Jade Raymond's Ubisoft Toronto collaborating on new, unannounced Assassin's Creed game

Splinter Cell: Blacklist developer Ubisoft Toronto will help make the next Assassin's Creed game due after Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag.

Ubisoft Toronto is under the command of Jade Raymond, a key creative force behind the first Assassin's Creed game.

The new, unannounced Assassin's Creed game is presumably the annual release for 2014. And it's one of five projects that Ubisoft Toronto will help out with.

"As we're wrapping up Splinter Cell, we're also looking to expand, so we're going to be working on five different projects," Raymond told IGN.

"One of the franchises that's very near and dear to me, Assassin's Creed, is one of the ones we're going to be collaborating on in Toronto, as well as one other big franchise which we're not going to announce yet."

These other games include two "big collaborations" with Ubisoft Montreal.

Raymond clarified that she wasn't referring to this year's Black Flag, "because we're currently shipping [Splinter Cell: Blacklist]". "So an upcoming Assassin's Creed," she said.

Ubisoft has worked on at least two Assassin's Creed titles simultaneously before, spreading the load across its huge array of teams.

This year's Black Flag has been in development since the summer of 2011, for example, with work overlapping development of last year's Assassin's Creed 3. A total of eight Ubisoft studios are contributing to Assassin's Creed 4.

It's natural to expect, therefore, that work on Assassin's Creed 2014 is already under way.