Ubisoft has an ending mapped out for the Assassin's Creed series, whenever that might be. This year’s Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag will be the sixth mainline console and PC release in the series since the original game debuted back in 2007, and more are planned for the coming years, but everything comes to an end at some point, right?
Black Flag game director Ashraf Ismail told Eurogamer: "We have an idea of where the end is, what the end is. But of course Yves [Guillemot, Ubisoft's CEO] announced we are a yearly title, we ship one game a year. So depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we've given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end."
Ismail went on to explain that having multiple Assassin’s Creed titles in development simultaneously allows the company to tease clues about future games in the series. "We have multiple development teams, then we have the brand team that sits on top and is filled with writers and designers concerned with the series' overall arc," he said. "We're now able to seed stuff earlier and earlier in our games. So for example in [AC4] we have Edward, who was seeded in AC3. But there's a lot more stuff in our game that is hinting at other possibilities."
Last month, Ubisoft announced a new Assassin's Creed comic set in India, which it said will offer clues about the future direction of the series after Assassin's Creed 4. Ubisoft Toronto, the team behind this month’s Splinter Cell Blacklist, is already collaborating with lead Assassin’s Creed studio Ubisoft Montreal on a follow-up to Black Flag.
Assassin's Creed 4 will launch on October 29 in the US and November 1 in the UK on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. The PC version is expected to release shortly after, while PS4 and Xbox One editions are due to launch when the next-gen consoles arrive later this year.
