Few could have anticipated Assassin's Creed would have been such a blockbuster right out of the gate, but Ubisoft found itself with a major hit. Since then, Ubisoft has refined Assassin's Creed into an annual, Call of Duty-esque franchise. In 2009, there was Assassins' Creed II. In 2010, there was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. And later this year, Ubisoft will finish Ezio's story with Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

"What is impressive with the release year after year of Assassin's Creed is our ability to deliver every time with a high level of innovation and creativity in a large and very diverse open world," boasted Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot on Ubisoft's fiscal year results call with investors today. "There is no other open world console game that is coming on a yearly basis. This is achieved through great execution by providing more resources and by putting in place a very compelling network of leads and associate studios."

At this point, the annual development of Assassin's Creed games has not just become a model for the Assassin's Creed franchise but a model that the publisher intends to apply across several franchises.

"We are applying the very [same] product template to our other strong franchises to bring them back to Assassin's Creed blockbuster profitable status," said Guillemot.

Concerns have been raised, starting with Brotherhood, that Ubisoft's approach would dilute the Assassin's Creed franchise, but the near-universal praise for Brotherhood means...well, maybe they can pull it off. We'll be getting our first look at Revelations in just a few weeks. Can Ubisoft do it again?

Few could have anticipated Assassin's Creed would have been such a blockbuster right out of the gate, but Ubisoft found itself with a major hit. Since then, Ubisoft has refined Assassin's Creed into an annual, Call of Duty-esque franchise. In 2009, there was Assassins' Creed II. In 2010, there was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. And later this year, Ubisoft will finish Ezio's story with Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

"What is impressive with the release year after year of Assassin's Creed is our ability to deliver every time with a high level of innovation and creativity in a large and very diverse open world," boasted Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot on Ubisoft's fiscal year results call with investors today. "There is no other open world console game that is coming on a yearly basis. This is achieved through great execution by providing more resources and by putting in place a very compelling network of leads and associate studios."

At this point, the annual development of Assassin's Creed games has not just become a model for the Assassin's Creed franchise but a model that the publisher intends to apply across several franchises.

"We are applying the very [same] product template to our other strong franchises to bring them back to Assassin's Creed blockbuster profitable status," said Guillemot.

Concerns have been raised, starting with Brotherhood, that Ubisoft's approach would dilute the Assassin's Creed franchise, but the near-universal praise for Brotherhood means...well, maybe they can pull it off. We'll be getting our first look at Revelations in just a few weeks. Can Ubisoft do it again?

Interesting...

here's hoping they don't get tired and repetitive, not that the assassin's creed games are.

I don't think more bombs is what I wanted out of the series. Traps neither. I never used the bombs in Brotherhood, I just thought they slowed down the pace of the game.

Ubisoft has other strong franchises?

If you put 500 people on Beyond Good & Evil 2 like you did with AC I will be very happy. I'm not buying any more Ubisoft games until they finish BG&E 2.

Interesting...

So more milan north in the future. Could be good if they have any franchises worth annualizing

Why let a story take its course and then end, when you can milk it indefinitely, until it is a decayed dried corpse on the side of the road and the mention of it just makes people grumble and sigh?

It was supposed to be a trilogy. It should have been a trilogy. Then they should have moved the fuck on.

This model certainly worked for Guitar Hero...

i have faith in Ubosift when it comes to AC

" Ubisoft has other strong franchises? "

What else do they have? Prince of Persia? Might and Magic? Those are never going to be major IPs again, if they ever were. The quality of the games has been too inconsistent. AC sells well because there's never been a bad AC game, even if AC1 sucks by modern standards.

 "What is impressive with the release year after year of Assassin's Creed is our ability to deliver every time with a high level of innovation and creativity in a large and very diverse open world.

I think it was the other way around. We were all hyped about the first AC, and it was a tremendously disappointing game. The second one was what the first one was supposed to be.

Uggg... Ubisoft no thanks.

I'm not sure how putting all your studios behind one franchise can work with multiple franchises, but maybe Ubisoft has a plan.

" What else do they have? Prince of Persia? Might and Magic? Those are never going to be major IPs again, if they ever were. "

Loved AC2, but could not finish Brotherhood. Got stuck on an escort mission and said goodbye.

This saddens me. I know that the quality will be diluted by the quantity, but I don't think I have the will power to say "No" if presented with a new RB6 or AC game every year.

I had to refresh my memory on what they're working with so I went to wiki.

hah More shitty annual games. I haven't even played AC2 yet. Guess there's no point now haha

And now, I will try my hardest to not buy Assassin's Creed.

" What else do they have? Prince of Persia? Might and Magic? Those are never going to be major IPs again, if they ever were. The quality of the games has been too inconsistent. AC sells well because there's never been a bad AC game, even if AC1 sucks by modern standards. "

This just depresses me. I played AC2 and loved it but there are too many experiences out there and too little time for me to play a different AC every year.

I have to say I'm already pretty burned out when it comes to the AC sequels. When the milking becomes too obvious, franchises instantly lose their original appeal to me.

Let Dice make another Mirror's Edge game (leave out the shooting).

Mirror's Edge 2!

... well shit. Ubisoft really wants to be the most hated publisher.

