Ubi: We could do 35 Assassin's Creeds

By Tom Bramwell Published 14 October, 2009

Dev speculates about female lead, WWII.

Never mind a third Assassin's Creed game, Ubisoft producer Sébastien Puel reckons they could do any number of them.

"I'm often asked if we're doing a third game after ACII... I mean, we could do 35 of these," he told Xbox World 360.

That's because - thanks to the way Assassin's Creed is structured, exploring the genetic memories of one of the assassins' descendants - the actual game bit could theoretically take place anywhere.

During World War II, for example. Puel said the team had discussed the idea of a female assassin, which might work during the war since "the economies in England and France were run by women because the men were off fighting".

"So maybe in this context you were a woman in England during WWII. Why not? Nothing prevents us from doing it," he said.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Assassin's Creed II is due out on 20th November and takes place in Renaissance Italy, where young nobleman-turned-assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze gets caught up in all sorts of stabby and conspiratorial events.

It's looking like a solid improvement on its predecessor, which sold four squillion copies, and we should be able to bring you a review in around a month's time.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (43) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Vice.Destroyer #1 2 years ago

    Sequelitis, thy name is Ubi?

  • EraSerX #2 2 years ago

    give her big boobs and it'll sell

  • Ged42 #3 2 years ago

    I think Victorian London would be an interesting setting for the Assassin's Creed series.

    All the smoke and industrial revolution squallor constrasted with the hope and opulance of the Great Exhibition...

    could be fun.

  • ZuluHero #4 2 years ago

    Are they all stand-a-lone stories then? I thought they followed on from each other? Good news if thats the case as i mght be able to play the 2nd one after all.

    I thought i might have to miss it because i couldn't stomach finishing the first one.

    EDIT - haha some ass creed "fanboi" marked me down - and for asking a question! Don't fool yourself kiddo, the first game was monotonous, repetitive drivel. But from the previews of Assassins Creed 2 they are addressing the well-known issues. It would be just a shame to have done all that work only to alienate potential buyers that couldn’t be bothered to get over the first hurdle of the series.

    That’s why stand-a-lone stories for this type of game would be good. I mean all the Assassins are different decedents of different people, so it would make sense.
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/09 @ 10:06

  • Lionheart #5 2 years ago

    "Ubi: We could do 35 Assassin's Creeds"

    ...and I'm sure you will as well.
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/09 @ 09:14

  • bad09 #6 2 years ago

    Well I don't know about 35, and lets see what you've done with 2 first Sébastien, but I reckon if they develop the story and gameplay and build upon the already great game engine a franchise could work. I love AC and the weird Desmond story woven into the history side of things.

    I quite like the idea of a "AC through the ages" series. You could do a 19th century game set in the old west or London (more horses! \o/), WW2 in France or something, present day, the future even, do we know what era Desmond is in? I can't remember.

    All depends on the game though doesn't it.....

    / waits for AC2

  • Ignatius_Cheese #7 2 years ago

    Please don't!

    Cap it off as a trilogy. Third game set during the French Revolution with Paris, Versailles and somewhere else French.

    Once you're done with Ass. Creed, please go back and finish off what you started with XIII, you bastards!

  • AphoticCosmos #8 2 years ago

    So, if each AC game takes two years to make, and there's 33 more on top of the two already released/being released.

    ACXXXV will be hitting a store near you in 2075.
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/09 @ 09:23

  • kangarootoo #9 2 years ago

    Well duuuh.

    Isn't that exactly what pretty much every gamer said back when we first learned about the whole genetic memory hook.

    "Well, it will allow them to bung out sequels ad infinitum".

    You hear that Sébastien, I take your 35 and I raise you AD INFINITUM!

  • kinky_mong #10 2 years ago

    Puel said the team had discussed the idea of a female assassin, which might work during the war

    World War 2! That's a completely untapped market that begging for a game to be made about it. And what better way than to make a game about an assassin during the war. You could call the assassin Velvet! Oh.

  • chukcyQ #11 2 years ago

    I want a tentacle fuck fest with strong and petite lead girl character who can take lots of sausage! Not these "i have a sword and can jump" shitparties for boys...

  • kangarootoo #12 2 years ago

    Except Velvet Assassin was a bit rubbish was it not?

    The premise is far less important than whether the gameplay is actually good.

  • cianchristopher #13 2 years ago

    Yeah, we all figured that genius move out with your bullshit "genetic memory" crap from the first one!

