Recently, a leak of materials was released, allegedly straight from Ubisoft’s studios, showing a bunch of information about the upcoming “Assassin’s Creed: Victory”. Among the details shown in the leak was the game’s setting – a Victorian-era London; additionally, there were rumors that the game is scheduled for fall 2015. And while the materials certainly looked legitimate, it wasn’t known if they were actually real or not – until now. Ubisoft have done something rather unexpected, and have come forward with a confirmation that the leaked materials are completely legitimate, and do in fact represent the game’s development direction.
In their statement, the company revealed that the new game has already been in development for several years at this point, and the studio was planning to unveil it officially at a later point (though they don’t specify when exactly). Presently, they seem to be focused on releasing updates and new content for “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” and improving the gameplay experience of that game, which makes sense, given the way it was received when it came out recently.
From what has been shown in the leak, the game will see a return to the older gameplay style of jumping around rooftops, and it will actually enhance the formula with elements such as moving cards and even a grappling hook. Indeed, it seems like the new “Assassin’s Creed” will resemble the Spider-Man franchise to a good extent, although there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.
Reports indicate that the game has been in development for next-generation consoles exclusively, which would be a bit weird given Ubisoft’s statement that they’ve already been working on it for several years. However, there are many possible explanations for that – developers could have had access to the SDK for new consoles earlier, or, on the other hand, the studio could have been producing platform-independent content in the first few years leading up to the release of the new consoles.
The game is being worked on by Ubisoft Quebec, which might raise a few eyebrows among those who are familiar with the franchise. Traditionally, this is an Ubisoft Montreal title, and it’s not yet known why Ubisoft have decided to shift its development to another studio, although there could be various reasons for that. There have been reports that Ubisoft want to experiment with a fresh new look on the gameplay style, and handing off the development to another studio could be a good way to execute that idea, although it could also be quite risky. Fans have been hopeful that Ubisoft know what they’re doing, however, and this should be confirmed when the studio makes some official announcements about the game eventually.