I have been really enjoying Brad and Dan's quest to assassinate an elusive target on recent Unprofessional Fridays. I was thinking that this formula of a large map, one target, and an almost endless variety of ways to go about murdering them, could be applied to Assassin's Creed, a series many regard in need of a fresh change of pace. Strip away the large open world and it's exhaustive checklists. And substitute short instances like those in Hitman, where Ezio has one target, and a multitude of tools at his disposal. You'd have tense gameplay with the climactic end of a well-executed assassination or miserable failure. I feel like this would also harken back to the original vision for Assassin's Creed, Where the assassin is methodical, blends in, and doesn't sprint in loud and take on 20 guards like he's Superman. Just building on that idea, vary the different maps by the different time periods seen in each game (and those we haven't explored too much yet like Assassins Creed Chronicles) and play as Ezio, Connor, The guy from 4, etc. And continue to release new assassination missions a la the elusive targets in Hitman. What do y'all think?

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say when the original Assassins Creed was announced I thought it was going to be Ubisoft taking a stab at the Hitman formula in a historical setting. Alas they made something no where near as good as that so it's always been disappointing.

I honestly don't see Ubisoft paying attention to Hitman as a whole, the developers might take a few mechanical ideas here and there but they won't try and adapt a large part of the formula. Mainly because the new Hitman while doing ok hasn't sold gangbusters at all. Ubisoft being the 'focus test to hell creativity be damned' publisher all they care about is the number of units sold so if one of their developers pitched something akin to Hitman it would most likely be shut down or heavily altered.

I would love for it to happen though.

Dishonored feels like a (really good) mashup of Hitman and Assassins Creed.

They did kind of take a step in that direction for unity, where each main assassination was in an enclosed area and there were different opportunities and unique kills and all that. Of course it was very watered down and not of the same quality as Hitman. They did keep that stuff in syndicate too but didn't really develop it any further. Maybe the next one that comes out, with the extra development time, might go further in that direction.

The original AC was theoretically about that. You'd initially have your (same every time) 3 missions where you'd eavesdrop, steal or threaten people to get information about your target and their location.

It stopped there though,

I'd almost like a GTAV heist planning phase here, where you work out where you'll start your mission and your overall plan for entry/escape from your target's location. Then give me some Hitman style main assassination missions of the big targets. Then the rest of the Ubi open world formula can make up the rest of the AC game. I'd be okay with all of that.