The next centered around Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Basim earlier today, and that this was originally going to serve as an expansion to last year’s hit historical action title before being fleshed out into a full game.
When the original Assassin’s Creed was first released back in 2007, players were greeted with a smooth stealth system that allowed them to lurk in the shadows and take down targets with the franchise’s signature Hidden Blades while uncovering the truth behind an ancient conspiracy across a variety of different locations and time periods. However, as the series went on, later installments like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey started to move away from this approach in favor of larger-scale battles and RPG elements. While stealth would return in the form of infiltration missions in AC Valhalla’s Siege of Paris DLC, many longtime fans have come to wish that the series would return to the shadowy assassinations that made the franchise such a hit in the first place.
As part of today’s big Assassin’s Creed announcement, Bloomberg reports that the next AC title will have a greater emphasis on stealth, just like the older titles. Codenamed “Rift," this new installment will also do away with the large open-world settings of previous AC games, as it will be smaller in scope than Valhalla or Odyssey. According to Bloomberg’s anonymous sources, the next Assassin’s Creed game will supposedly release sometime either later this year or early 2023.
Other details surrounding the tentatively named “Rift” suggest that it is supposedly being set in the Afghan city of Baghdad and will launch sometime before Assassin’s Creed Infinity, an online multiplayer spin-off that will feature a live service model - though Ubisoft was quick to clarify that this did not mean the end of single-player Assassin’s Creed sequels. So far, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has sold over 155 million units worldwide, with last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla breaking records for the fastest-selling title in the series in its first few months alone.
While the larger-scale battles and more RPG-like gameplay of later Assassin’s Creed games like Valhalla and Odyssey have their fans, many players miss the more stealth-oriented approach of older AC titles like the ones included in Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection, coming to Switch soon. It seems these fans are going to get their wish for the Assassin’s Creed series to return to this format with the next installment, though exact details about how this will be implemented are still being disclosed.
Source: Bloomberg