Ubisoft is changing the way it tells the modern-day Assassin’s Creed storyline by pulling it out of the games and making it a part of Assassin’s Creed Infinity.
Revealed at a press conference ahead of today’s Ubisoft Forward, vice president executive producer of Assassin’s Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained to journalists that the upcoming hub platform for the series will be the new home of the Assassin’s Creed meta storyline.
In an interview with IGN, Côté explained further: “I wanted [Infinity] to perfectly be a good entry point [to the series],” he said. “And that’s where extracting the meta story from our games and making it live at the platform level is an important change for the franchise.”
The launch of the Infinity platform and its first game, Codename Red, will mark the start of what Ubisoft calls Period 3 of Assassin’s Creed. Period 1 covers the series from its inception to Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (essentially the action/adventure era), while Period 2 covers the RPG era of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. This new period has been designed to be a good place for new players to join, and as such it made sense for the more complex, ongoing meta story set in the modern day to be separated from the standalone historical tales.
“People who love just immersing themselves in the past will be able to jump right in there and never be interrupted or need to know who Desmond and Layla is,” said Côté.
As explained as part of today’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, Infinity is not a game, but rather a launcher-like hub for the series. That means the modern day storyline will likely not be told through a playable character like Desmond or Layla. Côté held back on explaining exactly how the story will be told, but did say that we should expect the method to change as time goes on.
“The way we tell the story will evolve with time,” Côté said. “But the abstraction that we want people to have is [Infinity] is your Animus. It is your DNA Explorer on your desktop. You are the main story character.”
For the full details we have so far, check out our full Assassin’s Creed Infinity interview with Côté. And for more from Ubisoft Forward, take a look at the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the upcoming Codename Red and Hexe, and a mobile game set in Ancient China.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.