    Let's see how Assassin's Creed 2 turns out before you start taling about "35" games in the series....

  • PanStre #14 2 years ago

    They should set the third one on like, an alien planet! And have Desmond's ancestor be, like, a fucking bald space marine!

    Chase that generic setting, Ubisoft! Chase it!

  • ybfelix #15 2 years ago

    Yes, French Revolution please. it's a perfect setting. and Ubi is french so should be more familiar with
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/09 @ 10:09

  • Retroid #16 2 years ago

    Just because they *could* doesn't mean they *should*.

    Personally, one of the things I loved about the original game was the setting in 12th century Syria & the surrounding area. There aren't many games at all set either there or Renaissance Venice / Italy, whereas there are shitloads set in WW2 :/

  • cianchristopher #17 2 years ago

    They should set it in...... World War III (oh yeah..... I went there)

  • DutchDemons #18 2 years ago

    hold on...

    "That's because - thanks to the way Assassin's Creed is structured, exploring the genetic memories of one of the assassins' descendants - the actual game bit could theoretically take place anywhere. "

    You don't need a crappy genetic memory theme in order to have a game protagonist be an assassin in time period X and then a sequel with another protagonist being another assassin in time period Y. I know that's what you want us to believe Ubi, but you're wrong. Very wrong.

  • M_of_the_sys #19 2 years ago

    "Personally, one of the things I loved about the original game was the setting in 12th century Syria & the surrounding area. There aren't many games at all set either there or Renaissance Venice / Italy, whereas there are shitloads set in WW2 :/ "

    I agree. That's what I love about the first game and why I'm looking forward to this game. The historic settings that haven't really been done before.

  • mkreku #20 2 years ago

    I think this is an excellent idea! Keep the same game structure (after polishing it to perfection, of course) and just build new missions around it, set in different times and different settings. It would be cool to become an assassin in, for example Chicago in the thirties.. or feudal Japan.. or contemporary London.. the possibilities are endless.

    I like the thought of this. But it would have been better if the missions were actually expansion packs or DLC for ONE Assassin's Creed game. Not too fond of the idea of having to buy the same game over and over again, despite the mission changes.

  • kangarootoo #21 2 years ago

    @DutchDemons

    If they had said that their genetic memory storyline was the ONLY way to have an game series based on an assassin in different time periods... you might have a point.

    But they didn't say that.

  • kangarootoo #22 2 years ago

    @mkreku

    Edwardian London would be nice. Cat burglar style shinning up drainpipes and so on.

    I figured a setting in the US circa 1780 (war of independance) might be nice, except that tall buildings were probably a bit few and far between back then. No tall buildings, no AC :)

  • Evolution #23 2 years ago

    "Ubi: We will do 35 Assassin's Creeds" ?

  • JensonJet #24 2 years ago

    Alternatively, play Assassin's Creed 35 times! It's probably no less dull than playing sequel after sequel after sequel.

  • YourMessageHere #25 2 years ago

    Can we have some relatively unexplored modern history please? They are admittedly original settings and I applaud that idea in principle, but I honestly care little for the 12th century Holy Land or Renaissance Venice. Some ideas to ponder:

    Assassin's Creed in London, 1899 or thereabouts
    Assassin's Creed in Tokyo, 1946
    Assassin's Creed in Beijing, 1949 or 1975
    Assassin's Creed in Delhi, 1947
    Assassin's Creed in Moscow/Warsaw/Prague/Budapest, 1989

    Plenty of scope for all sorts of historically consistent killing and scooting about towns there.

    EDIT: but I forgot the important bit: Please, please, for the love of god stop making WWII games. They've been around now for far longer than the actual war was. It's time to do something else.

    @ mkreku
    This idea I like. The game you buy is the engine and a mission pack; DLC provides subesquent mission packs of roughly equal size. I'm up for that.
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/09 @ 11:47

  • schachmatt #26 2 years ago

    YourMessageHere: You mentioned all those Eastern European Iron Curtain-times cities and did not mention the best place to do one: Berlin in the days before the Fall of the Wall. If only I could trust the writers at Ubi.

    The statement about sequels actually makes me uncomfortable, because it will lead to endless open endings and they won't care about finishing the storyline.

  • paulf #27 2 years ago

    imagine they could do all that and still not have a single skippable cutscene

  • JonFE #28 2 years ago

    I doubt the missus will be too happy with 35 more figurines; imagine the occupied shelf space and required dusting!

