Assassin's Creed: Revelations won't be out for another month, but that hasn't stopped Ubisoft from thinking about the future of the franchise, and for good reason. The franchise centers heavily around that troublesome Mayan prophecy about the world ending in December 21, 2012, a date that's a little over fourteen months away.
Revelations' creative lead, Alexandre Amacio, recently told Eurogamer that the timeline puts a pressure on Ubisoft Montreal to wrap things up by then.
"We had such a complex and strong narrative that we ourselves did our best to just try to execute these games before that date," The Ubisoft Montreal developer commented. "It would be stupid of us to be centring a game on a semi-reality and then have that conclusion happen after that date in real life."
That likely means we'll be getting another Assassin's Creed game come Fall of 2012, at least if Ubisoft intends to give its fans any closure.
The game's ancestor-jumping protagonist, Desmond Miles, shares that built-in expiration date. "Assassin's Creed is all about cycles – we have the Ezio cycle and the Altair cycle, and both of those are set to conclude in Revelations and we have the Desmond cycle, which is set to end on December 2012," said Amacio. Past that, and it seems we're looking at a new protagonist with a new family history to explore.
If the series does continue past next year's release, it's unlikely to be subject to the yearly release schedule that Ubisoft has imposed since Assassin's Creed II.
"Our development approach is changing so our cycles aren't structured the same way – so it gives us a little bit more development time," noted Amacio.
The latest entry in the franchise, Revelations, launches on the PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 15. The PC release of the game was recently pushed back into early December.
