Ubisoft transported gamers to 9th century Scandinavia and England with the release of Assassin's Creed Valhalla in 2020. Every installment of the company's globe-trotting adventure series has been set in a different time period in history, as the story follows the ages-old battle between the peacekeeping Assassins and domineering Templars. Several Assassin's Creed rumors have claimed to know where the franchise could go next, like Edo Period Japan or 14th century France. Both of these historical eras would fit neatly into the game's lore and gameplay, but there are a handful of other potential Assassin's Creed game settings that Ubisoft will hopefully never consider.
While it might seem like any time period could work for the series, some offbeat selections could completely ruin the story and negatively impact the gameplay. While Assassin's Creed has departed from its stealth-action-adventure roots into more of a full-fledged RPG series in Ubisoft's most recent releases, the franchise is still best known for melee combat and sneaky takedown mechanics. Any time period too far into the future, where advanced weaponry and technology would replace steel and armor, would spoil the series' core combat.
On the other side of the spectrum, Assassin's Creed is also known for bustling cities players can use to their advantage and to hide in plain sight. Any setting that's sparsely populated, either because it's either so far back in history that humans hadn't established major settlements or because living conditions don't lend themselves to cities, would lead to a poor entry to the series. Here are the worst possible points in history that an Assassin's Creed game could be set in.
Studies suggest that modern humans began to walk the Earth between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. These prehistoric inhabitants practiced hunting and gathering to sustain themselves, used basic tools made of stone or bone, and lived in caves and huts. Their lives were governed by their endless search for food and by the whims of the environments they lived in. An Assassins Creed game set in this time period would be tedious and boring.
Gameplay would need to be changed into more of a survival game to be historically accurate, and players would be limited to crude weapons like spears. It might be interesting to traverse an open-world where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers roamed free, like in Ubisoft's own Far Cry Primal. Still, the time period's simplicity wouldn't make for a good Assassin's Creed game. Plus, it's estimated that spoken language could have originated as late as 50,000 years ago, so cinematics would consist of mostly grunting and pointing.
The era of the United States' Western expansion took place between the 1850s and the 1910s and has inspired countless books, movies, and games - most recently Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2. The Wild West is undeniably an iconic historical period in the eyes of popular culture, but it doesn't fit the Assassins Creed ethos. That's mostly because melee combat had given way to gunslinging, and scantly populated towns are not a good setting for stealth combat.
RDR2 proved the Wild West could make for a mystifying open-world experience. Even so, releasing a cowboy-themed Assassins Creed after Rockstar's game would draw unwanted comparisons from a marketing standpoint, as AC Valhalla did with God of War.
Both World Wars have been the settings of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of video games, but Assassin's Creed shouldn't follow suit. Ubisoft has included multiple mentions of both conflicts throughout the series, regarding the Assassins and Templars' influence over them. Still, a full game based on either World War would completely alter the franchise's gameplay, in the same vein that a Wild West Assassin's Creed would.
Rifles, heavy artillery, and armored vehicles dominated battlefields at the time, which would turn a World War-set Assassin's Creed into a third-person Call of Duty or Battlefield game. Focusing on wartime espionage is one way Assassin's Creed's stealthy origins could be made to fit the period. Even then, that would make it into more of a riff on Hitman than what fans have come to expect.
An Assassin's Creed game set in modern times would eliminate the main allure of the series, which is traveling back to a different point in history. It would also have to walk a fine line to avoid being a near-replica of Ubisoft's Watch Dogs. The modern age in Assassin's Creed canon already includes highly advanced technology, which allows present-day Assassin's Creed character Layla Hassan to access the genetic memories of Eivor in the 9th century.
Modern technology like that would result in far more ranged combat, like that featured in the Watch Dogs series. Two distinct franchises overlapping aesthetically would be a marketing disaster, since newcomers would have difficulty telling them apart and long-time fans would be put off by their convergence. Ubisoft likely wants to keep gamers interested in both franchises for different reasons, and a modern-day Assassin's Creed would make that difficult.
Finally, an Assassin's Creed game set in the distant future would completely go against the underlying story of the Assassins and Templars battling through history, which has anchored the series since 2007. Projectile weaponry issues would again be present, and advanced sci-fi technology, like cloaking devices and lasers, would further through a wrench in the franchise's gameplay. A cyberpunk setting similar to titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghostrunner could hold some promise for the game's universe, but perhaps not for a mainline Assassin's Creed release.
Ubisoft could branch out and create a spinoff of the series, where the Assassins and Templars' battle has plunged the world into chaos. In a last-ditch attempt to gain control over the world, both factions could engage in an all-out war using cybernetic enhancements and far-future tech to hunt each other down. If fans thought Assassin's Creed Valhalla was a departure from the series' traditional formula, this would be a completely new game.
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