Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition

Have there really been five Assassin's Creed games? All on just one generation of consoles? How time flies.

Ubisoft finance officer Alain Martinez has told a finance conference audience that the publisher hasn't put the same faith in review score averages since the runaway success of Assassin's Creed last year.

Prince of Persia animation director David Wilkinson has spilled the first beans on Assassin's Creed 2.

Ubisoft is suing a US disc duplication firm for USD 10m in damages after an early PC version of Assassin's Creed leaked onto the internet.

Ubisoft has confirmed we won't see a sequel to Assassin's Creed this side of Christmas.

That's according to a Forbes interview with Ubi US boss Laurent Detoc, who said, "When we bring [Assassin's Creed] back, there will be more anticipation for it."

The decision is nothing to do with sales figures, as AC has proved highly popular. More than 6 million copies of the game have been shifted since it was released last November.

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Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot has said we can expect to see the Assassin's Creed brand knocking around for "years to come".

Ubisoft has said it is working on a patch to address the numerous problems with Assassin's Creed on PC.

Let's talk a little about the term "director's cut". If we were to take it literally, it would refer to those rare occasions upon which a maligned film director revisits a studio-butchered film and re-cuts it to his or her satisfaction. In reality, it usually means "we found an extra fifteen minutes of footage that we cut out to make the movie better, but now we've put it back in". But what does it mean in videogames and, in particular, what does it mean for this long-overdue PC version of last year's stabby console hit?

Assassin's Creed was a game burdened with potential, but one that could ultimately only earn the tag of "pretty vacant". For all its expansive medieval vistas and acrobatic action, there wasn't a whole lot going on in the long term. Once you'd guided Altair through his first assassination, you'd pretty much seen everything on offer in terms of gameplay. That you then had to repeat the process eight more times left some players feeling more than a little weary, no matter how lovely the view along the way. So does this "director's cut" represent the fruits of a re-energised creative team polishing a tarnished gem to their satisfaction? Or is it just a tardy port with some inconsequential new bits tacked on?

The second one, sadly.

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Just as before, we're not going to tell you anything. Well, we're going to talk about the game, obviously. We're going to talk about the slightly incongruous American killer running around the Middle East in an eagle garb severing jugulars. We're going to talk about the new PC-specific missions, and how it looks compared to the multi-million-selling console versions, and what kind of crackpot control scheme the console-to-PC converters have assembled this time.

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot has offered the first hint at what Jade Raymond's plans are now Assassin's Creed is out of the way.

Ubisoft has told Eurogamer that Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for PC will still be arriving on 17th April, not one week earlier as a freshly made schedule suggested this morning.

Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition has slipped to "early April", Ubisoft has told Eurogamer, confirming comments in a Q&A with technical lead Charles Beauchemin released earlier today.

Altair of these one day.

Ubisoft has revealed the four new investigation types for Assassin's Creed on PC.

These are Rooftop Race Challenge, where you will charge from one informer to another within a set time limit; Archer Assassination, which has you murdering rooftop-dwelling guards in a set area without being seen; Merchant Stand Destruction Challenge, where you have to trash the livelihood of tradesmen tied to your assassination target; and Escort Challenge, which has you guide a fellow assassin somewhere safely.

These will be added to the existing bunch to bring the total number of investigations to nine, although we can only think of four types from the original: Informant, Pick-pocket, Interrogation and Eavesdropping. We're not sure what the fifth is, although Informant was made up of multiple-challenges like flag collection and assassinations.

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Assassin's Creed will feature additional investigation side-missions when it launches on PC at the end of next month.

Ubisoft has pushed the release of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Elements back one week to 15th February.

Ubisoft has revealed that three of its key titles for 2008 will now arrive later than expected.

Direct your gaze Eurogamer TV-wards now for an exclusive Assassin's Creed video triple-bill, sneaking out ahead of this Friday's Euro release.

Three mission types are highlighted in the footage, spread across the Eurogamer Empire. Over on Eurogamer.de, there's a clip showing off the pickpocketing mechanic, and also Altair getting rather handy with his fists.

On Eurogamer.fr, meanwhile, the hooded protagonist hunts down a wily informant by skipping across the adventure playground-like environments like a frustrated acrobat.

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When Ubisoft asks you if it's okay to pop 'round for elevenses, you don't generally say no - unless you're on a hideous deadline, haven't dusted for three months, or are just feeling particularly cranky and antisocial that day. But even if all of the above apply, when they come armed with a finished Xbox 360 build of Assassin's Creed, even concerns about black moods, dustballs and writing reviews at 5am seem to vanish magically into the ether.

Ubisoft has said actress Kristen Bell will definitely be appearing in Assassin's Creed, even though she tried to spoil the plot a year ago.

The publisher reconfirmed the Heroes (Elle in Season 2) and Veronica Mars star's involvement to Kotaku by sending the website a picture of how Bell will look in game, side-by-side with her real-life face.

It is quite stunning, actually, although we have no idea which is which - it is either the alien on the right or the lovely lady on the left.

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Intervention from descendants of real-life assassins - the Ismaili Nizaris - has lead to work on the Assassin's Creed books being indefinitely halted.

If you're not doing anything next Friday, 2nd November, and you're in the vicinity of London, you might want to consider popping along to the Shepherds Bush Empire to join in with Fuse 07 - a Ubisoft-backed game and music show will feature a gameplay demo of Assassin's Creed among its many stage acts.

When Ubisoft asked us if we'd like to send one of our forumites to Montreal to play Assassin's Creed, we said no, we'd like to send ourselves instead. When they told us to sod off, we had a sulk for a bit and then elected someone - in this case, the young and dashing Richard Horne. What follows is his untouched impressions of the game based on... well, we'll let him explain. We also inserted lots of errors and typos so he doesn't put us out of a job. Good day.

Jade Raymond wants to meet you lot and answer your questions this Saturday at the HMV on Oxford Street.

Jade Raymond has said there won't be an Assassin's Creed demo ahead of the game's release in November.

Ubisoft has just revealed that Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway has been delayed until 2008.

There were lots of highlights at E3 last week - running into Rutger Hauer, firing a pump-action shotgun, talking to Peter Moore about his braces - but one of the greater disappointments was Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed demo at the Microsoft conference. Having grown up in the public eye as an archly mysterious, beautifully imagined medieval kill-'em-up with more than its fair share of good ideas, it saw high-flying assassin Altair bumble onto the big screen, bounce off a few NPCs, prance across a series of beams, stab and gurn and then fire up an accent not so much west of Jerusalem as west of Adam West.

Ubisoft and the Independent Film Channel (IFC) have launched a short-film contest to support the release of Assassin's Creed this November.

Assassin's Creed is due out worldwide in November on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, Ubisoft said this morning.

Ubisoft has released a new trailer for Assassin's Creed, which is now lurking ominously over on Eurogamer TV.