There Definitely Won’t Be a New Assassin’s Creed Game in 2016

For the first year since 2009, Ubisoft will not release a new main game in its Assassin's Creed series in 2016.

Which is entirely expected – since the Victorian London-set Syndicate came out at the end of 2015 (which VICE quite liked), rumours have persisted that Ubisoft will give its open-world sneaky-murder franchise a year off. Not that fans will go without something Creed-shaped this side of Christmas – a movie starring Michael Fassbender, titled simply Assassin's Creed, arrives in cinemas on December 21st.

The confirmation message regarding Ubi's decision, which can be read in full here, states:

"This year, we are stepping back and re-examining the Assassin's Creed franchise. As a result, we've decided that there will not be a new Assassin's Creed game in 2016. Since the release of Assassin's Creed Unity, we've learned a lot based on your feedback. We've also updated our development processes and recommitted to making Assassin's Creed a premier open-world franchise. We're taking this year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we're delivering on the promise of Assassin's Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences that make history everyone's playground."

Assassin's Creed Unity launched in November 2014 and saw its playground of Revolution-period Paris ruined by a host of graphical glitches and game-busting bugs. It was fixed, eventually, and isn't a bad game at all, really; but the damage to its series was significant, and while Syndicate has gone down relatively well critically, there's no doubt that Assassin's Creed could do with its formula being shaken up.

Ubisoft's statement ends: "We'll have more to share on all of the above soon. In the meantime, we want to say thank you to our millions of fans around the world for your continued support."

Assassin's Creed games have sold in excess of 73 million copies, worldwide, making this far from a simple decision on Ubisoft's part. The company will be hoping that The Division proves to be a money maker in 2016, while the main entries in their infamous hidden-blade adventuring franchise take a time out. Anyone wanting to get a spin-off Creed fix should note that the Chronicles series is still very much happening in 2016.

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