According to Ubisoft Montreal boss Yannis Mallat, Assassin’s Creed fans enjoy the franchise’s yearly release schedule.
Mallat was asked whether the yearly release cycle will cause in fans to grow sick of the series. “No. The players will tell us. Right now there are more and more coming into the franchise, so I don’t see that day. It’s our breakthrough. When you have quality content, the frequency of coming out with the game is not an issue at all. On the contrary, people expect more and more of that content. So it’s natural to be able to provide that content. The gamers are happy and it’s our job to make them happy.”
Mallat said that its not the fans who need the break but the developers who really need some time off. Thanks to the many Ubisoft developer studios that’s possible even though a new game releases every year.
“When we say we are annualising the franchise, we don’t say the teams only have one year to work on a project. Assassin’s Creed is mature enough in terms of reaching the critical mass of players and community, but also in terms of envisioning enough content for years to come, and in terms of technology to sustain all that. And more importantly, it’s mature enough in growing the talent and the core teams so we can have several core teams working on the next one and other projects on the brand.”
“That’s why every Assassin’s Creed has one dedicated core team working more than one year on their projects. We call that a roadmap. It takes into account the creative content – the settings, the where and what – the technology and the team. We have several teams. So they are resting. The team that has delivered Assassin’s Creed 3, they’re not working on Black Flag. They’re resting. They are refreshing their minds and then working on something else that is not announced.”
