Ever since Assassin’s Creed II in 2009, Ubisoft has released a new title in the series every year, (Rogue and Unity both came out in 2014), but according to reports from Kotaku the series may be taking a one year break. Allegedly code-named Empire, the next entry in the AAA franchise will not be hitting store shelves until 2017. This will mark the first time since 2009 that the series has skipped a year in its release schedule. The other major tidbit that Kotaku has reported on is that the series will head to Egypt.
Along with the Egypt tidbit, a post on NeoGAF that compiled posts on 4chan from an alleged Ubisoft developer cites many other interesting notions. For one thing, the game may take place before all the Assassins and Templars existed, and will also be the game which contains the most story in the series. As the 4chan poster cites, “Going back to Ancient Egypt means they can do whatever they want, without “historical accuracy” to hold them back…” which means they can forge a lot of the Assassin/Templar story origins without worrying about historical fact too much. The final tidbit is that the game may star a former slave who barely speaks, which is a drastic change from all of the previous Assassin’s Creed protagonists.
This shift in release schedule may be indicative of the popularity with which the Assassin’s Creed series is going to try to maintain over the next year. At the end of 2016, there will be an Assassin’s Creed movie starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, but before then there will also be two off-shoot games that complete the Assassin’s Creed Chronicles trilogy. Presumably, the film will be the last Assassin’s Creed-related product before the 2017 release.