Ubisoft’s decision to push next ‘Assassin’s Creed’ release to 2017 may signal needed change in big game franchise planning.
While there’s rarely a set standard for entertainment industry production schedules, for video games, the average is usually 2-3 years, with content-heavy games taking upwards of 5+ years. Or in Valve’s case: when hell freezes over. Video game development goes through multiple phases, involving hundreds of people and multi-million dollar investments. Certain franchises, outside of sports games, go through an “assembly line” process where they are churned out year after year. But this annualized release strategy is starting to dilute gameplay design. But with a recent Ubisoft announcement regarding their Assassin’s Creed franchise, big game companies may finally becoming aware of this problem and taking necessary corrective actions.
In 2007, both Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare were released to fan acclaim, though only Call of Duty was met with universal critical praise. From the get-go, Call of Duty became an annualized franchise with games being released every holiday season under the names of two different developers: Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Sledgehammer Games has now joined that developer group, having released Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in 2014. Infinity Ward is developing the next Call of Duty game, to be released this year, while the other two studios alternate their releases. And while Call of Duty has faltered from one generation to the next, it remains one of the most profitable franchises in the video game industry.
Assassin’s Creed followed a similar path with Assassin’s Creed II, launched in 2009, becoming the first of an annualized franchise that continued into 2015 with Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. However, this past February 11th, the Assassin’s Creed team released a message stating that there will be no new title until 2017.
“This year, we also are stepping back and re-examining the Assassin’s Creed franchise. As a result, we’ve decided that there will not be a new Assassin’s Creed game in 2016. Since the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity, we’ve learned a lot based on your feedback. We’ve also updated our development processes and recommitted to making Assassin’s Creed a premier open-world franchise. We’re taking this year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we’re delivering on the promise of Assassin’s Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences that make history everyone’s playground.”
There were also additional reports that the 2017 Assassin’s Creed will be set in India, taking advantage of a franchise strength: the ability to travel to any period of time and setting anywhere in the world. Although the annual game releases have largely stayed in Europe, the transition to India will be a welcome change for series vets.
At the heart of the announcement lies this question: Why the break from annualized releases?
Released in 2015, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate took place in Victorian London and followed twin assassin’s, Jacob and Evie, as they fought to reclaim sections of the game world, per usual for the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Syndicate was met with mostly positive review scores but lax sales which was, most likely, the reason for the delay in the franchise, in addition to continued fallout from the tumultuous reception of 2014’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Ubisoft tried to divide their efforts in 2014 and release two concurrent franchise games: one on last generation machines and one on current gen. The result was a disaster for the current generation title.
Constant glitches and bugs ran rampant in Assassin’s Creed: Unity and it pushed the fanbase and casual fans away. It also explains Syndicate’s disappointing first week sales, though the second week did see an improvement. The launch of Assassin’s Creed: Unity was so detrimental that Ubisoft gave games away as an apology. Anyone who accepted the free game also waved the right to sue Ubisoft for the abhorrent Unity launch. But I digress. The sad fact is that Unity left a sour taste in many consumers’ mouths.
But there’s more to Unity being a broken mess on release. The aforementioned Call of Duty series stumbled its way into the next generation with 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts. This release was plagued with glaring console performance issues - most notably, there were awful PC framerate stutters. Ghosts was also one of the lowest rated Call of Duty game since the franchise went annualized with 7s and 8s. Sales of Call of Duty: Ghosts were also down when compared to the previous year’s entry despite $1 billion worth of copies being shipped to retails stores. Activision blamed the console transition for low sales, but ultimately offered a $10 upgrade for those moving from last to current generation consoles.
Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty, two of the industry’s highest selling games, didn’t fall to franchise fatigue or even a transition to next-generation consoles, because there were plenty of both franchises’ games available on all the platforms. The two juggernaut franchises fell under the weight of their own ambition and their technical misunderstandings of the current generation of video game consoles and PCs. Annualized franchises pushed Ubisoft and Activision into a development cycle where they just couldn’t keep up with the technical and schedule challenges - the franchises were seriously weakened as a result, and the inability to meet deadlines and properly handle the new hardware technology may have done irreparable damage to both franchises.
One way to mediate this is to start anew with a team of developers who have experience with the latest technology. Ubisoft is doing this with their new intellectual property (IP), Watch Dogs, by immediately turning it into a franchise. Activision still has that 10-year contract with Bungie for Destiny content and sequels. Ultimately, we may continue to see a slow decline of Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed games in the foreseeable future.
The reality is that games take years to develop and even with multiple teams working on the same franchise, building a machine that churns out game after game, there are still major challenges that are hard to overcome. Games aren’t an assembly line product with a finite number of parts that can be replicated and bolted together the same way each time. Nothing that requires such a huge amount of artistic and creative talent can be produced in a mechanized factory process. The gaming industry needs to recognize this, or be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over.
