Ubisoft has officially revealed Assassin’s Creed Infinity, a new platform and hub for Assassin’s Creed games. It has also revealed the first two games that will be part of Infinity: one that will follow the life of a Shinobi in feudal Japan, and another helmed by Watch Dogs: Legion director Clint Hocking.
Revealed today as part of Ubisoft Forward’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, vice president executive producer of Assassin’s Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained that “Infinity is not a game, per-se. It’s going to be the single entry point for our fans into the Assassin’s Creed franchise into the future. Infinity is going to be a hub that will unite all our different experiences and our players together in meaningful ways.”
That hub will be a place where different games will exist, and that appears to start with Assassin’s Creed Codename Red. Described by Côté as being the “next premium flagship title and the future of our open-world RPG games”, Codename Red is set in feudal Japan, a historical period frequently requested by fans. A very brief trailer showed off a Shinobi jumping onto a pitched roof and then unsheathing their hidden blade, but that’s all that has been shown so far.
Codename Red is being developed by Ubisoft Quebec, under the leadership of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Immortals Fenyx Rising creative director Jonathan Dumont.
Côté also revealed a second game that is in development for the Infinity platform: Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe. It is in development at Ubisoft Montreal and directed by Clint Hocking, the director of Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and Watch Dogs: Legion. It was described by Côté as “a new flagship title” and “a very different type of Assassin’s Creed game”.
Ubisoft Forward: Assassins Creed Infinity Slideshow
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A trailer for Codename Hexe was shown, but it revealed nothing about the setting or main character. It did, however, hint towards an unusual direction for the series: the Assassin’s triangular logo, made of twigs and twine, was shown hanging from a tree branch, much like a witchcraft talisman. The game’s main logo features that talisman positioned over a rune-filled design in the shape of a heptagram seven-pointed star. Based on the eerie music used in the trailer, that imagery, and the Hexe name (which is the German word for ‘witch’), could Assassin’s Creed be exploring the topic of witch hunts? The Bamberg witch trials, which took place duirng the 1600s against the backdrop of the Thirty Years’ War, seems a reasonable guess as to Hexe’s setting, but there’s no official details from Ubisoft.
Codename Red and Hexe were the only two games formally announced for the new platform, but Côté also revealed that Infinity will see the return of multiplayer to Assassin’s Creed. “We’re actually investigating how we will bring back standalone, multiplayer experiences into the Assassin’s Creed universe, all connected to the Infinity Hub,” he said.
No further details were revealed, so it’s currently unclear if Ubisoft is planning the return of the cat-and-mouse style multiplayer modes from the Ezio years of Assassin’s Creed, something akin to Unity’s co-op missions, or even both. However, the use of the term “standalone” suggests that, similar to Call of Duty’s Warzone, this will exist separate to the flagship games that will also live in Infinity. They’re not expected until sometime beyond 2023.
For more from Ubisoft Forward, check out the new details about the next game in the series, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and the announcement of an open-world Assassin’s Creed game for mobile. You can catch up on everything announced at today’s Ubisoft Forward event with our full roundup.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.