" ... well shit. EA really wants to be the most hated publisher again. "

This doesn't surprise me, but Ubisoft has to realize finding a new IP every couple years that they can pump out a million iterations of doesn't last. I mean look at Far Cry, Prince of Persia, the Splinter Cell games, the Ghost Recon games.... they were all pretty big at some point, but don't mean half as much as they used to. They were diluted to hell. 

They should apply it to Beyond Good & Evil!... then we might actually finally get a sequel.

" Let Dice make another Mirror's Edge game (leave out the shooting). "

" Mirror's Edge 2!

Come on!

"

" @HBK619:Arr, you're right ... I'm all confused %) "

" @ryanwho said:

" What else do they have? Prince of Persia? Might and Magic? Those are never going to be major IPs again, if they ever were. The quality of the games has been too inconsistent. AC sells well because there's never been a bad AC game, even if AC1 sucks by modern standards. "

Ummm...Splinter Cell.  Ghost Recon.  Rayman.  Far Cry. Red Steel.  Driver.  Beyond Good and Evil.  Call of Juarez.  And many more.  Ubi has a ton of franchises.  I wouldn't want any of them to be annualized, but they do have more than AC and PoP. "

Well no thanks Ubi , got tired of AC on the second one , and now I will definitely never ever purchase another AC game again , much less more tired annual  games from Ubisoft

Ubisoft is like "more games like the wildly successful and very good AC:B!"

Man! All I see are a bunch of negative, unappreciated comments.

I for one believe in Ubi! I couldn't believe how good Brotherhood was, and the storylines can go any which direction they want! I'm excited for the future of AC!!!!!!!!

" Man! All I see are a bunch of negative, unappreciated comments.I for one believe in Ubi! I couldn't believe how good Brotherhood was, and the storylines can go any which direction they want! I'm excited for the future of AC!!!!!!!! "

I loved Rainbow Six Vegas, I don't miss being able to clumsily command shitty bots but then that's what happens when you take off the rose tinted glasses.

This does not sound good to me. I like Assassin's Creed, but they really shouldn't go the way of Call of Duty with this franchise. They'll end up wearing it into the ground, as COD has done.

" Man! All I see are a bunch of negative, unappreciated comments.I for one believe in Ubi! I couldn't believe how good Brotherhood was, and the storylines can go any which direction they want! I'm excited for the future of AC!!!!!!!! "

" @phish09 said:

" @ryanwho said:

" What else do they have? Prince of Persia? Might and Magic? Those are never going to be major IPs again, if they ever were. The quality of the games has been too inconsistent. AC sells well because there's never been a bad AC game, even if AC1 sucks by modern standards. "

Ummm...Splinter Cell.  Ghost Recon.  Rayman.  Far Cry. Red Steel.  Driver.  Beyond Good and Evil.  Call of Juarez.  And many more.  Ubi has a ton of franchises.  I wouldn't want any of them to be annualized, but they do have more than AC and PoP. "

BG&E was a single game and it flopped. Are one off flops now considered successful franchises? "And many more", no dude. I checked the wiki, you were being generous naming half the shit you named and you covered everything. "

I don't care how many IPs they have, the question was how many franchises do they have that people give a shit about. There's a reason I didn't mention Just Dance.

" Ubisoft is like "more games like the wildly successful and very good AC:B!"

And gamers are like "waaah boycott forever".

I don't get it but okay.

"

Biggest pull for me is just the story, it is in my opinion the finest crafted storyline of this generation. So long as they can keep that up they have my money. I mean I enjoy good gameplay, but for this series it is just the story so long as it isn't boring thats good.

They don't have any other properties which are popular enough to sustain a model like that. 

You can get away with it when you start out with 8 million sales (or whatever AC1 sold) because boo hoo if you lose a few million along the way, you still have a very profitable product - at least for a good few years.  AC also has / had the benefit of being borderline genius in terms of how they set it up to allow different characters and different eras, which should allow them to keep the franchise fresh (it's unforunate they're neglecting that potential, but they always have it up their sleeve when they need it).

Prince of Persia is basically done for the time being.  Most of the Tom Clancy stuff is moderately successful at best nowadays.  Whatever their #2 franchise is nowadays, it's a long way short of AC in terms of popularity. 

If they try this model with Splinter Cell or whatever then they're just going to bleed money even faster.  AC's success started with brand new IP, not with trying to resuscitate flat-lining IP.  If they really want to replicate that success and use this model, then first they need to be creating new IP, which is the exact opposite of what they're doing.  There's no guarantee new IP will be successful of course, but you've gotta be in it to win it.

Far Cry has potential to do well for them, because there seems to be a market for open-world FPS and it hasn't been massively over-saturated yet.  A Rainbow Six vs. Al Qaeda game might do alright on the back of the Bin Laden assassination.  I think they could make successful games out of these, but not franchises that are going to sustain a game every year.

" @ryanwho said:

" Ubisoft is like "more games like the wildly successful and very good AC:B!"

And gamers are like "waaah boycott forever".

I don't get it but okay.

"

You don't get why we don't want good franchises being ruined by yearly releases? if you don't get it then you never will.Developers need to take their time with games not pop one out every 12 months, in reality that would be what? like 7-8 months of real development time? rest cleaning bugs and polishing? i would rather get a new game in the franchise every 2-3 years not every year. "