New Assassin’s Creed Game Inspired By Another Massively Successful Video Game
Assassin's Creed is taking a page from another massive video game success.
This article is more than 2 years old
Following the massive initial success of the most recent Assassin’s Creed game, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and the overall success of the franchise, it’s not surprising that Ubisoft constantly keeps the franchise in active development. But the surprise factor stems from the game’s new format – the recently confirmed Assassin’s Creed Infinity will have live service components akin to Fortnite’s ever-evolving platform.
According to the initial report by IGN, Unisoft is working on a new project codenamed Assassin’s Creed Infinity, which will be an ever-evolving online platform consisting of, but not limited to, multiple historical settings, similar to Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto Online. Though the information about Ubisoft’s new project initially leaked online, it was subsequently confirmed by Ubisoft’s employees on conditions of anonymity, revealed the upcoming game as an actual online platform consisting of multiple games.
This is a significant change within the franchise, which mainly focused on single-player gameplay, with each Assassin’s Creed game unfolding in a specific historical setting. Infinity, on the other hand, will contain multiple historical settings, with plenty of room for expansion to other narratives in months and years following its release – yes, Ubisoft aims to make Infinity infinite by offering a gaming service rather than a singular product. Individual games within the platform might look and feel different, but they’ll all be interconnected to the underlying narrative. After all, the game explores segments of time travel, at least at its core.
The details surrounding the project are scarce, but the scale of the project has Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Quebec unified into a single team specifically for Infinity’s development, which reportedly caused some dissatisfaction and commotion among the employees. This could be related to sexual misconduct allegations, but Ubisoft continues to decline any commentary on the matter regarding said allegations.
Truth be told, this isn’t the first instance of the Assassin’s Creed franchise’s leaning towards live services. The recent releases like 2017’s Origins, 2018’s Odyssey, and 2020’s Valhalla all employed various forms of live services like free updates and paid cosmetic DLC’s. However, those instances are considered small in comparison to the alleged overall scale of the upcoming Infinity, which will probably take years to develop and complete. Given the franchise’s almost-annual release of new titles, Ubisoft is either co-developing Infinity with the next single-player installment of Assassin’s Creed or plans on investing in Valhalla’s live service to prolong its life cycle. It’s worth noting that Assassin’s Creed games sold over 155 million copies collectively, making it into Ubisoft’s biggest franchise to date.
Ultimately, this isn’t all that surprising, given how service games generate huge revenue over time by selling continuously updated in-game content. Grand Theft Auto Online drove Take Two’s shares up by 42% since the beginning of 2020, solely through live service. Ubisoft’s shares jumped to gain, following the information leak and subsequent confirmation of Assassin’s Creed Infinity, gaining a 5% increase in value. Based on leaked information and unofficial confirmations. We suspect their shares will gain more value once the project is fully revealed.
Ubisoft is really hell-bent on cashing in its IPs, given their ongoing deal with Netflix to adapts several of its titles to cinematic and television releases, including the Assassin’s Creed, which is being turned into a TV show, alongside Far Cry, Splinter Cell, and The Division.
