Maybe a change is as good as a year off. The appearance of a Victorian London-set Assassin’s Creed game on the smoggy horizon – just as Ubisoft busy themselves apologising for a troubled Unity launch – couldn’t be better timed if we were hanging off the outside of Big Ben.
The little we’ve seen of Assassin’s Creed Victory reveals a breathlessly silly feature-set. A gothic Arkham aesthetic, with grappling hook to boot. Top hat purchases at Charing Cross. Assignments delivered by masked nobles in horse-drawn carriages. Horse-drawn carriage street racing. Perhaps we’ll meet Jack the Ripper? Perhaps we are Jack the Ripper.
Ubisoft have spoken up to express their disappointment about the leak – but also to acknowledge a couple of its particulars.
Early details of the game come from seven minutes of ‘target gameplay footage’, put together in the same Anvil engine Unity runs on and leaked to Kotaku.
“It is always unfortunate when internal assets, not intended for public consumption, are leaked,” Ubisoft told PC Gamer. “And, while we certainly welcome anticipation for all of our upcoming titles, we’re disappointed for our fans, and our development team, that this conceptual asset is now public.”
The publisher confirmed that the game was in development under a team at Ubisoft Quebec – the studio officially upgraded from Black Flag DLC assemblers to fully-fledged Assassin’s Creed leads earlier this year.
“The team in our Quebec studio has been hard at work on the particular game in question for the past few years,” Ubisoft went on, “and we’re excited to officially unveil what the studio has been working on at a later date.”
The publisher finished by reaffirming their current focus on getting the technically iffy Assassin’s Creed Unity into shape. But with any luck, Victory’s extended development time will help it dodge similar issues.
Do you think Assassin’s Creed is getting like the Star Trek films? One on, one off, forever?