Ubisoft is excited about Assassin's Creed Infinity, which they claim will change Assassin's Creed forever.
So Ubisoft went all out with Assassin's Creed reveals at their latest Ubisoft Forward, and the centerpiece of it all was - and will be - Assassin's Creed Infinity, the live-service game that has long been announced and shrouded in mystery since.
Assassin's Creed Infinity Changes AC Forever
Let's just start this with Ubisoft's official statement on Assassin's Creed Infinity:
Infinity is not a game, per-se. It’s going to be the single entry point for our fans into the Assassin’s Creed franchise into the future. Infinity is going to be a hub that will unite all our different experiences and our players together in meaningful ways.
So... that means what? Assassin's Creed Infinity is just an interactive AC shop, where you buy each game and jump into it like a Crash Bandicoot level? Probably not, but I honestly don't know what to make of it and what to expect from AC Infinity. Luckily, this is where Ubisoft fills in the blanks: According to them, Assassin's Creed games will no longer be over 100 hours long, starting with Assassin's Creed Mirage, which will only have a playtime of about 20 hours:
It is a smaller Assassin's Creed project. This was conceived [and] built to celebrate the 15th anniversary. So that's why we're using our modern Valhalla engine to build a smaller game that pays tribute to our original game by focusing more on stealth, on close-quarter combat, on parkour, and a denser city that goes back to our roots in the Middle East with Baghdad as the centerpiece.
So... Assassin's Creed Infinity will supposedly be some sort of hub, from which to access all kinds of AC games, hence the recent wave of announcements: Four Assassin's Creed games are currently in development - Hexe, Codename Red, Mirage and Codename Jade. According to Ubisoft all these games will stray from the standard formula in one way or another - for example, AC Hexe will not be an RPG at all, yet it will still be accessible via the Infinity Hub, which will also include free Assassin's Creed games:
Sometimes you'll have free experiences as well, which I think is a great way to entice players to either come back. We've had a great experience with the latest crossover stories for Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It brought so many players back into Odyssey. It made a lot of players who were interested in Odyssey interested in Valhalla, because we had seen a lot of players not crossover from Odyssey to Valhalla, and it peaked their interest and moved them across to another product and all that for free. So I think this will be top of [our] mind as we build Infinity.
Sounds like Assassin's Creed Infinity is quite the project, and if all of the above wasn't enough: Ubisoft also wants to bring back standalone multiplayer into the AC Universe, all via Infinity. Color me curious... guess we'll have plenty of time to hear and see more over time, as the game is only set to be released in late 2023 or beyond.