Game developers at Ubisoft are working on multiple locations set for the "Assassin's Creed" franchise, not just the upcoming "Assassin's Creed 5."
"Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag" director Ashraf Ismail spoke with IGN about the development process for the franchise. The team picks setting locations for their AC titles that are the most interesting, not necessarily the easiest to create.
"With Assassin's Creed we always say that history is our playground," Ismail explained to IGN. "When we chose the pirate setting, obviously it meant naval battles had to be a core element of the game. The questions are always about what time periods we go into, but that's a decision based on whether these time periods are interesting for fans, interesting for us as developers, and what it'd mean for the game mechanics."
"We don't bind ourselves to game mechanics, but we really look at what is interesting historically speaking, and what game mechanics that naturally brings up," he added. "Hopefully then, the fans love and enjoy it..."
Ismail clarified the confusion brought on by his comment about the AC franchise's ending in a separate report from IGN.
"Yeah... that was my bad," he admitted to IGN with a laugh. "What I was trying to say is that there is this meta-arc in the brand, in the franchise. We know what we want to do with the franchise, that's what I meant by it, that we know where we want the metastory to head. Now, how many games fit into that and how that plays out is still to be determined by the dev teams themselves."
Ismail also reiterated Ubisoft has multiple teams working on different installments for the AC franchise. While one team works on "Assassin's Creed 5," another is developing the next title and so on.
"There are multiple dev teams working on AC, each team is responsible for their own game," he told IGN. "There are people working on the brand level that try to make sure things fit together nicely, but there's no master plan. I'm not here to say in five years, yep, that'll be the end. Not at all. But we do know where we want the brand to go and what kind of metastory we want to tell. I hope that gives you a better answer."
As for AC fans getting to participate in naval combat again in future installments, Ismail couldn't confirm any news relating to the future of the series. There is no set release date for "Assassin's Creed 5."
However, an allegedly leaked photo recently made its way online, claiming to be from Ubisoft's Montreal office. The image allegedly showcases the newest title character for the AC series. Check out the photo here.
