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Assassin's Creed - Ubisoft Forward Update
The Franchise Future Announced Sorrosyss, September 10th, 2022
On the 10th September 2022, Ubisoft held a presentation of their upcoming slate of game releases. Titled 'Ubisoft Forward', a portion of this presentation was dedicated specifically to an Assassin's Creed Showcase and was presented by Alice Terrett (Ubisoft Community Developer) and Danny Wallace (aka Shaun Hastings within the games). I will preface this article by stating that the Access The Animus team were privileged to be invited by Ubisoft to see this video on the morning of the 6th September 2022, and that this content has been written from memory by myself on the same day. As such, if new content has since been released, we will of course cover that news separately. With that all being said, this is not an in-depth analysis per se, just a short summary for those who did not watch the presentation, or simply prefer things in a written format. Without further ado, let's jump into it. ASSASSIN'S CREED MIRAGE
Long rumoured and widely expected, we finally were given our first look at Assassin's Creed Mirage, the next major game release for the franchise. Created primarily by Ubisoft Bordeaux, players will take control of Basim Ibn Ishaq, the character of whom players of Assassin's Creed Valhalla will be familiar. Mirage though is set 20 years prior to Valhalla in 861 AD, where we will have the story of a much younger Basim, a street thief who ultimately is inducted to the Hidden Ones – the precursor organisation that goes on to become the Assassin Brotherhood. His mentor is revealed to be a woman known as Roshan, a 50 year old Persian Master Assassin, who is portrayed by the Emmy winning
Mirage is centrally based in the city of Baghdad, within what we now know today as the country of Iraq. The city was famously destroyed several hundred years after the setting of Mirage, therefore Ubisoft relied on extensive research to help create as historically accurate a depiction of the great city that they could. With it, we have been promised revisions to parkour to make navigating the rooftops and walls more exciting, as well as changes to stealth to make it swifter and more enjoyable for players. I was certainly thrilled to see the return of smoke bombs, and potentially poison traps. As fans well know, Basim is actually the sage body of Loki. As such, we can well expect the latent Isu within to make his presence known, and potentially to even take control of Basim's body. We can certainly look forward to at least some Isu narrative through the main story, possibly depicted as Djinn herein. Fortunately for fans that felt the likes of Odyssey and Valhalla were too bloated in content, we have been promised a more concise and compact experience with Mirage, with the original Assassin's Creed game proving to be a major influence on this title for a “back to basics” homage approach. I suspect this will prove popular with a lot of the fanbase. Whilst there is no set release date as yet, the game will be released in 2023. More details will no doubt follow in the coming months. ASSASSIN'S CREED VALHALLA: THE LAST CHAPTER
This final chapter to Eivor's story was kind of hinted to us for awhile. After all, we all quite clearly saw Eivor's grave in Vinland (aka the north east of the USA), but not how she ultimately ended up there. Hopefully that will be covered in this final Free Quest Arc for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but at the very least the brief trailer we were shown holds a lot of story promise. We saw several historical characters (such as King Alfred), therefore we can probably expect a “farewell tour” of visiting some of the main people we were introduced to throughout the main narrative. Interestingly enough, we also glimpse Odin interacting with Eivor once more, suggesting the two perhaps come to some kind of compromise given their previous disagreements. Basim, or Loki, is also present as his Modern Day self here. Present Day lore fans will be delighted to see some more development of the meta plot, and I was excited to see some sync points present within the footage, which might suggest a return of some more Animus Anomalies. Certainly sections of the trailer do suggest that parts of the memory simulation have become distorted, and that Basim's Animus is struggling to access this section of Eivor's life. There may well be some narrative surprises heading our way in this final conclusion to the Valhalla storyline, which promises to close off several dangling story threads. It is presently expected to release before the end of 2022. ASSASSIN'S CREED: NETFLIX SERIES
The next section to the presentation introduced Marc-Alexis Côté, who fans might recall was recently promoted to Executive Producer for the entire Assassin's Creed franchise. He gleefully teased fans with several updates on upcoming projects, one of which was the widely anticipated TV series in development at Netflix.
It was also quite comforting to hear that Ubisoft's own television studio was also working on the project as well. For those unaware, Ubisoft previously produced some shows based on their Rabbids franchise. I feel this is a good sign for fans, as too often creatives in filmmaking can take some extreme liberties with franchise licenses. With Ubisoft directly involved, it should therefore hopefully retain the themes and feel of Assassin's Creed, and hopefully fully integrate the narrative into pre-existing lore without issue. As the project has not publicly released a confirmed cast, production on the show is probably still a ways off as yet. If we were to predict that filming might occur next year, it's likely a safe assumption with typical post-production timelines to state that we won't be seeing the show until 2024 at the earliest. As a final aside, it was also confirmed that Ubisoft is working on a Netflix game. If you watch Netflix through your TV, you might not even be aware that Netflix offers games as part of its subscription service. However, should you log onto the mobile app for Netflix, you will find a dedicated section allowing mobile users to download game titles as part of their existing subscription. This all being said, we can probably surmise that this Assassin's Creed title will be a mobile game of some description, but no further details were provided at this time. ASSASSIN'S CREED: CODENAME JADE
Speaking of mobile games, we were treated to a trailer of a new mobile game currently under the codename of Jade. Set in the Qin Dynasty of 215 BC China, this is a traditional Assassin's Creed experience seemingly modified to work on mobile devices with touch controls. Certainly from the graphics depicted within the video, it does look like the team responsible (Tencent) has done a good job of this, visually at least.
