Fans may still be reeling from Assassin's Creed Unity, but that doesn't mean Ubisoft is slowing down any time soon. All signs point to the yearly franchise continuing on like normal, despite the less-than-stellar reception of Ubisoft's biggest title this season. According to some extremely convincing rumors, Ubisoft already has the setting and several new mechanics lined up for the next Assassin's Creed game...and no, it's not the Asian assassin that fans have been asking for since the second game was released.
Kotaku has supposedly been contacted by a 'person familiar with the game,' and has learned that Assassin's Creed Victory will take place in Victorian London: it seems that Ubisoft is ditching Paris for England. A seven-minute 'target video' highlighted several new gameplay features planned for the game, and several hi-res screenshots have already made their way online.
The footage may have some tricks up its sleeve, but this is still Assassin's Creed. Reports say that the video focused on an assassination mission in which the player attempted to kill a man named Roderick Bulmer. There's fighting on top of a moving carriage, a chase through a train station and an assassination aided by a new grappling hook item. It sounds closer to the epic set-piece moments of Black Flag than the relatively tame missions of Unity, and the reports say that the game is looking absolutely fantastic (given that it's running on a version of Unity's Anvil Engine, that much was expected).
It all sounds well and good, but it doesn't matter at all if Assassin's Creed Victory isn't real. However, Ubisoft went and did something unprecedented: the publisher actually issused a statement on leaked material (via IGN):
"It is always unfortunate when internal assets, not intended for public consumption, are leaked. And, while we certainly welcome anticipation for all of our upcoming titles, we're disappointed for our fans, and our development team, that this conceptual asset is now public. The team in our Quebec studio has been hard at work on the particular game in question for the past few years, and we're excited to officially unveil what the studio has been working on at a later date. In the meantime, our number one priority is enhancing the experience of Assassin's Creed Unity for players."
That's basically the last nail in the coffin: unless some drastic changes are made, Assassin's Creed Victory will be the next game in the franchise. With any luck, the team will look at the mistakes made in Unity and release a game that's more than just a very pretty technical demo.
Expect to see more on Assassin's Creed Victory before its release in 2015.
