Last week’s big Assassin’s Creed “news” was the publication of various rumors about its next release. Seeing as the last two big games in the series were leaked before being officially announced, I have a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” attitude toward the series. The current rumors, that the main series is taking a year off and that the next game will be set in ancient Egypt, may or may not be true, but they should be. They represent the exact direction that the series should be going.
It’s never a good thing when your biggest fans are telling you to take a break, and that’s what’s been happening with Assassin’s Creed for several years now. Releasing a game a year is too much for a series like this. It leads to buggy releases (see Unity ) and a lack of innovation overall. Yes, Syndicate was quite good, but I still want the franchise to slow down. I want it to have the time to make some changes and tell better stories. I want to seriously anticipate a new Assassin’s Creed rather than gritting my teeth and hoping that it’ll be one of the good entries. Waiting for 2017 gives the current game’s team time to do more, and perhaps even consult with the Syndicate team about what went right and wrong. Spacing out releases is absolutely what the series needs to do, for its own sake and that of its fans’.
Assassin’s Creed also needs to go back outside of Europe and North America. The first Assassin’s Creed was neat because it was set in the Holy Land (Jerusalem, Damascus, etc.), an area we don’t see in a lot of games. Since, then, however, the main series games have largely revolved around European and American history. There’s a whole wide world out there, and we keep hearing about Assassins from Africa and Asia without ever actually getting to play a game on those continents. Egypt is a great location that is familiar to Western gamers but underused as a setting. It features colorful mythology and a rich history full of political intrigue. It’s also one of several locations that series writers have discussed being eager to explore.
It’s also important for Assassin’s Creed to go backwards in history at this point. The series has been pitching steadily closer to the modern era, and Syndicate went about as far forward as we can get before everything goes shooty shooty bang bang. We’ve got Deus Ex for our modern and near-future conspiracy theory needs, so it’s time for Assassin’s Creed to remember that it’s a series about historical tourism. The Creed lore folks have been busy spinning tales about early history for years, so let’s go live some of them!
Looking at the upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie, we can see hints that the franchise is going in these directions. It’s set in 15th Century Spain, which, though located in Europe, was heavily influenced by Middle Eastern and North African culture at the time. We haven’t been this far back in history since Ezio’s days, signaling that the series is finally interested in exploring earlier points in history again – and comfortable in a setting that isn’t instantly familiar to white Americans.
Despite Syndicate being an excellent series entry, Assassin’s Creed is suffering from fan fatigue and a lack of innovation. It needs a bit of breathing room and an entry that is drastically different from Unity and Syndicate . A game set in Ancient Egypt would fit the bill quite nicely, so let’s hope these latest rumors are true.