Ubisoft is currently hard at work on Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, which is a sidescrolling spin-off from the main series of Assassin's Creed games. Recently, the publisher worldwide Uplay director was quoted, saying that the China could indeed be the focus of a game for the main series.
"I don't think that we said we weren't interested in Chinese history. I think that we notice a lot of stories—we want to have creativity to create the right story [within the right context]," Perotti said. "If we have Assassin's Creed creators that want to spend time [understanding the history of the setting], we can understand Chinese history or Japanese history and make these games about history."
This actually gives us some pretty cool insight as to how the development scheme works at Ubisoft. Basically, Perotti is saying that if the team(s) are interested in learning about a certain segment of history, they'll work towards that goal. While this probably isn't the lynchpin in deciding which direction development will go, it's interesting to note.
Game director Alex Hutchinson told IGN at one point that an Assassin's Creed based in Japan would feel a little too familiar.
"Feudal Japan would work as an Assassin's game, for sure, 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.'"
Frankly, I'm not buying it. There's way too rich a culture in Asia to be ignored. At the rate Ubisoft is currently developing Assassin's Creed games, it seems highly unlikely that there will be any option other than to use some part of Asia as the centerpiece of a main series Assassin's Creed entry.