It’s Official, No New Assassin’s Creed In 2016

by Andrew Brennan · Published February 11, 2016 · Updated February 11, 2016

Some weeks back, there were rumours that Assassin’s Creed wouldn’t have a major release in 2016. It was implied that they were planning on revamping the franchise. This is in light of the backlash received after the release of 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity. Ubisoft have now confirmed that the series will be taking a short break.

In a blog post, Ubisoft stated that they were proud of their teams accomplishments in releasing Assassin’s Creed Syndicate last year. They also took the time to hype up the release of the Assassin’s Creed movie releasing in December. They then moved on to the big news. Assassin’s Creed will be skipping a 2016 release. To be honest this does come as a surprise, the only other gap in the series was between the first and second entries. Ubisoft mentioned that since the release of Unity they have taken a lot of the fan feedback on board. They want to ensure that Assassin’s Creed remains the premier open world franchise. To do this they’re are taking an extra year to develop the next game.

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.

Personally, I think this is the right decision. The franchise has become stale in recent years and a longer development cycle could help alleviate this. The last notable entry was Black Flag and that was mainly due to the introduction of naval combat. It reinvigorated the franchise if only briefly. It’s not like Ubisoft will be hard up for releases either. I can see Watch Dogs 2 taking the November release slot Assassin’s Creed usually uses. We can probably expect that announcement to happen at E3 later this year.

Kotaku reported that the next location for the next entry would be ancient Egypt. Since they broke the news about Syndicate being set in London and the franchise skipping this year. I’d say we can give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.