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”.

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.

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”.

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.

Future games in the Assassin’s Creed series will vary in length, and not all will follow the open-world RPG template that has defined the series since 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins.

As part of today’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, it was announced that Assassin’s Creed Mirage - an action/adventure game similar to the first game in the series - will retail at $50 for the standard edition. In an interview with IGN, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained that the price reflects the scale of the project.

“It is a smaller Assassin's Creed project,” said Côté. “This was conceived [and] built to celebrate the 15th anniversary. So that's why we're using our modern Valhalla engine to build a smaller game that pays tribute to our original game by focusing more on stealth, on close-quarter combat, on parkour, and a denser city that goes back to our roots in the Middle East with Baghdad as the centerpiece.”

When asked if Mirage would be similar in length to the older games in the series, which were around 15-20 hours for the main story, Côté said, “Yes, you should expect something that's closer to our original games.”

But it seems as if Mirage is not a one-off. Assassin’s Creed Infinity, an upcoming hub platform for the series, has been designed to support a variety of approaches for Ubisoft to develop around. While the first game on the platform, currently known as Codename Red, will be a large, open-world RPG set in feudal Japan, not all future games will share that formula.

“I think this Infinity approach is allowing us to have different experiences of different sizes as well,” explained Côté. “Not everything has to be a 150 hour RPG, right?”

Côté confirmed that Codename Hexe, the second game for Infinity, will not be an RPG. While he stopped short of saying what genre and what kind of length Hexe will be, it seems as though Ubisoft wants to make a variety of game types within the Assassin’s Creed universe. Côté says this will “bring more diversity to the places we choose to visit and to how we choose to represent those periods.”

The differing lengths of future games will be “priced accordingly,” which means we could see more $50 (or cheaper) games in the future.

“Sometimes you'll have free experiences as well, which I think is a great way to entice players to either come back,” said Côté. “We've had a great experience with the latest crossover stories for Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It brought so many players back into Odyssey. It made a lot of players who were interested in Odyssey interested in Valhalla, because we had seen a lot of players not crossover from Odyssey to Valhalla, and it piqued their interest and moved them across to another product and all that for free. So I think this will be top of [our] mind as we build Infinity.”

For the full details we have so far, check out our full Assassin’s Creed Infinity interview with Côté. And for more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the upcoming Codename Red and Hexe, and a mobile game set in Ancient China.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Future games in the Assassin’s Creed series will vary in length, and not all will follow the open-world RPG template that has defined the series since 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins.

As part of today’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, it was announced that Assassin’s Creed Mirage - an action/adventure game similar to the first game in the series - will retail at $50 for the standard edition. In an interview with IGN, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained that the price reflects the scale of the project.

“It is a smaller Assassin's Creed project,” said Côté. “This was conceived [and] built to celebrate the 15th anniversary. So that's why we're using our modern Valhalla engine to build a smaller game that pays tribute to our original game by focusing more on stealth, on close-quarter combat, on parkour, and a denser city that goes back to our roots in the Middle East with Baghdad as the centerpiece.”

When asked if Mirage would be similar in length to the older games in the series, which were around 15-20 hours for the main story, Côté said, “Yes, you should expect something that's closer to our original games.”

But it seems as if Mirage is not a one-off. Assassin’s Creed Infinity, an upcoming hub platform for the series, has been designed to support a variety of approaches for Ubisoft to develop around. While the first game on the platform, currently known as Codename Red, will be a large, open-world RPG set in feudal Japan, not all future games will share that formula.

“I think this Infinity approach is allowing us to have different experiences of different sizes as well,” explained Côté. “Not everything has to be a 150 hour RPG, right?”

Côté confirmed that Codename Hexe, the second game for Infinity, will not be an RPG. While he stopped short of saying what genre and what kind of length Hexe will be, it seems as though Ubisoft wants to make a variety of game types within the Assassin’s Creed universe. Côté says this will “bring more diversity to the places we choose to visit and to how we choose to represent those periods.”

