Players won’t have to look far beyond Assassin’s Creed Mirage in 2023 to see the franchise’s future, as Ubisoft revealed most of its cards for upcoming projects, including two flagship titles operating under the new Assassin’s Creed Infinity hub.
Assassin’s Creed Codename Red will finally take the franchise to the setting of feudal Japan as a fully next-gen title coming at some point in 2024 or beyond. That was followed by the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe, which is being touted as a very different experience from what the franchise has previously delved into.
Codename Red will be the franchise’s “big leap forward,” with Assassin’s Creed VP executive producer Marc-Alexis Cote telling VGC that Ubisoft Quebec is aiming to create “a world that evolves around you.”
“One of the big things that we are pushing is to have a more dynamic world, a world that evolves around you and we want everything that you have on yourself to evolve as you walk through this environment—to show the wear and tear—and to improve the fidelity of the experiences that we are building, pushing our animation systems further to make the game feel more realistic than ever,” Cote said.
If Mirage is being viewed as a reset point to bring the franchise back to its roots, Red will end up helping those roots grow into a strong foundation for what comes next.
In this case, Ubisoft also revealed Codename Hexe. This game is further out than Red, but Ubisoft Montreal is taking the franchise for a new ride through what looks to be a complete shift to horror-focused narratives.
“One of the things that we’ve learned with Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla is that we don’t need to come out with an RPG every year. These games have a much longer tail, and can sustain the engagement and interest of players for a long period of time, especially if we support them well through our post-launch efforts,” Cote said to VGC. “Hexe will provide a different experience in terms of game and game structure.”
Details are still scarce for both games, but Ubisoft has confirmed that Red will be receiving the usual support from recent Assassin’s Creed titles with expansions and other post-launch content. Hexe will likely receive the same approach.
That is especially true when you consider the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Infinity, which will act as an entry point to the entire franchise starting with Red and Hexe. It is not a game in and of itself but will incorporate those new titles, and perhaps older games, in different ways.
During the Ubisoft Forward stream, Cote even mentioned that the team is looking into bringing back standalone multiplayer experiences from previous titles through other projects within Infinity. In his words, “Infinity is going to be a hub that will unite all our different experiences, and our players, together in meaningful ways.”
