Assassin's Creed Red: Artwork Leaked By Senior Author Confirms Female Protagonist & Japanese Setting

Pierre Boudreau, a senior writer at Ubisoft, accidentally uploaded an image from Assassin's Creed Red to their LinkedIn profile. The image had not been shown to the public yet, and it confirms a few details about AC Red.

Assassins Creed Red Main
Assassin's Creed Red is the next mainline AC game, and we've just seen the first leaked artwork! | © Ubisoft

Assassin's Creed Codename Red was officially revealed during Ubisoft Forward 2022. This isn't the current Assassin's Creed, AC Mirage (which we thoroughly enjoyed), it's the next mainline title planned for release in 2024.

We don't know much about AC Red yet, not even its real name, but one of the senior authors working on the game just shared some new artwork. The image they shared corroborates a lot of the most fascinating details we've been hearing about Assassin's Creed Red before.

Ubisoft Writer Accidentally Leaks AC Red Artwork On LinkedIn

Rather sensibly, the banner image on the LinkedIn profile of Pierre Boudreau has now been reverted to a generic picture of AC Valhalla. But for a brief moment on October 22, this is what Boudreau's profile on LinkedIn looked like:

As you can see, he accidentally uploaded a banner image for the upcoming AC game. The game that this banner is from is being referred to internally as "Assassin's Creed Red", and the image seems to confirm previously leaked details regarding a female protagonist and a feudal Japanese setting.

The game is rumored to work like AC Syndicate did, with players being able to control two protagonists. One will be a female shinobi, the character we can see in the leaked artwork, and the other will be a male samurai. The shinobi character will focus more on stealth, while the samurai character will supposedly use their brawn.

Assassins Creed Red Dual Protagonist
We've seen the dual-protagonist idea tried out once before with Jacob and Evie Frye from AC Syndicate, pictured above. | © Ubisoft

While it does somewhat reaffirm gender stereotypes, having a female character that can be more dexterous and a male character that can be stronger, we like how this mechanic provides players with a range of gameplay styles to choose from. And the concept is definitely becoming more popular, with even the new GTA game rumored to be using two protagonists, one male and one female.

How Has Ubisoft Responded To The Leak?

At the time of writing (October 23, 2023), Pierre Boudreau has removed the image from LinkedIn, but Ubisoft have not yet made an official statement. They are currently promoting the release of Captain Laserhawk, a Netflix anime that features a lot of iconic Ubisoft characters, and so we don't expect them to dilute the message by addressing AC Red any time soon. At most, Pierre might be getting told off by the higher-ups at Ubisoft, but for the most part we expect them to just move on and ignore the leak.

Jon Ramuz

Jon has a BA and an MA in English Literature, and as Content Lead for EarlyGame has written over 1,500 articles. He focuses on shooters, but also writes about entertainment and gaming in general....