Earlier this year, it was reported that Ubisoft was reevaluating their release strategy for their flagship franchise, Assassin’s Creed, and would not be debuting a new game in the series this year. Now, Ubisoft has confirmed this report, saying:
“This year, we also are stepping back and re-examining the Assassin’s Creed franchise. As a result, we’ve decided that there will not be a new Assassin’s Creed game in 2016. Since the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity, we’ve learned a lot based on your feedback. We’ve also updated our development processes and recommitted to making Assassin’s Creed a premier open-world franchise. We’re taking this year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we’re delivering on the promise of Assassin’s Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences that make history everyone’s playground…We’ll have more to share on all of the above soon. In the meantime, we want to say thank you to our millions of fans around the world for your continued support.”
The previous report on the matter revealed that the next game in the series could be codenamed “Empire” and would feature an ancient Egypt setting. This, however, has yet to be confirmed. Skipping out on Assassin’s Creed for 2016 marks the first time in eight years that an Assassin’s Creed game hasn’t been released, and our friends at GameRevolution did the math and revealed it could end up costing Ubisoft a lot of money.
2016 won’t be entirely Assassin’s Creed free, however, as the feature film adaptation of the game will debut in theaters on December 21. Set in the same continuity as the games, the film stars Michael Fassbender as 21st century criminal Callum Lynch and his ancestor Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. Fassbender is joined by Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception), Michael K. Williams (“The Wire,” Paul Feig’s upcoming Ghostbusters), Jeremy Irons (“The Borgias”) and Brendan Gleeson (Edge of Tomorrow). Justin Kurrzel (Macbeth) is directing the film from a script by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Michael Lesslie.
