Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag “on track” to avoid franchise fatigue, says director

Now that Assassin’s Creed seems to have officially turned into an annual franchise, Ubisoft Montreal has quite the quandary on its hands – how to stop the series going the way of so many other sequelised games, garnering les and less interest with each iteration.

“I think we have proven that this franchise is relevant, and that it has a long way to go. Our job as developers of this new opus is to surprise players and bring fresh, different ideas, while at the same time making sure that what makes AC such a standout franchise remains intact,” Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag creative director Jean Guesdon told OXM.

“With the scale and scope of the world we are building, the completely new setting, the new gameplay mechanics, and our new characters (both our hero and his supporting cast), we are definitely on track to get the job done and avoid fatigue altogether.”

Black Flag’s hero has familial ties to Assassin’s Creed 3′s Connor, and Guesdon said that while the team planned “right off the bat” to have a new setting and hero, the decision to break out a new numbered title was made when the gameplay began to differentiate from the series to date.

“But when it comes to that number 4 – very early on in the project, when we started to realize the scope, freshness and innovation of what we had with the Piracy setting, we knew it was going to be a whole different beast of its own. With the way the world is built, all the new mechanics tied to sailing and exploring the Caribbean, on top of the brand new character, there is much on our hands that is completely different from AC3. And to us, that’s what it takes to make the leap to a new numbered game.”

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is due in late October.

Source: OXM

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