Rumor: No Assassin's Creed This Year

Looks like Santa’s real, ladies and gents, because one of my wishes just got granted. That is, assuming Kotaku is a reputable source.

...I really hope it is.

One of the biggest problems people have seen with Assassin’s Creed--or, more specifically, one of the biggest problems that are responsible for the many, many smaller problems plaguing each one--is that Ubisoft continues to insist on releasing a new one every year. And while Ubisoft can claim each one gets its own development team that works on it several years in advance… well… the results speak for themselves. And Ubisoft can either blame that on the fact that they were rushed, or the fact that they kind of suck at their job.

Unsurprisingly they’ve opted into the latter. According to unnamed sources working with Kotaku, they plan on tackling the increasingly reduced quality of their series by delaying the next one till 2017--marking the first time in six years since there’s been longer than one year between releases.

This next Assassin’s Creed game--set in Egypt and labeled ‘Empire’--was decided to be delayed not long after the release of Unity, according to this unnamed source, with the expressed purpose of giving the team more time to fish out the many, many bugs that have proven to be endemic to the series so far, as well as polish up gameplay and visuals. That’s not to say we won’t see any Assassin’s Creed--those side-scrollers are still coming out, and Kotaku points to evidence that a new collection of Assassin’s Creed games might be coming out soon (a HD remake of the original might not be unwelcome, for those who have always wanted to get into the game), and there’s some suspicion that Watch_Dogs 2, which is set in San Francisco, might be taking up enough of Ubisoft’s attention to act as a substitute, but… that’s neither here nor there.

What matters is (and I hope this is right), 2016 will be a year with no new Assassin’s Creeds. Let’s give the stabbing and running a breather for the time being and see if the series can re-inspire us next year.