Ubisoft Executive Discusses the Future of Assassin’s Creed

In a recently published interview with Game Informer, chief creative officer Serge Hascoet took some time from his schedule to answer some questions about the creative implementations of Assassin’s Creed and the reintroduction of multiplayer once more. Hascoet started off by admitting his uncertainty on planning yearly releases for the franchise.

For us it’s not a question of annualization, it’s more a question of quality. If the team has enough time to produce and polish something, if it’s at the highest quality, I think people can enjoy an experience of 80 hours every year. It’s possible, but I’m not saying we will have one every year. It’s not the plan.

Ubisoft took a two year hiatus from the Assassin’s Creed franchise after the release of Syndicate, and because of that we were awarded Origins, a game that a majority of players found to be the best in the series, certainly the most polished. It makes sense that they would continue this practice if and when deciding to alter the franchise’s direction.

According to Hascoet, the importance of future titles lies not in characters, but in history.

The most interesting thing about Assassin’s Creed for us is to explore history, not characters. When we decide what’s next, the main question is, “what the next period is we want to visit?” That leads everything. When you jump 100 years or 1,200 years, it’s hard to have the same character. Maybe in DLC we can go further. I agree though, when you saw the old Ezio in Revelations, it was very powerful. But the context and time are the most important priorities.

The possibility of introducing VR to the franchise also came up in the interview, with Hascoet sadly admitting that the technology is nowhere near the place required for it to be effective in any meaningful way. He did, however, say, “I have some prototypes of Assassin’s Creed in VR, but progress is slow.”

When asked about their technology base and methods of evolving, Hascoet was quick to bring up the addition of multiplayer to the franchise, once again.

We have many technologies, so it’s case by case, but Assassin’s Creed has no multiplayer mode, and that is very important for the social aspect of gaming, so we are looking for that.

Whether it’s a competitively oriented multiplayer addition or a cooperative one, I think we can all agree that running around with friends in future titles or the recently released Odyssey would be plenty of fun.

What would you like to see in Assassin’s Creed’s future? Where do you want the next historical playground to take place? Let us know in the comments, below.

[Source: Game Informer]