Ubisoft's next addition to the Assassin's Creed saga, Black Flag, is meant to simply keep the story going after longtime protagonist Desmond Miles went the way of the dodo, meaning it's (almost) a brand new world when players head into the Caribbean. But not for Ubisoft. Despite that Black Flag hasn't even launched yet, not only is the follow up to the game already in development, but the team knows exactly where the story is going, and where it will end up.
Speaking with Eurogamer, Black Flag's game director, Ashraf Ismail, said details aren't exact, but a rough outline of the ending narrative is already in place.
"The brand team that sits on top and is filled with writers and designers concerned with the series' overall arc. So there is an overall arc, and each iteration has its place inside this," he said. "We have an idea of where the end is, what the end is." But nothing's set in stone, so if the team has to make last minute changes, there's some wiggle room. The fact that multiple titles are usually in the works, Ubisoft has room in one game to drop in foreshadowing and hints for another, i.e., Aveline in her own title, and a her future appearance in Black Flag.
"Depending on the setting, depending on what fans want, we've given ourselves room to fit more in this arc. But there is an end," said Ubisoft CEO, Yves Guillemot. "We're now able to seed stuff earlier and earlier in our games. So for example in Assassin's Creed 4 we have Edward, who was seeded in Assassin's Creed 3. But there's a lot more stuff in our game that is hinting at other possibilities."
Black Flag is the first prequel in the Creed franchise, and sees players controlling AC3 protagonist Connor's grandfather, Edward Kenway, a former Royal Navy man for the British crown turned pirating privateer in the blue waters of the Caribbean. The game takes place somewhere around 1713, long before the last time we saw any vestige of the assassins, the American Revolution. The colonial frontier of the new world is traded in for the warm waterfronts of Nassau, Havana and Kingston, and historical figures such as the infamous pirate Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Charles Vane, and others.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is set to release this fall for PC, Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and will eventually release on the next-gen Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