With regards to the Jade title itself, we see an eagle that might be controllable like the main games, as well as a male Hidden One character apparently synchronising a viewpoint. We're told that there is actually a character creator option for this game, allowing fans to create their own assassin for this title. Certainly a novelty in the franchise, I'll be keen to see how this is executed and especially if it allows to create female characters as well. Whilst we do not know a lot about the setting or location as yet, historically 215 BC did mark the year that General Meng Tian conducted a campaign against Xiongnu tribes within the Ordos region of China. This was ordered by Qin Shi Huangdi himself, the founder and first emperor of the unified China. Certainly then on paper, story wise we have some historical characters and intrigue already in store for us. There is no word on release date, but I'd personally guess this is for 2024 at the earliest. ASSASSIN'S CREED: CODENAME RED
This one was probably the highlight announcement of the presentation for most fans. It was very briefly teased that this game would
I'll admit, I only saw the clip very quickly, so forgive me if this is wrong - but is the character we were briefly shown actually a female? Could we actually finally have our first solo leading female protagonist on a main release game? We know that Quebec was indeed keen for Kassandra to be exactly that for Odyssey, before internal decisions moved away from that. I have to admit a female Shinobi protagonist would certainly be a novel and interesting story to play out, especially if we bring back elements of clothing stealth mechanics as seen with Aveline and the Persona system of Assassin's Creed Liberation. It's of course possible that we'll simply see a gender select option once more, but we shall see. For now that's about the extent of information we have, but we should not expect to see more on this until 2024 I would suggest. I for one will be watching with great interest. ASSASSIN'S CREED: CODENAME HEXE
The final new title announced was code name Hexe. Within the video clip we briefly see the Assassin's Creed logo depicted like a hex devil trap, as is most commonly used by witches to perform curses and the like. Indeed, the word Hexe is actually the German word for 'witch'. Whilst we will of course pour over the clip frame-by-frame as we always do, from an initial gut reaction it's clear that there is some kind of witch inspired theme to this game. What and where this could be set is a bit difficult to guess. Certainly, we did see some similar style hex devices used by druids within Assassin's Creed Valhalla, in the cursed objects that Eivor constantly came across. Could this be a direct sequel to Valhalla, again involving Vikings? Certainly there was a proposed setting of the “Viking invasion of America” in recent Ubisoft surveys, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch.
Could it instead be something set in Germany then, given the German slanted codename? Possibly, Germany certainly went through an extensive period of witch persecutions throughout the sixteenth century whilst part of the Holy Roman Empire. At the time, many other European countries even fully associated witches with Germany itself as well. Numerous high profile witch trials ran extensively in the Catholic areas of Germany, especially from 1587 AD through to 1662 AD. Katharina Henot is probably the most high profile of the 'Witches' to stand trial in this period, a postmaster who was ultimately burned at the stake in Cologne in 1627. Certainly that city would be large enough to make a lot of sense as a potential playable location and time setting within the game, but perhaps as part of a section of Germany that makes up the playable world map. Unfortunately we have no further information for the moment beyond this speculation, other than we know Ubisoft Montreal is hard at work on the title with Clint Hocking (of Splinter Cell fame) heading up the project. We'd expect that this likely will follow on from codename Red, as such a sensible guess would be 2025 for this title. ASSASSIN'S CREED: INFINITY
Another long rumoured name in the gaming industry, it was nice to hear Ubisoft confirm that this is actually a thing. By a thing though, we actually mean a gaming platform hub, and not an actual game. Details are relatively light at the moment, but it is proposed to be an online connected space, that will allow fans to go between their games and settings within one designated launch service. Indeed, the image they showed in the presentation was both the Red and Hexe games contained within the Infinity hub. This makes a lot of sense, if you consider that both of those new games will likely be running on the next evolution of the AnvilNext engine. Ubisoft has long spoken about their plans for connected and living worlds for their games in an online environment, so it is little surprise to see this come to pass - especially with a lot of the games industry adopting a similar approach with franchised properties. The most interesting and exciting part of this process though is the potential reintroduction of multiplayer to the franchise. The element has sadly been missing from the games since Assassin's Creed Unity in 2014, so it will likely have been an entire decade before we have it back. Still, Ubisoft have confirmed they are doing some exploratory work on potential multiplayer narratives. The thought of being able to explore historical settings alongside our friends is tremendously exciting, especially if it ultimately comes with a character creator to make our own Assassins. In short though, Infinity is the future of Assassin's Creed as an online platform. If it means we get frequent, and yet smaller scoped titles in comparison to the likes of Odyssey and Valhalla, I suspect this will be tremendously welcomed by long term fans. CLOSING THOUGHTS
The presentation offered a nice retrospective of the last 15 years of Assassin's Creed, and I must confess to get a little teary eyed at looking back at how far we've come both narratively and as fans. The live action trailer was also amazing, and fills me with hope for how well the proposed TV series could turn out. Do also check out the new behind the scenes documentary that Ubisoft is releasing, as you may well see some members of our Access The Animus team present upon it... There was admittedly recent hope from fans for an Assassin's Creed Crossover story for Origins, whereby Kassandra and Aya might meet. The calls for a remake of Assassin's Creed 1 also evidently linger on within the fanbase. However, on the evidence of this presentation neither are currently part of Ubisoft's plans. On a more positive note though, I have long argued for far eastern settings for several years now, and as such I could not be happier to see the likes of China and Japan now on the horizon. As someone who wants Assassin's Creed to have an online multiplayer space, Infinity too excites me for the future. For me, this was a great presentation by Ubisoft, celebrating the past, their fanbase, and I can only applaud them for moving ahead of leaks, and telling the world what they are working on with these little teases years before they will ultimately arrive. It's certainly left me with a great deal of hype and hope for the future of the franchise, especially with their “back to basics” mindset highlighted upon Mirage. But what did you think? Leave a comment below, or reach out to us on our usual social media channels.
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