Future Assassin’s Creed Games Will Not All Be 150-Hour RPGs

Future games in the Assassin’s Creed series will vary in length, and not all will follow the open-world RPG template that has defined the series since 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins.

[RaidenBlack]

Good to know, AC Hexe won't be an RPG. “A very different type of Assassin’s Creed game”, they said.
Looks like AC Hexe is the more interesting one of the two.
AC Project Red, however, will still be an AC RPG.

[TallDarknWavy]

What publishers need to understand is we'll do the 150 hours as long as it's good, which making 150 hours actually good is very difficult. What we've been seeing is enormous filler, time wasters, mediocre mission design, repetitive dull missions (Avengers anyone?) and empty open worlds that are made to be huge but not engaging or interesting, just dead and lifeless.

[CobraKai]

150 hour games been a huge turn off for me. I feel like at that length, even with just completing the main story, games become a chore.

[ClayRules2012]

I agree, it really does.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

Ubisoft has a good way of filling a game with bloat

[AzubuFrost]

I remember reading a quote saying, "Keep it short but sweet." with a hidden secondary statement, "at a reasonable price of course."

[neutralgamer1992]

That's how they can sell XP boosters

[SyntheticForm]

Linear games can't make the money that OW's can.

With open-world games every single bit of terrain; hill, mountain, road, forest, rocky outcropping, tower, etc is designed with microtransactions in mind. The larger the play area the more you can exploit the player's low patience with 'shortcut' microtransactions. Don't want to grind all day farming ore that respawns after 2 nights? Buy our "time savers" pack for 2000 Helix Credits for X USD.

Ubisoft are absolute blood suckers whether you enjoy their games or not.

[sourOG]

Yes Ty. I heard mirage is a love letter to AC1 and I’m kinda hyped about that.

AC brotherhood is my favorite AC game. A modern take on that formula would be dope.

[Espangerish]

AC brotherhood was a great game for sure. I’ve always felt the assassin theme was best suited to the historical period of 1 though. Problem is that the game itself wasn’t great. Revisiting that time with updated game mechanics is a great move i think.

[sourOG]

I loved AC1 there was nothing like it at the time. I agree. Updated mechanics but not a 300 hour adventure like the recent ones. I liked valhalla but i really feel brotherhood is the sweet spot. AC1 with brotherhood mechanics and pacing.

[chicken_in_the_corn]

Good. Valhalla was excessive. You can a better story with a shorter game too.

[RedDevils]

Do it like Uncharted not too long, not too short.

[MrVux000]

*50 hour games with 100+ hours of unimaginative filler*

[Lionsguard]

I used to enjoy 50hr+ epic games with huge worlds but Odyssey took it way too far. I've yet to even start Valhalla or Origins because I just dont want to be mired in an oversized world again.
Just a side note: I still love super large worlds but they have to be varied with different biomes, Odyssey was just more or less Greece and a single biome, it became very tiresome and I'm afraid Valhalla and Origins is just just forests and sand.

[tarekhaig]

I'm still playing unity 😅

[Espangerish]

Odyssey is essentially a reskinned Origins. Game played exactly the same, a few core activities repeated a thousand times over and yes you are right the environments don’t vary much at all. There is a cookie cutter feel to the forts and towns. After origins I’ve struggled to finish odyssey for this reason.

[MeatyUrologist]

How far did you get in Odyssey? I'm just curious because I thought it had some of the most diverse set of biomes I had seen in a game. It had autumn forests, snowy mountains, tropical islands, deserts, swamps, rocky cliffs, salt flats, clay mines, caves, flowering spring forests, etc. When you mix in some of the more out there mythological locations, I thought the exploration was great.
.I think the problem with odyssey was more the size and the grind. You had do dozens of side missions to level up enough to do the main story, and even then you had to sail for what felt like 10 minutes just to reach other locations. It really killed the pacing.

[Profchaos]

Thankful for this simply bloating the map and padding out the story was the reason I couldn't finish Valhalla

[Yi-Long]

I don’t mind long games as long as the world you’re in is fun, beautiful and interesting. One of the best ways to add longevity is lots of well-executed mini-games and (interesting and worthwhile) collectables, which reward you for your involvement, and adding a base/town building aspect, where you have free reign in what you build, how it looks, and which characters/NPC’s you invite in there (think DQ Builders 2, but more expansive).

Imagine at/near the end of AC Project Red, a shogun rewards you with your own piece of land, where you’ll be allowed to build the village/town you want, with all the different building blocks and architecture and plants and animals and whatever which can be found around that open world. Post-game consists of meeting up with old friends you’ve made along the way, finding new quests, new rewards, etc etc. Really being allowed to build something of your own inside that world Ubisoft created.

For example, how cool would it have been if RDR2 had a farm-building simulator for John where you had your family and farm, and the nearby town and sherif would drop by to ask for some help for bounties, the stores in town would ask for some special fish you had to catch, or some rare animal skins, and in return you’d unlock new stuff for your tiny farm and land, and expand it.

[Espangerish]

I liked the rebooted format at first but burned out on it during odyssey. The games were just too repetitive and far far too long so that they got very stale for me.

Relieved the series is taking a new direction. Cautiously optimistic now.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Which open world games other than The Witcher 3 that don't have bloat, filler and repetitive quests? Everyone gives Ubisoft a hard time, but all the other developers are following them to a T.

[MGRogue2017]

Stop complaining about lack of content, or wanting the games to be shorter in length. Plenty of Assassins Creed fans out there actually want more content in their AC games. In fact they don't want their games to end, hence on why there's so many DLC packs for extra gameplay experiences that the fans keep on purchasing and enjoying, otherwise the developers wouldn't bother spending the time making them all. As long as the sidequest stuff is interesting enough, fans will gladly enjoy it all.

The extra non-main story content is there for you to enjoy if you'd like. If not, simply stick to the main story until the very end, and then move onto the next game if you'd like more of the same in new locations.

What Ubisoft won't do is break the familiar gameplay formula, or fix what isn't broken. You'll likely find that this Assassin's Creed Mirage is fairly similar to the previous three entries, with some new features thrown in to keep veteran players coming back... So if similarity and repetitiveness with missions (kill that guy, fetch this for me that person, stalk that person, etc) doesn't interest you, best give this one a miss.

[MeatyUrologist]

I feel like there are ways to satisfy both crowds. Personally I love long large games that reward exploration. I like shorter, focused game crammed with detail, but I can also get behind huge, open world games that reward exploration.

I think it boils down to a few things, first; keeping meaningful missions and avoiding time killing filler. Second if the world is going to be large, keep it detailed and interesting. Lastly, make the main story shorter and not require grinding. That way those that cring at the thought of putting 100 hours into a game can knock it out in 20-30 and those that are really into it can take their time..

Personally AC Odyssey was one of my favorite games of all time. The only thing I think holding it back was the grind (which required you to do dozens of side missions to level up enough to progress the story), and the size of the world being a tad too large. I don't think we should kill off large open world games, I just think they need to focus on the important things.

[andron]

When they gonna remaster the first AC, only game missing from modern platforms...

[Demetrius]

So basically they’re working on 3 ac titles hopefully they are all worth the price smh back in the day this would be epic news but nowadays Ubisoft is a on a mediocre journey with the bs they been on 🤦‍♂️