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The Assassin’s Creed franchise is preparing to turn another significant page. The Black Flag remake is no longer a secret, but behind the scenes, all eyes are fixed on the next major entry: Assassin’s Creed Hexe. Billed as the darkest chapter in the saga’s history, it will also mark a new era for the franchise in more ways than one.
Set during the witch-hunting trials of early modern Europe, AC Hexe will be the first Assassin’s Creed title developed and published under the banner of Vantage, the joint subsidiary created with Tencent to oversee Ubisoft’s flagship franchises, following the Chinese giant’s €1.2 billion investment in the French group. That sweeping reorganization inevitably shook up internal schedules, pushing Assassin’s Creed Hexe’s release date back alongside several other projects currently in development. A delay that may, however, work in its favor.
Assassin’s Creed Hexe will inherit the best innovations in the franchise
It’s now been a year since Assassin’s Creed Shadows launched. Ubisoft’s take on feudal Japan sparked fierce debate long before it ever reached shelves, before ultimately settling into the role of a solid and enjoyable entry, one distinguished, in part, by a handful of meaningful technological additions that deepened immersion. A year and several updates later, that chapter is drawing to a close, but not without leaving its mark on the series’ DNA. That’s the view of Thierry Dansereau, the game’s art director, who spoke to IGN about a development cycle that was anything but straightforward. In the process, he dropped a few telling hints about the franchise’s future, which might interest people waiting for Assassin’s Creed Hexe in particular.
According to Dansereau, upcoming entries should inherit several of the foundations laid by Shadows, that he sees as a legacy for the IP: refined parkour, reworked stealth, retouched combat, and a dynamic weather system built specifically for the game. «The legacy, I think, is we’ve pushed quite a lot of things […] In all the systems, we’ve guided a lot of technology in the game that I think will become legacy for future ACs. There are quite a few things that will make their way through (to upcoming games)», he explained.
A game with even more to offer?
How Ubisoft plans to build on that legacy remains to be seen. On paper, Assassin’s Creed Hexe looks like the ideal vehicle for pushing these systems further, even if its tone is set to be a sharp departure from AC Shadows. Creative director of the game, Jean Guesdon, recently described it as a «unique, darker, and more narrative-focused experience.» And Assassin’s Creed Hexe won’t be the only one to benefit from AC Shadows’ groundwork, the Black Flag remake is expected to carry forward several of the same advances, particularly around dynamic weather, stealth, and combat.
For a remake, that’s hardly surprising, the expectation is that it will naturally update to current series standards without dramatically overhauling the underlying formula. For genuine gameplay evolution, Assassin’s Creed Hexe is where to look, a game whose atypical historical setting seems tailor-made for bold new ideas. We’ll find out, in quite a few months’ time.
Source: IGN
