Ubisoft has said that Assassin's Creed Unity will mark the beginning of a new cycle of Assassin's Creed games and is effectively a reboot of the series, being described as the best place to jump into the franchise since the 2007 original.
Speaking to Examiner, the game's creative director, Alex Amancio, said:
"It's a new start, it's a new narrative start. That is symbolized by a completely new context for the present day. You've seen a little bit of an evolution with Black Flag, [but] we're not going to do the same thing. What we're doing with Unity is really the beginning [of] this new cycle of Assassin's Creed games.
"Because it's new, we can actually explain it properly because nobody is going to feel like it's redundant. I would say that Assassin's Creed Unity is the best entry point for the franchise since, [Assassin's Creed I],"
In part, this is because the game's hero Arno is not related to the other Assassins we've seen in past games.
If Amancio's name rings a bell, it may be because he was also in charge of Assassin's Creed Revelations but he's previously confirmed that that game's most maligned feature, its tower defence mini-game, will not be returning. Another change will be the removal of competitive multiplayer in favour of four player co-op.
Unity, set during the French Revolution in Paris, features a city as big as all of the island landmasses in Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag combined. The game will, like all past major entries, feature sections set in the current day with Ubisoft simply stating that "you" will be the star of the modern day elements.
Assassin's Creed Unity launches on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 28th.