With a new Assassin’s Creed game coming out every year (that continues next year), it seems like there’s no signs of the blockbuster franchise going anywhere anytime soon. As Ashraf Ismail, Game Director on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, explains to Eurogamer though, “We have an idea of where the end is, what the end is.”
Of course, the eventual end probably won’t be for some time, with Ismail not nailing down a specific timeframe for the end, just that they have “writers and designers concerned with the series’ overall arc” and “each iteration has its place” inside that arc. Speaking a little bit more, he added, “So depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we’ve given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end.”
Because of this, Ashraf said, “We’re now able to seed stuff earlier and earlier in our games. So, for example, in [Assassin’s Creed IV] we have Edward, who was seeded in [Assassin’s Creed III]. But there’s a lot more stuff in our game that is hinting at other possibilities.”
When it comes to cut content for Black Flag, the development team was “pushing hard” for multiplayer naval battles, “but we felt we couldn’t achieve [it] at a high enough quality.” Ashraf then detailed how they had “really cool prototypes,” but balancing it in multiplayer was something “we just couldn’t do… in this iteration.”
Do you think we’ll see multiplayer ship battles in the next Assassin’s Creed? When do you want the Assassin’s Creed franchise to end? Let us know in the comments below.
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