The differing lengths of future games will be “priced accordingly,” which means we could see more $50 (or cheaper) games in the future.

“Sometimes you'll have free experiences as well, which I think is a great way to entice players to either come back,” said Côté. “We've had a great experience with the latest crossover stories for Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It brought so many players back into Odyssey. It made a lot of players who were interested in Odyssey interested in Valhalla, because we had seen a lot of players not crossover from Odyssey to Valhalla, and it peaked their interest and moved them across to another product and all that for free. So I think this will be top of [our] mind as we build Infinity.”

For the full details we have so far, check out our full Assassin’s Creed Infinity interview with Côté. And for more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the upcoming Codename Red and Hexe, and a mobile game set in Ancient China.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

After over a year of waiting and guessing, we’ve finally learned a little more about what Assassin’s Creed Infinity is. As part of today’s Ubisoft Forward Assassin’s Creed Showcase, it was said that Infinity is a “hub” that will link future Assassin’s Creed games together. But, after an in-depth interview with the project’s leader, Marc-Alexis Côté, IGN has learned much more about Infinity.

Assassin’s Creed Infinity will be a home for a variety of games of different genres and lengths. It will mix premium boxed games with paid-for and free content. There will be a multiplayer mode that will unite the franchise’s eras. And it will be the place where Assassin’s Creed’s modern-day story will now live.

But let’s start with Infinity’s core concept. It is not a video game, nor is it a replacement for traditional Assassin’s Creed games. It is a platform that will host both past and future Assassin’s Creed entries, starting with Codename Red, a Shinobi-themed RPG coming sometime in the future. This full-price, single-player, open-world RPG will be purchased just like any other Assassin’s Creed game.

“You can absolutely buy [Codename Red] as a box product,” confirms Côté, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed. “But the first thing that you'll see [when you boot it up] is the Infinity [hub] that makes it coherent. But you can buy [Infinity’s second game] Hexe separately as well. This is how we envision things today. So it is still the same games that we were building, but bridged together in the Infinity hub. And obviously if you're in the Infinity hub playing Red, you'll see Hexe come and be available as a memory that you can explore.”

So Infinity is somewhat of a launcher. But rather than displaying games as a library-like collection, like in Steam or Ubisoft Connect, Infinity will wear the guise of an in-universe Animus interface. New entries in the series will be displayed as DNA memories rather than games. Côté notes, however, that we should expect Infinity to be more than just an Assassin’s Creed-themed launcher, and for it to evolve over time.

“So [Infinity] will not start out as a game,” says Côté. “The version of Infinity that we launch will not be the final version of Infinity. It's something that will evolve through time as our experiences grow and we can connect them more together. So I think it opens up a world of possibilities as to what we can do that go far beyond being just a launcher for our different games.”

While Infinity is not technically a game, it will have elements that we’d associate with the Assassin’s Creed games. From now on, Infinity will be the home of the modern day or ‘meta’ storyline of the series.

“People who love just immersing themselves in the past will be able to jump right in there and never be interrupted or need to know who Desmond and Layla is,” says Côté. The implication, then, is that the main games will now be solely set in the past.

So if Infinity does feature a storyline, but is not a game, does that mean we won’t be controlling a modern-day protagonist any more? I ask if the meta storyline will be limited to things like audio logs and email chains.

“The way we tell the story will evolve with time,” says Côté. “It's something that we're doing for the long term, not for the short term. But the abstraction that we want people to have is [Infinity] is your Animus. It is your DNA explorer on your desktop. You are the main story character.”

To provide an example of one element of traditional Assassin’s Creed games that will be moved across to Infinity, Côté points to codex entries. “We used to have an encyclopedia in our games. But to make it feel coherent, like something that always grows through time as you explore the past, [the encyclopedia] would be something that would be in the Infinity hub.”

