we could take [the series] to another level.”
For Guillemot and Ubisoft, the goal now is to allow the creative time enough time to polish the next installment into “something really exceptional.”
“We are setting up rules so that they will have enough time to polish the game and come with something really exceptional, so this is what we have for our first priority. Then after that, if we feel like we are in the right direction and that we can continue the path and we have enough innovation for the next one, we might come with the next one in the next year. But it’s no longer something that will be set up every year.”
Assassin’s Creed 2017 – seemingly bearing the Empire codename – remains shrouded in mystery for now, but what do you make of Ubisoft’s renewed strategy?