Nine Assassin’s Creed in development is madness and far too much

A reader is unimpressed by the idea of so many new Assassin’s Creed games but fears that yearly sequels are going to become commonplace again.

It always seems fashionable to be down on Assassin’s Creed. I’m not going to say it’s my favourite ever series, or cutting edge gaming, but I’ve enjoyed most of the ones I’ve played and always consider a new one when it comes out. My main consideration is the reviews and whether I’ve played one recently, because they’re long games and you don’t want to be playing the same basic thing twice in a row.

I already heard the rumour that there’s nine new games in development but didn’t pay much attention to it because it is, after all, just a rumour. Then on Thursday there was this blog from the boss of Ubisoft that said there was more than one remake underway.

So, okay, that’s Shadows, Hexe, two remakes, and I think some mobile games, already confirmed so… maybe that nine games rumour was more believable than I thought. Maybe it was even an underestimate.

I almost feel like it doesn’t need saying but nine games in a franchise in which all the games are basically the same, except for the setting – and the split between those that are old school and modern role-players – is ridiculous overkill.

The blog says: ‘The goal is to have Assassin’s Creed games come out more regularly, but not for it to be the same experience every year.’ So they do want something every year but they don’t want it to be the same thing. A nice thought (kind of) but somehow I don’t imagine the differences between each one are going to be that big. It’s not like one is going to be a flight sim and the other a dating game.

It’s obvious this is all part of the same madness that has overtaken every (non-Japanese) publisher since the beginning of the year, with the layoffs, the sudden pivot to live service games, and going multiformat. With Ubisoft though they’ve kind of done all that already. They’ve been trying for years to get a hit live service game but all they’ve ever had is Rainbow Six Siege.

So I think they realise now that that’s not the answer (I’m sure Sony will cotton on in a few years) and so they’re going with the only other option they have: double down on what they know works. But surely they also realise that if you double, or triple, your output then people are going to get tired of it twice (or three times) as quickly.

If a new Assassin’s Creed came out every three years I’d probably get them all. If it came out every year I’d probably get so sick of hearing about it I wouldn’t get any of them, and I don’t think that’s me being weird. Having too much of a good thing is a very common problem.

We don’t need a return to yearly sequels and yet I get the feeling that Ubisoft aren’t the only ones that are going to be thinking along these lines. Variety is the spice of life and if every year is just the same six big budget games time and time again things are going to get very stale very quickly.

By reader Tacle