Cutting the modern day storyline out of the core games will no doubt come as fantastic news to a segment of the series’ dedicated and vocal audience. But Infinity doesn’t stop there in addressing audience criticism. Future Assassin’s Creed games released in Infinity will vary in both size and genre. Codename Red is an RPG in the tradition of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, but Codename Hexe will mark the start of a less formulaic period for the series.

“What I can confirm to you is that [Hexe] is not an RPG,” says Côté. “When I say it's a different type of game, I want people to go beyond the expectations of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. They're all an iteration on our RPG design, right? But Hexe and Red are taking different tracks.”

“I think this Infinity approach is allowing us to have different experiences of different sizes as well,” he adds. “Not everything has to be a 150 hour RPG, right? To bring more diversity to the places we choose to visit and to how we choose to represent those periods.”

While not part of Infinity, 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be similar in length to the earlier games in the franchise. I ask if we can expect more of those scale games, or even smaller, in Infinity.

“Yes, absolutely and priced accordingly,” Côté affirms. “Sometimes you'll have free experiences as well, which I think is a great way to entice players to either come back.”

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has clearly been a testing ground for what’s to come in Infinity. Its DLC has varied wildly, with free offerings ranging from small in-game events to a whole roguelite mode, while paid-for content starts as small as cosmetics and goes as large as a 30-hour expansion pack. It seems like we can expect this sort of approach going forward with Infinity.

But one thing Valhalla did not experiment with is multiplayer, something Infinity will bring back to the series in the form of ‘Invictus’. Said to be a standalone game delivered through Infinity, my initial instinct was to assume it will be free-to-play.

“We have not finalized our plans for the business model for Invictus, but it is a possibility [that it will be free-to-play],” says Côté.

So while we know Infinity will feature free experiences of some kind, we currently can’t say if Ubisoft plans to use Invictus in the way Halo Infinite and Call of Duty uses their own multiplayer/Warzone offerings. However, like Warzone, it appears that Ubisoft plans for Invictus to unite the many eras of its single-player games.

“I think the concept art that we had for Invictus kind of hints to this possibility of crossing over characters from different periods,” says Côté, referring to a piece of art shown at a press briefing that showed numerous characters from different games standing side-by-side. “So I think you can see the intention there of Invictus allowing us again to bridge our different games together.”

Meta stories, new genres, and multiplayer are all fascinating aspects of Infinity’s promise. But it seems that the platform’s biggest aim is to provide much, much longer periods of support for each individual game. Rather than discrete offerings, a new Assassin’s Creed will become part of Infinity instead of just living (and, eventually, dying) on its own. I ask if that means that new games won’t have a hard end cap on developer support.

“Exactly,” says Côté. “That's not how we're seeing things. We want to support everything that comes out on Infinity for a much longer period of time.”

“What I'm very excited about with Infinity is not just our big games, but this idea that we don't replace the games with another game, you [don’t just] supplant your new RPG,” Côté explains. “I think these games can live for a longer period of time and we're architecturing them differently than in the past. If you look at a game like Valhalla, most of its expansions were kind of around the game. Now one of the things that we're thinking about is how can we grow this experience, this world, more like an MMO? Think of it as a single player MMO [rather] than what we've done in the past.”

Infinity sounds much less disruptive than I’d first imagined. This is clearly not Fortnite for Assassin’s Creed. The series is still (at least as far as we can see) built around the concept of single-player adventures in historical open worlds. But Infinity promises to make those worlds less static and more malleable. We still know very little about what it will eventually deliver, but whatever it is, Infinity sounds a fascinating response to the seasonal content factories that are gaming’s multiplayer monoliths.

For more from Ubisoft Forward, check out the latest details about Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and the mobile game Codename Jade.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

After over a year of waiting and guessing, we’ve finally learned a little more about what Assassin’s Creed Infinity is. As part of today’s Ubisoft Forward Assassin’s Creed Showcase, it was said that Infinity is a “hub” that will link future Assassin’s Creed games together. But, after an in-depth interview with the project’s leader, Marc-Alexis Côté, IGN has learned much more about Infinity.

