Looking forward to this. Unity was the best AC since 2, and Victorian era London has been on my list of periods I hoped they'd visit.

I skipped Unity so hopefully I'll finish Black Flag when this comes out. If it runs and plays solid I might just bite.

@thornie: I feel the same way, i think Unity was really buggy for those without Gtx cards

I have not liked an assassins creed game in a long time. I didn't even like black flag! I just don't think this franchise is for me anymore

@marvinpontiac said:

Word. I think I'll hold out for the Victorian London assassination game developed by, like, Rocksteady or Arkane.

Ubi is basically setting themselves up for memes and photoshops being made by having the game's subtitle be "Victory" only to have the game suck. 0_o

That's going to be unfortunate. I really hope this game is going to be good though.

I'd be curious to see how much of the city they map... and I'd bet ten quid that jack the ripper is in there somewhere.

I'm optimistic. This should be the 'making amends' good one after the spanking they got for Unity.

Surprised that it looks like they're going to just skip straight over the Napoleonic Wars though, especially given the title (HMS Victory being Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar). Given the success of the boat stuff, I'd think that's about the most ripe period of history for an AC game they could hope for.

Well, Victorian London was to be expected at some point. It's an interesting period, with a lot of climbable buildings, lack of guns and a whole lot of, fictional and real, very famous characters.

I don't even mind them making an AC game every year. They put a hell of a lot more effort in it than most annualized games (CoD, EA Sport games,...) so it's a lot of fun for people who like the AC gameplay (even if it doesn't change all that much).

But this "leak" is another awful move by the Ubisoft PR team. Obviously someone is working on another AC game, but it's a different team which has no influence on the bugfixing of Unity. But I can see how many people will get upset when reading that Ubisoft is working on the next AC instead of fixing Unity...

Can I interest you in an Assassin's Creed game where you play a Rambo in London?

I want the Londoners to have French accents in this game. It's only fair.

@gaspower said:

You mean.... like this?!

Dont forget to buy the season pass to get Far Cry 5 for free.

Yeah yeah yeah... Snark snark snark... The comments are full of those trying to be witty. Good for you guys being all clever on the internet.

I'm personally looking forward to the next Assassin's Creed since Unity was such a fucking great game. Hopefully it retains the new parkour style from Unity with the up and down abilities. Running around Paris was a joy.

@yummylee: Good thing I had a backup. :V

still no female main character? well, at least its london

Victorian London?

What?

Did anyone else just fall asleep?

You are Jack the Ripper, you need to steal as many faces as possible before the Templar police constables can track you down.

Seriously though I expect after the media lashing they took for AC:Unity, even if it did not affect sales, they've just re-evaluated this game's schedule to lock down the features earlier and give more time to QA / Bug Fixing / Optimization.

Haven't been keeping up with recent AC news but I was under the impression they were gonna take a little bit of a break.

And with the cycle I would not bet that they are able to implement learned lessons from Unity.

great french people making game about london im sure that go well lol

@the_ruckus: French Canadian

Just make a modern day one and get it over with already. I am over historical settings for this series. Or do one in the hypothetical future.

No thank you, doesn't matter where it's set...gameplay will still have the jank and crap combat. Ubi change it up and give it a break.

@whitegreyblack: Damn, spoke too soon.

As someone who hasn't played 3, 4 or 5 I may well take the plunge if it's given favourable reviews. Grappling hooks man, they always get me.

I'd rather be playing Far Cry 5, set in the Amazon rainforest.

The thing about London that people forget is the City of London/Westminster is of small population (200,000 or so). Its population comes from the surrounding boroughs which are basically small towns within themselves.

So basically they only have to map the main centre which is small, the Greater London area (which is what makes London appear large) is irrelevant and honestly, a lot of those areas are not at all interesting anyway.

I think that's gonna make it very easy to recreate in a game. Nobody is gonna miss Sutton. (ok that place wasn't exactly around back then, but you get my point)

@sadpatrol: there only geographic difference as far as i know

PLOT TWIST: You're Jack the Ripper

I was always okay with yearly Assassins Creed releases, as long as they were quality. And up until Unity, they were. In my opinion anyways. Some of my favorite games.

The series went from a day one buy, without any information other than the setting, to a wait and see what everyone thinks and make sure it isn't broken mess situation. That's how much of a sour taste the last game left in my mouth.

Lets wait a couple years Ubi. Get your house sorted.

@thornie: word. I'm personally having a great time with Unity

I wonder if the characters will have a French accent in this game.

@gaspower: I felt inspired, mainly by Ubisoft's stance of "let's PR our way out of this mess". They've got moxie, I'll give 'em that.

From a business perspective, I can't fault Ubisoft for capitalizing on the popularity of the franchise: if it sells, sell it. The Assassin's Creed games, apart from III, have always been fun to me despite the flaws, so my only hope is that they just make the game's release a lot smoother than they did for Unity. Given that they just gave out free games for Season Pass holders, and have apologized on record a few times now, I think they will ensure that Victory has a smooth release. But in this industry, anything goes.

I'm going to buck the trend and guess that you play as Spring-heeled Jack, Victorian England's other menacing Jack fellow.

...I'm still excited.

Badass. I am loving Unity. I've been fortunate enough to have no game breaking issues and pretty great performance on the PC.

Man, I just want to be an actual ninja in one of these games. Ubisoft, why can't you just let me be a ninja?

@thornie: I find this...hard to believe. Especially given what we know about its performance issues, and especially given on my gtx 980 4gb, i5-4670, that I can only get 60fps by staring at the ground or sky.

Haven't played AC since Revelations...and I'm ok with that lol.

I would have been interested in a Napoleonic Wars AC but Victorian is just kind of boring in general aside from the Paradox game.

@bgdiner: Yeah, anything goes is right. It's pretty funny to me how taken aback everyone seems by how broken Unity is because the exact same thing happened with III, which is when they introduced the Anvil Next engine in the first place. Bugs out the ass, falling through the world, frame rate, broken AI, etc. etc. They even patched a ton of missions because they were too hard, not fun, etc.

Mind you, their track record showed great improvement from III to IV (I wouldn't know because fuck buying another of those games after III) so chances are good that Victory will be solid, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not, either.

@mb said:

Hey, don't sell them short... by leaving out the handheld games.

AC: Altair's Chronicles 2008

AC: Bloodlines 2009

ACII: Discovery 2009

ACIII: Liberation 2012

So yeah. Counting the handheld games, there has been at least one game per year, every year, since the franchise started. It has never not been an annual franchise.

Still not ninjas.

So does this mean we should forget about Unity now?

Ubisoft is really doing it's damnedest to make sure I don't give them money. This franchise needs a long break.

I want to be excited, because when Unity was announced the idea of returning to dense cities like in the initial AC games I loved sounded promising, but after Unity I just don't care. I would have to read a glowing 5 star Giantbomb review to get jazzed about another one of these.

The fact that these games aren't challenging in the slightest makes it more difficult to want to spend hours in them as well. The initial shine has worn off the concept and I need something to be properly engaged.