New Assassin’s Creed Confirmed For 2012, Will End Desmond’s Story

This is not surprising for anyone who attended the Assassin’s Creed talk at rAge this year. Present at rAge was Ubisoft’s own Julien Cuny, Narrative Producer on the Assassin’s Creed universe. Caveshen, Adam, Timothy and I all sat in on his first talk, and when confronted with questions about future projects, all he could do was smile. He did state that he knew where the next Assassin’s Creed would be in history, but beyond that he could not elaborate.

Yesterday, Assassin’s Creed Revelations Creative Lead Alexandre Amacio has revealed that a new Assassin’s Creed will release in 2012.

“In Assassin’s Creed we set up a timeline with this whole end of the world plot of December 2012. That’s fast approaching, and the story we have to tell, we obviously need to do it before we arrive at that point. We had such a complex and strong narrative that we ourselves did our best to just try to execute these games before that date. It would be stupid of us to be centering a game on a semi-reality and then have that conclusion happen after that date in real life.”

We all know that Assassin’s Creed Revelations will be the final chapter in the life of Ezio, but it seems that Desmond Miles’ (the main character in all the Assassin’s Creed games) story will continue for one more game.

“Assassin’s Creed is all about cycles – we have the Ezio cycle and the Altair cycle, and both of those are set to conclude in Revelations and we have the Desmond cycle, which is set to end on December 2012. But there’s many cycles within the brand – that’s the whole point. History is our playground.”

Since the first game released in 2007, Assassin’s Creed releases have come annually. Amacio added that this schedule will likely slow down after next year’s instalment.

“We’re already structuring the way we do Assassin’s Creed, so it will no longer ever be like that. Our development approach is changing so our cycles aren’t structured the same way -so it gives us a little bit more development time.”

For those of you who missed out at rAge, we were also given a sneak peak at the Assassin’s Creed Encyclopaedia that will be included in the Animus Edition of the game. Sadly, that addition is not coming to South Africa, but the Encyclopaedia will be available for purchase as a standalone. While paging through the carefully selected pages, Caveshen came across an interesting name: Daniel Cross.

When questioned about the character, Julien told us that he is subject 4 (Desmond is subject 17), and although he went no further, the fact that the name kept cropping up in conversations with him could mean that Daniel Cross is an integral part of the Assassin’s Creed universe. Will he be the next main protagonist in future games? We have no idea, but we will be keeping a close eye on it.