Assassin’s Creed Infinity will be a home for a variety of games of different genres and lengths. It will mix premium boxed games with paid-for and free content. There will be a multiplayer mode that will unite the franchise’s eras. And it will be the place where Assassin’s Creed’s modern-day story will now live.

But let’s start with Infinity’s core concept. It is not a video game, nor is it a replacement for traditional Assassin’s Creed games. It is a platform that will host both past and future Assassin’s Creed entries, starting with Codename Red, a Shinobi-themed RPG coming sometime in the future. This full-price, single-player, open-world RPG will be purchased just like any other Assassin’s Creed game.

“You can absolutely buy [Codename Red] as a box product,” confirms Côté, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed. “But the first thing that you'll see [when you boot it up] is the Infinity [hub] that makes it coherent. But you can buy [Infinity’s second game] Hexe separately as well. This is how we envision things today. So it is still the same games that we were building, but bridged together in the Infinity hub. And obviously if you're in the Infinity hub playing Red, you'll see Hexe come and be available as a memory that you can explore.”

So Infinity is somewhat of a launcher. But rather than displaying games as a library-like collection, like in Steam or Ubisoft Connect, Infinity will wear the guise of an in-universe Animus interface. New entries in the series will be displayed as DNA memories rather than games. Côté notes, however, that we should expect Infinity to be more than just an Assassin’s Creed-themed launcher, and for it to evolve over time.

“So [Infinity] will not start out as a game,” says Côté. “The version of Infinity that we launch will not be the final version of Infinity. It's something that will evolve through time as our experiences grow and we can connect them more together. So I think it opens up a world of possibilities as to what we can do that go far beyond being just a launcher for our different games.”

While Infinity is not technically a game, it will have elements that we’d associate with the Assassin’s Creed games. From now on, Infinity will be the home of the modern day or ‘meta’ storyline of the series.

“People who love just immersing themselves in the past will be able to jump right in there and never be interrupted or need to know who Desmond and Layla is,” says Côté. The implication, then, is that the main games will now be solely set in the past.

So if Infinity does feature a storyline, but is not a game, does that mean we won’t be controlling a modern-day protagonist any more? I ask if the meta storyline will be limited to things like audio logs and email chains.

“The way we tell the story will evolve with time,” says Côté. “It's something that we're doing for the long term, not for the short term. But the abstraction that we want people to have is [Infinity] is your Animus. It is your DNA explorer on your desktop. You are the main story character.”

To provide an example of one element of traditional Assassin’s Creed games that will be moved across to Infinity, Côté points to codex entries. “We used to have an encyclopedia in our games. But to make it feel coherent, like something that always grows through time as you explore the past, [the encyclopedia] would be something that would be in the Infinity hub.”

Cutting the modern day storyline out of the core games will no doubt come as fantastic news to a segment of the series’ dedicated and vocal audience. But Infinity doesn’t stop there in addressing audience criticism. Future Assassin’s Creed games released in Infinity will vary in both size and genre. Codename Red is an RPG in the tradition of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, but Codename Hexe will mark the start of a less formulaic period for the series.

“What I can confirm to you is that [Hexe] is not an RPG,” says Côté. “When I say it's a different type of game, I want people to go beyond the expectations of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. They're all an iteration on our RPG design, right? But Hexe and Red are taking different tracks.”

“I think this Infinity approach is allowing us to have different experiences of different sizes as well,” he adds. “Not everything has to be a 150 hour RPG, right? To bring more diversity to the places we choose to visit and to how we choose to represent those periods.”

While not part of Infinity, 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be similar in length to the earlier games in the franchise. I ask if we can expect more of those scale games, or even smaller, in Infinity.

“Yes, absolutely and priced accordingly,” Côté affirms. “Sometimes you'll have free experiences as well, which I think is a great way to entice players to either come back.”

