It may seem like a no-brainer to assume that Ubisoft does not have a planned ending its Assassin’s Creed franchise, but if you had a sneaking suspicion (no pun intended of course) that the company had a rough idea for how they will end the series, think again. While Ashraf Ismail, the director of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag stated the series has an overall story arc despite every entry in the franchise being unique, Darby McDevitt, leader writer of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag says this isn’t entirely the case.
According to McDevitt, the developers have all of human history to cover, allowing them to play with history however they prefer and spinoff the game in many different directions. Thus, there is no actual ending for the overall story of Assassin’s Creed – which is what most of us have been thinking for a while now anyway. With a new Assassin’s Creed releasing annually, it seems as if there stopped being an overall story arc long ago – especially since *spoiler,* Desmond died in Assassin’s Creed III, yet the franchise still continues.
“The problem with the Desmond trilogy was that back in 2007 they set a date with Abstergo launching a satellite that was going to control people’s minds. That unfortunately took a back seat in ACII when they swapped the plot point for the end of the world, which was conveniently going to happen in the same month in 2012. This was a hard date we were going to hit–we realised very quickly that Assassin’s Creed is a popular franchise and we’d like to keep it going,” said McDevitt.
With all of human history at Ubisoft’s proverbial fingertips, which time period and location will the franchise visit next?
“I will say that fans definitely think alike. We have the same goals for the series, let’s say. I’ll leave it at that. We always want to surprise,” said McDevitt.
19th century London during the era of Jack the Ripper? Japan during the Shogun era? Nazi-occupied Germany during World War II? The future? It seems as if no time period/location is off limits for Ubisoft, meaning the Assassin’s Creed franchise probably is a long ways off from concluding. Whether that’s good or bad remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain: more interesting locations and time periods are on the way!