Gamers may have to wait more than a year for the first truly modern entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise if recent rumors bear fruit. Viking adventure Assassin’s Creed Valhalla launched alongside current consoles in late 2020, but it also released on the previous-gen Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Cross-gen titles like this are naturally held back from their true technical potential, and some players are hoping that the next game will take full advantage of the new hardware to push the limits of the franchise even further. This will happen eventually, but maybe not as soon as many players who already spent hundreds of dollars on a new machine would like.
There was once a time where players could expect a new Assassin’s Creed game every year like clockwork, but that release schedule has certainly slowed down over time. Even dedicated fans would agree that the series hit a brick wall around the time of Assassin’s Creed Unity, which had a horrible launch filled with technical issues and horrifying faceless character models. Ubisoft went back to the drawing board and produced Assassin’s Creed Origins, which revamped the gameplay of the franchise and restored a lot of the prestige the series had lost. This was followed up quickly with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, but it took another couple of years after that to produce Valhalla.
According to French YouTuber j0nathan, this two-year plan might be the norm going forward. Rumors explained in his video state that the next Assassin’s Creed entry is being worked on by Ubisoft Sofia, the team behind Assassin’s Creed Rogue and a bit of Origins‘ DLC content. While development is already underway, it’s targeted for release in 2022, as this will be the team’s first full-scale release.
In the meantime, 2021 will see two paid expansions for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as already announced through its DLC plans. This will follow the pattern of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which saw a full year of support with DLC expansions and free updates. Players of the latest entry already know that they can send their version of Eivor to Ireland and Paris in the two planned expansions, named Wrath of the Druids and The Siege of Paris. Players can already pick up all this content in a bundle via the game’s season pass, and the expansions will be available separately upon release. That content also includes a bonus quest based around the legend of Beowulf that’s available to anyone who buys the pass.
Considering that Ubisoft released not only Assassin’s Creed Valhalla but also Watch Dogs: Legion and Immortals Fenyx Rising in late 2020, there’s plenty of achingly familiar Ubisoft open-world gameplay to go around until the release of the next game in the Creed series. It speaks to the media landscape of recent years that players are still anticipating Assassin’s Creed titles after several console generations, and that Ubisoft kept the franchise going despite a pretty drastic revamp in Origins. In another universe, the entire Assassin’s Creed series was a continuation of Prince of Persia, but Ubisoft broke off from the familiar name in that case and produced a hit. One wonders what may have happened if Assassin’s Creed Origins could have stood on its own two feet without the hood or the hidden blades.
Next: How AC Valhalla Sets Up The Next Assassin’s Creed Game