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has clearly been a testing ground for what’s to come in Infinity. Its DLC has varied wildly, with free offerings ranging from small in-game events to a whole roguelite mode, while paid-for content starts as small as cosmetics and goes as large as a 30-hour expansion pack. It seems like we can expect this sort of approach going forward with Infinity.

But one thing Valhalla did not experiment with is multiplayer, something Infinity will bring back to the series in the form of ‘Invictus’. Said to be a standalone game delivered through Infinity, my initial instinct was to assume it will be free-to-play.

“We have not finalized our plans for the business model for Invictus, but it is a possibility [that it will be free-to-play],” says Côté.

So while we know Infinity will feature free experiences of some kind, we currently can’t say if Ubisoft plans to use Invictus in the way Halo Infinite and Call of Duty uses their own multiplayer/Warzone offerings. However, like Warzone, it appears that Ubisoft plans for Invictus to unite the many eras of its single-player games.

“I think the concept art that we had for Invictus kind of hints to this possibility of crossing over characters from different periods,” says Côté, referring to a piece of art shown at a press briefing that showed numerous characters from different games standing side-by-side. “So I think you can see the intention there of Invictus allowing us again to bridge our different games together.”

Meta stories, new genres, and multiplayer are all fascinating aspects of Infinity’s promise. But it seems that the platform’s biggest aim is to provide much, much longer periods of support for each individual game. Rather than discrete offerings, a new Assassin’s Creed will become part of Infinity instead of just living (and, eventually, dying) on its own. I ask if that means that new games won’t have a hard end cap on developer support.

“Exactly,” says Côté. “That's not how we're seeing things. We want to support everything that comes out on Infinity for a much longer period of time.”

“What I'm very excited about with Infinity is not just our big games, but this idea that we don't replace the games with another game, you [don’t just] supplant your new RPG,” Côté explains. “I think these games can live for a longer period of time and we're architecturing them differently than in the past. If you look at a game like Valhalla, most of its expansions were kind of around the game. Now one of the things that we're thinking about is how can we grow this experience, this world, more like an MMO? Think of it as a single player MMO [rather] than what we've done in the past.”

Infinity sounds much less disruptive than I’d first imagined. This is clearly not Fortnite for Assassin’s Creed. The series is still (at least as far as we can see) built around the concept of single-player adventures in historical open worlds. But Infinity promises to make those worlds less static and more malleable. We still know very little about what it will eventually deliver, but whatever it is, Infinity sounds a fascinating response to the seasonal content factories that are gaming’s multiplayer monoliths.

For more from Ubisoft Forward, check out the latest details about Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and the mobile game Codename Jade.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Ubisoft is changing the way it tells the modern-day Assassin’s Creed storyline by pulling it out of the games and making it a part of Assassin’s Creed Infinity.

Revealed at a press conference ahead of today’s Ubisoft Forward, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained to journalists that the upcoming hub platform for the series will be the new home of the Assassin’s Creed meta storyline.

In an interview with IGN, Côté explained further: “I wanted [Infinity] to perfectly be a good entry point [to the series],” he said. “And that's where extracting the meta story from our games and making it live at the platform level is an important change for the franchise.”

The launch of the Infinity platform and its first game, Codename Red, will mark the start of what Ubisoft calls Period 3 of Assassin’s Creed. Period 1 covers the series from its inception to Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (essentially the action/adventure era), while Period 2 covers the RPG era of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. This new period has been designed to be a good place for new players to join, and as such it made sense for the more complex, ongoing meta story set in the modern day to be separated from the standalone historical tales.

“People who love just immersing themselves in the past will be able to jump right in there and never be interrupted or need to know who Desmond and Layla is,” said Côté.

As explained as part of today’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, Infinity is not a game, but rather a launcher-like hub for the series. That means the modern day storyline will likely not be told through a playable character like Desmond or Layla. Côté held back on explaining exactly how the story will be told, but did say that we should expect the method to change as time goes on.

“The way we tell the story will evolve with time,” Côté said. “But the abstraction that we want people to have is [Infinity] is your Animus. It is your DNA Explorer on your desktop. You are the main story character.”

