Alex Hutchinson, Assassin's Creed 3's creative director, has told Total Xbox that an Assassin's Creed game set in Feudal Japan might be too familiar.
While the setting would work from a design perspective, Hutchinson says it may be difficult to do something new with ninjas and samurais. As such, Ubisoft would rather try to do something new.
"You could always do it, but the point I was trying to make was that in the broad strokes and scale of history, [feudal Japan is] a theme that's been well-mined in video games," Hutchinson said. "So, Assassin's Creed is one of those games that can take [lesser-known] time periods or corners of the world and make them cool, fun, new, and refreshing."
"Feudal Japan would work as an Assassin's game, for sure," he continued. "But I feel like it would start to look like 'oh, have I played this?' You know what I mean–'oh, I've been a ninja before, I've been a samurai before.'"
Ubisoft has previously said that the top requested settings are Feudal Japan, World War II, and Egypt. Hutchinson said that he's keen on doing a game during the British Raj.
Assassin's Creed Unity and Rogue, both of which will be released next month, are set in Revolutionary France and North America respectively. Hutchinson is currently working on Far Cry 4, which is also set for launch in November.