  • makeamazing #29 2 years ago

    I know its only them commenting on the character lead, but except for Mirrors edge, Ive never like the idea of playing a female character in a game. Unlike many of those people playing an MMO who are playing female characters and are men... scary people :|

  • DutchDemons #30 2 years ago

    @kanga

    yes, but they do imply that this is a unique opportunity for them to do this, while this clearly isn't the case. I'm still a little ticked off at the sci-fi turn AC took. Absolutely unnecessary imho.

  • kangarootoo #31 2 years ago

    @DutchDemons

    Well, the word unique in "unique opportunity" was added by your good self. The text of the article is even paraphrasing at that point, rather than quoting directly.

    Its not a big deal, but you seemed a little heavy duty in your condemnation of something that wasn't actually stated the way you implied.

  • Razorus #32 2 years ago

    I think people are forgetting that in order to make the story comprehensive and flow into one another logically, it's unlikely Ubisoft will set the game in far-off countries like Japan, circa 1946. They would have to use another character with different ancestors than Desmond Miles'. Unless of course the ancestor has a good reason to be killing people in post-war Tokyo, then it's pretty much out of the question.
    As for WW2, Ubisoft SHOULD be smart enough to realise that people are fed up of that setting. The Dev was probably just speaking theoretically. Plus, I think perhaps the generational gap is too narrow for Desmond to logically be an American in 2012. It's more likely his great grandparents would be English or American but I reckon a Victorian London setting would be great. It'll make for a darker experience; they could perhaps make Jack the Ripper turn out to be an Assassin and find a good reason to kill those prostitutes.
    Personally, (and no offence to French people), I don't think I'll be able to stomach too many French characters in a game, so Revolution-era France is a no go for me. I was VERY satisfied when I ended Robert De Sable's life in the first game.
    I think a trilogy would be sufficient with spin-off handheld games filling in the gaps to explain the ancestral links (like Bloodlines aims to do).
    Edited by 1 at 14/10/09 @ 13:44

  • sneetch #33 2 years ago

    I'm not worried about the WWII setting as any theoretical WWII AC game *won't* be just another WWII FPS or RTS: Germany at the end of and immediately after WWII would be an excellent setting, zipping about assassinating axis and allied commanders and politicians to try to influence the way Europe is divided up. I would also love if that female lead was German.

    The next one could be during the cold war. You could even play the same character.

    However, setting one in the run up to the first or second world wars would be more interesting than one set during or after them, IMO, or one set during the Napoleonic wars or the French Revolution the American War of Independence or the American Civil War.

  • Spekingur #34 2 years ago

    Sorry to point this out but he did in fact mention a woman assassin during WW2 - in England and France. WW2 might have been overdone but in completely diffirent settings. (As man, holding a gun, in first person, shooting other men. Or as a "general" controlling men and vehicles to make war on other "generals" with their men and vehicles.)

    I would welcome something diffirent coming from that era, especially if properly done.

  • Olemak #35 2 years ago

    Elizabethan England would be awesome, some time.

    Also, Raj India! Maybe even a Gangs of New York kind of setting too.

  • AliRay #36 2 years ago

    I don't see why they'd bother doing 35 if they couldn't even give the first game any variablility.

    Pickpocket - Eavesdrop - Interrogate. Rinse and repeat. YAWN.

  • Bremenacht #37 2 years ago

    They should hook up with Nintendo and do Samus as ''Assassin Prime'

  • septimus #38 2 years ago

    I want Ninjas next time dammnit. Feudal Japan. Geishas. That shit.

  • man.the.king #39 2 years ago

    "I mean, we could do 35 of these"

    ...And if AC-x does well, they probably will.

  • comissars_handgun #40 2 years ago

    They should do one set in prehistoric times where your special assassination technique is hitting someone on the head with a concealed rock.

  • AOFanboi #41 2 years ago

    <em>Assassin's Creed in London, 1899 or thereabouts</em>

    Or 1888 - with the target being prostitutes? Jack the Creed, Assassin's Ripper! :p

  • Postumo #42 2 years ago

    So we have to forget the rubbish ending of AC1 with all that bullshit about symbols, religions, and fuck? pfffff

    I see it this way: hey man! we don't know how to go on with the bizarre plot of AC, let's make it a generic "assassin game" and let's get rid of that rubbish plot.

  • Rodney #43 2 years ago

    Postumo,

    that sounds great. I'd be happy with a series of AC games connected by theme only.