Annual Assassin’s Creed releases not an issue, says Ubisoft

There is no issue releasing a new Assassin’s Creed title each year, providing the quality remains high, Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat has told Eurogamer.

Quizzed on the possibility that players are becoming less interested in the multi-million selling franchise, Mallat denied this to be the case.

“The players will tell us. Right now there are more and more coming into the franchise, so I don’t see that day,” said Mallat.

“It’s our breakthrough. When you have quality content, the frequency of coming out with the game is not an issue at all.

“On the contrary, people expect more and more of that content. So it’s natural to be able to provide that content. The gamers are happy and it’s our job to make them happy.”

And it’s pretty difficult to argue otherwise given Assassin’s Creed 3 has shifted a staggering 12 million copies and became the biggest launch in Ubisoft’s history.

All of this is possible thanks to Ubisoft’s multi-team approach to creating its tent-pole release.

“When we say we are annualising the franchise, we don’t say the teams only have one year to work on a project,” Mallat explained.

“Assassin’s Creed is mature enough in terms of reaching the critical mass of players and community, but also in terms of envisioning enough content for years to come, and in terms of technology to sustain all that.

“And more importantly, it’s mature enough in growing the talent and the core teams so we can have several core teams working on the next one and other projects on the brand.

“That’s why every Assassin’s Creed has one dedicated core team working more than one year on their projects. We call that a roadmap. It takes into account the creative content – the settings, the where and what – the technology and the team.”

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag releases on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Wii U on November 1, 2013. Dates for the PC and next-generation versions have yet to be confirmed.

Source: Eurogamer