Counting games developed for a future release and a variety of titles for mobile and handheld platforms, Ubisoft has managed to develop an astounding 15 Creed games in all, and more already planned to follow once Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is released. Certainly an impressive feat for a franchise that's only six years young.
Most are only familiar with the series' releases on consoles under the banners of Sony and Microsoft, but what a lot of people are unaware of is that there exists an extended world that goes far beyond that of the "main" protagonists like Altair, Ezio, and Connor. In the so-called "Desmond" Saga, we've seen portions of both the modern-day and colonial United States, Renaissance Italy, Spain, Costantinople, and Crusades-era Syria, and Cyprus. Granted, it's a fair amount of settings for the series to cover, but a heavily detailed expanded universe full of established locations and actual historical events means that Ubisoft still has a varied pool from which to draw, which stands to reason given the fact that the saga stretches out for close to a milennium.
The Russian Revolution, World Wars I and II, the JFK assassination, Ubisoft has managed to set it up so that even the most minute historical event is just the result of conflict between the two groups. If it wasn't due to the Templars or Assassins' direct involvement, there's a 99% chance one of, if not both the groups were pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Even historical figures like Adolf Hitler, Nikolai Tesla, Henry Ford, Neil Armstrong, and countless others have chosen sides between the Templars and the Assassins, and those are the just the ones that have yet to appear in-game. If Ubisoft ever plans to feature any of them, or other world events in future games, you can be sure they already know how it'll play out.
Animated shorts, comics, books, and now a major motion picture are ensuring that there's no shortage of ideas to ensure that the Creeds keep comin'.
"That's stupid, why continue or repeat a storyline of a comic or book in a new game? No developer would ever do that." Well, that would mean you've only heard of or played a mere handful of Star Wars games, and blatantly ignored the dozens and dozens of games based on portions of the mythology that have never graced the silver screen. Not to mention Square Enix's recently announced Deus Ex: The Fall, a sequel to the book, "The Icarus Project."
Ubisoft also has no qualms about jumping back and forth in time with each game release, evidenced by the future Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag taking place before Assassin's Creed 3. It's easily just as possible that the next Creed game could have us in Victorian England or China's Boxer Rebellion.
No matter how many ideas Ubisoft has pre-loaded, it's sheer numbers that will determine how far the franchise will go, and many are already expressing doubt in the franchise given the quick turnaround time between the third and fourth games. Shortly after Ubisoft announced AC4, they said they already had a follow up to the game in the works. Company CEO Yves Guillemot said at this year's E3 that he has faith that the team can avoid franchise fatigue, saying, "We are making sure the teams who are creating the different iterations have enough time-two years, three years, so that they can take risk and they can change the concept enough so that it can be appealing and fresh," he said.
However things play out, there are a lot of options left for the Creed brand, whether the next game takes place long, long ago, or far into the future.
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is due on PC, PS3, Wii U and Xbox 360 in late October and early November. PS4 and Xbox One versions are due alongside the consoles respective releases.
