Ubisoft are going “all in” with Assassin’s Creed with 10 planned games
by Danny Craig · 2/27/23, 5:30 PM
Ubisoft
A total of six Assassin’s Creed (AC) games have been announced by Ubisoft, with a seventh soon to be revealed. Insider Gaming’s sources claim that three more projects have begun the concept stage at the company.
The details:
- According to Insider Gaming’s sources, Ubisoft is now "going all in" on AC and “other major franchises,” with three new projects in the conceptual and prototype stages of development. Ubisoft's worldwide studios, Sofia, Annecy, and Chengdu, will work on the three games.
- The first of the three is Ubisoft Annecy's "Project Echoes," a multiplayer title that will supposedly make use of Ubisoft's Scalar cloud technology. The studio is responsible for co-developing The Division 2 with Massive Entertainment, as well as the multiplayer modes for previous Splinter Cell and AC games, so it has a great deal of experience with online games.
- The title from Ubisoft Chengdu is said to be a free-to-play 4-player co-op PvE game currently codenamed "Project Raid" that features characters from previous entries in the franchise. The last time the series featured full-fledged co-op PvE was in 2014 with AC Unity, which received mixed reviews due to poor performance, so it'll be interesting to see how the series will implement this style of gameplay over a decade later.
- Finally, Ubisoft Sofia's "Project Nebula" is said to be set in three different locations: the Mediterranean, India, and the Aztec Empire. The Sofia studio has previously worked on the franchise, releasing the AC III spin-off Liberation and the Unity tie-in Rogue.
- Mirage, Codename Red, Codename Hexe, Codename Jade, and the multiplayer Project Invictus, which was announced in the company's earnings report for the first half of the fiscal year 2022-23, are among the six AC projects still in development. The publisher has yet to reveal a VR title, Project Nexus, but it is expected to be revealed at E3 in June. According to Insider Gaming, Ubisoft is already planning a sequel to the game.
- The franchise is also reportedly returning to a yearly release schedule, beginning with AC Mirage in August 2023, followed by Nexus in late 2023. According to sources, Codename Red will be released in 2024, AC Invictus in 2025, and Codename Hexe in 2026. The three new projects will most likely be in the works for at least five years, with delays or cancellations always a possibility.
What else is going on at Ubisoft?
- Last month, sources claimed that two new Far Cry games were in development. Originally conceived as a single-player game, the project was divided into two separate projects: a mainline single-player game and a multiplayer-only extraction shooter.
- Ubisoft recently cancelled three unannounced projects following underperforming sales in the last quarter of 2022. The decision to cancel the development of the upcoming games was made to cut costs at the publisher. It resulted in a 40-person protest at one of its studios following comments from CEO Yves Guillemot.