John-ShepardIf they plan on turning Assassin's Creed into an annual franchise like Call of Duty and Madden , we'd like to issue a warning to Ubisoft.
Not that we don't love the AC series – 'cuz we really do – and it's not that we wouldn't want a new title every year; it's just that we wonder if they can maintain that high level of quality in such a short span of time, year in and year out. We haven't been sure if Ubisoft would attempt another installment in 2011 but it appears they will:
In speaking to MCV , publisher CEO Yves Guillemot said a new Assassin's Creed will indeed arrive in 2011 and it'll be "something interesting around the…brand." That statement concerns us just a tad, because we think the gameplay is pretty damn awesome the way it is; they can give us a new protagonist and a new setting, but messing with a winning formula… That would be vexing. By the way, in that same interview, Guillemot expressed his ambition to vault over either EA or Activision (or both) on the global video game publisher scale of power.
"We are the number three company in the world on our own – and our goal is to beat those guys. We got from number 25 to number three, so we think we can continue and that it is possible. It’s not certain, of course, but we are taking the steps that we think will get us there."
And Assassin's Creed is one of the biggest reasons why Ubisoft is in the position they're in; we just want them to remember that this is due to AC's quality. So don't let that go away.