For the full details we have so far, check out our full Assassin’s Creed Infinity interview with Côté. And for more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the upcoming Codename Red and Hexe, and a mobile game set in Ancient China.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Ubisoft is changing the way it tells the modern-day Assassin’s Creed storyline by pulling it out of the games and making it a part of Assassin’s Creed Infinity.

Revealed at a press conference ahead of today’s Ubisoft Forward, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained to journalists that the upcoming hub platform for the series will be the new home of the Assassin’s Creed meta storyline.

In an interview with IGN, Côté explained further: “I wanted [Infinity] to perfectly be a good entry point [to the series],” he said. “And that's where extracting the meta story from our games and making it live at the platform level is an important change for the franchise.”

The launch of the Infinity platform and its first game, Codename Red, will mark the start of what Ubisoft calls Period 3 of Assassin’s Creed. Period 1 covers the series from its inception to Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (essentially the action/adventure era), while Period 2 covers the RPG era of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. This new period has been designed to be a good place for new players to join, and as such it made sense for the more complex, ongoing meta story set in the modern day to be separated from the standalone historical tales.

“People who love just immersing themselves in the past will be able to jump right in there and never be interrupted or need to know who Desmond and Layla is,” said Côté.

As explained as part of today’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, Infinity is not a game, but rather a launcher-like hub for the series. That means the modern day storyline will likely not be told through a playable character like Desmond or Layla. Côté held back on explaining exactly how the story will be told, but did say that we should expect the method to change as time goes on.

“The way we tell the story will evolve with time,” Côté said. “But the abstraction that we want people to have is [Infinity] is your Animus. It is your DNA Explorer on your desktop. You are the main story character.”

For the full details we have so far, check out our full Assassin’s Creed Infinity interview with Côté. And for more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the upcoming Codename Red and Hexe, and a mobile game set in Ancient China.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Ubisoft has announced Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade, a new game in the series set in Ancient China. It features “classic” Assassin’s Creed gameplay and takes place in an open world, but is a mobile game rather than a console release.

Revealed as part of today's Assassin's Creed Showcase but in only a small amount of detail, Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade has been built to play like a traditional Assassin’s Creed game just with touch controls. Vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, promised that players will explore China in the year 215 BCE, and be able to not only parkour across the Great Wall of China, but also create their own assassin protagonist for the first time ever in the series.

No gameplay was shown, but an in-engine trailer did reveal what we can expect Codename Jade to look like, and it’s promising. In fact, it doesn’t look too far off a last-generation Assassin’s Creed game.

We also learned today about three new mobile games coming to Netflix's gaming platform from Ubisoft, including another (different) Assassin's Creed mobile game. The other two will be Valiant Hearts 2, and a sequel to The Mighty Quest. And of course, Ubisoft is still working on a live-action Assassin's Creed series with Netflix, too.

For more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at all the new details about 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. 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.

Ubisoft has announced Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade, a new game in the series set in Ancient China. It features “classic” Assassin’s Creed gameplay and takes place in an open world, but is a mobile game rather than a console release.

Revealed as part of today's Assassin's Creed Showcase but in only a small amount of detail, Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade has been built to play like a traditional Assassin’s Creed game just with touch controls. Vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, promised that players will explore China in the year 215 BCE, and be able to not only parkour across the Great Wall of China, but also create their own assassin protagonist for the first time ever in the series.

No gameplay was shown, but an in-engine trailer did reveal what we can expect Codename Jade to look like, and it’s promising. In fact, it doesn’t look too far off a last-generation Assassin’s Creed game.

We also learned today about three new mobile games coming to Netflix's gaming platform from Ubisoft, including another (different) Assassin's Creed mobile game. The other two will be Valiant Hearts 2, and a sequel to The Mighty Quest. And of course, Ubisoft is still working on a live-action Assassin's Creed series with Netflix, too.

For more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at all the new details about 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. 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.