In March of this year, Ubisoft announced the formation of a new $4 billion subsidiary, with Tencent providing 25% of the financial backing. This new division will focus exclusively on the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises. What happens to the rest of Ubisoft or it's IPs is unclear though. If Assassin's Creed Shadows ends up underperforming, it could mean Ubisoft will have to sell some of it's IP to other companies like EA or Microsoft as rumoured or move more brands like the rest of Tom Clancy's to the new subsidiary. For now, the focus is Assassin's Creed.
Following these recent developments, reliable insider Tom Henderson has reported that internal timelines have shifted. The updated roadmap thus looks like Jade (mobile game set in China) this year, Invictus (a Fall Guys inspired multiplayer with 5 year support) and Obsidian (a Black Flag remake) in 2026, Hexe (a smaller game) in 2027, Scarlet (the next major game pitched as Nebula by Ubisoft Sofia) in 2028, Stardust (possible a remake of the original) and Emerald (another multiplayer with 5 year support) in 2029, and another major game and remake in 2029 and 2030 respectively.
Lessons from the narrative
With new games already in development, it can take some lessons from Shadows and it's direct predecessors. First would be return to a linear narrative. In Shadows, players are tasked with eliminating several factions across Japan, including the Shinbakufu, yet the storylines of Naoe and Yasuke are never brought together again after splitting them up in Act 3. Especially Naoe's arc feels incomplete, as there is no resolution to it in the third act. Returning to a structured narrative format -as seen in earlier titles that used "Sequences" as chapters- would provide a better flowing story arc.
The second lesson would be recentering the Assassin and Templar conflict. After being largely absent in the last four titles, Shadows reintroduced the Assassin Brotherhood, but only in passing. The game follows Naoe, the daughter of Japan’s last Assassins, but lacks any direct Templar confrontation. Instead, the confrontations happen with Yasuke. Moreover, Valignano is confirmed by other media as a Templar, but still roaming free. In the end of the base game, there was no central conflict that brought everything together and instead it felt like there was a conclusion missing.
The third lesson would be reintroducing Pieces of Eden and a modern day storyline to tie it together. While Shadows featured the Imperial Regalia as potential stand-ins for a Piece of Eden, its significance was never fully explored, nor where they all recovered. And aside from a few lore dumps, it didn't feature a modern-day story either. Earlier entries used the Pieces to drive both past and present storylines, offering a central objective for all factions. A new modern day narrative can be told through cutscenes, as seen in Unity and Syndicate, preserving immersion without leaving the game.
Lessons from the mechanics
Since Origins, Assassin’s Creed has leaned heavily into RPG mechanics, including character levels, gear progression, and skill trees. However, they also introduced limiting factors. The new games could tone on these, with the first being the XP system. Often, this leads to level caps. In Shadows, a low-level Yasuke could venture into a high level region and be instantly killed by a drunken samurai, but a few seasons and missions of grinding later Yasuke can easily dispatch the same enemy with little effort. Even though Yasuke is still the same giant that everybody already says he is.
Elements that go hand in hand with the character level system, are gear and skill trees. Different pieces of gear grant several buffs or adds modifiers, but only when the player has an high enough level to wear it. For skill trees, a certain level has to be reached as well. In Shadows this new ''knowledge rank'' is reached when enough collectibles have been found. So, instead of deleting collectibles Ubisoft is infamous for, this optional content is now made mandatory for progression. Scrapping these elements would mean the grind Ubisoft titles have become known for are a thing of the past.
Conclusion
So, whether it’s the smaller Hexe -set during the 16th-century European witch hunts, or the larger Scarlet -rumoured to span the Aztec Empire, Mediterranean, and India (likely referring to the Americas) during the age of Conquistadors, future entries could bring back a linear story, a revived Assassin-Templar rivalry, and the Pieces of Eden. However, with the modern-day plotline being very convoluted, Ubisoft might consider bringing back the in-universe's solution to the global catastrophe proposed by the Isu that aimed for travel through time, effectively allowing a timeline reset.