After weeks of speculation, Ubisoft finally confirmed that the Assassin’s Creed series would be taking a break in 2016. At least in terms of a new release. I’m sure many of us can agree, this is one of the best things that could happen for the series.
Many people saw this coming, but if you would have asked fans years ago if they thought Ubisoft would ever stop making yearly releases, they might have laughed. Yearly releases have been a part of the franchise since Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was announced, with at least one major title in the series releasing every year after that. Assassin’s Creed was almost synonymous with the word ‘annual.’
Even after the disastrous launch of Assassin’s Creed Unity in 2014, Ubisoft still decided to follow that up with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate the year after. A smart choice by Ubisoft considering it was probably in development for years and on schedule. Plus it was a good way to learn from fans’ thoughts on it. Not surprisingly though, sales initially took a hit. It’s hard to market a game that follows one of the biggest launch disasters at the time. You would be hard-pressed to find an article that spoke of Unity in a good manner. Most people were tearing it apart. Syndicate had a lot to prove.
The choice that Ubisoft made to release Syndicate caused some to call into question their respect for the series and its fans. Almost everyone was calling for the series to take a break; for the developer to go back to the drawing board and create something truly amazing. Ubisoft tried to tell fans that they were listening to their concerns by making Syndicate playable as early as possible, and allowing for feedback as to what could make it better. This obviously satisfied some people, but for many, this seemed like a publicity stunt. Now that it was announced that no new major game will be coming in 2016, this just confirms that Ubisoft was making honest attempts to try and gain back players’ trust.
Ubisoft definitely has a lot of work to do in this time off. The Assassin’s Creed series has had no direction since Desmond’s death in Assassin’s Creed 3. What made the games so special to me originally was how they were all so closely connected. Every release after AC3 tried to tie together a present day narrative that Ubisoft half-heartedly and unsuccessfully attempted to write. If Ubisoft wanted to make it look like they had no clue what to do with the series, they succeeded.
Black Flag sees you as a nameless person working at Abstergo, Rogue follows it up with the same premise (yet doesn’t indicate if you are the same person from Black Flag), Unity has you as a nameless Initiate for the Assassins, and finally, Syndicate has you playing an Initiate as well. All of this was so disjointed and confusing for anyone trying to understand the game’s story. You could control your character in Black Flag and Rogue while you were incapable of doing so in Unity and Syndicate. Plot threads from each game never quite carried over into the next, and sometimes were forgotten altogether. The entire present day storyline was a mess.
Thankfully, Syndicate was a step in the right direction, as it showed some semblance of a larger narrative at work, but it still couldn’t save the damage done by its predecessors. While you unfortunately couldn’t control your character, you were given important cutscenes that gave hope that the present day story still had some life in it. Without that narrative, the series loses its spark.
In addition to narrative issues, the games did little to innovate. While they got prettier each year in terms of graphics, the gameplay largely stayed the same. The basic formula for each game hasn’t changed drastically. Sleeker combat and a parkour down system can’t save a series that has always heavily relied on the same features.
It didn’t help that any large strides in the series were almost imperceptible to the average gamer. If you take a look at the first Assassin’s Creed compared to Syndicate, there is obviously a difference in almost every aspect, but when the series only makes slight alterations each year, they tend to blend together.
This year off is a great way to solve franchise fatigue and for Ubisoft to get a handle on where they are taking the series. They can finally sort out what is going on in the present day and make efforts to tell a concise story. A longer development cycle also gives them time to really change up the gameplay, not just minor tweaks to old features.
The Assassin’s Creed series has been in desperate need for someone to finally hear its cries for help. I’m glad that Ubisoft is now listening to it.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.