Ubisoft said that AC is a franchise with annual releases which is all part of the triple-A process.
Assassin’s Creed 3 creative director Alex Hutchinson said that Assassins Creed is a franchise like Resident Evil or Mario and that the annual release of an Assassins Creed game has no consequences for the game itself. He explains that the annual release is a part of a triple-A process.
“Since when is something less amazing if you get a new one every year?. If Breaking Bad was shown twice a week I’d watch it twice a week. If Radiohead put out an album every six months I’d gladly buy one every six months.”
“If people want these massive triple-A blockbusters, people will have to accept that we have to make our money back somehow. It’s rare that you’ll make your money back on the first one. Assassin’s Creed 3 is a huge undertaking – we went back to basics on a number of things, including tech. Any revenue that a publisher can get to make riskier projects is cool with me. People say it’s the dark side of capitalism but it’s more like communism; we have big projects whose success pay for the little projects.”
Assassin’s Creed is not seen as a trilogy by Ubisoft, it a big franchise for the publisher. “We were reading reviews about Assassin’s Creed Revelations and a few people were asking whether this was the end of the franchise, and we were thinking ‘er slow down’. I mean, I’m no huge fan of Metacritic but the game got an eighty on there. That’s not too bad really.”
“The way we see Assassin’s Creed 3 now is as a franchise, like Mario or Resident Evil, that will have its ups and downs. It wasn’t the original plan to be an ongoing series, no, but it became the plan. The curse of success, for want of better phrase. But if you can keep a series interesting and fresh then I don’t see why it shouldn’t go on. Nintendo has been great at reinvigorating their franchises, as have other Japanese companies, so we feel we can too.”
■ Jensen6
