Word hit the gaming community earlier this week that Ubisoft would be making an official announcement regarding the Assassin's Creed franchise and at last, our theories and speculation regarding Assassin's Creed III were affirmed.

Leaked artwork revealed a potential new Native American protagonist for Assassin's Creed III, later confirmed by the upcoming Game Informer cover issue, later made official with Ubisoft revealing the official box cover art for the game. Now, more leaked images reveal the first in-game screenshots for Assassin's Creed III.

The screenshots offer our best look yet at the more open environments, snow-covered hills and treetops that the game will offer as it moves to 18th Century America. We also get to see a series of British soldiers and one of the game's towns.

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Ubisoft promises a full reveal on Monday which we hope will include details on the new protagonist and his ancestral origins. What we can say is that by moving the series to America for the Revolutionary War, Ubisoft has so much to play with in terms of characters, stories, locations and new game mechanics. We can already see from the images so far some firearms, tomahawks and bow and arrows.

The American Revolution setting was rumored not long ago, but even before that, we listed it before Revelations came out as one of our four ideas for Assassin's Creed 3's setting. Ubisoft promises Assassin's Creed 3 will be the franchise's biggest game yet and after seeing the new imagery, combined with this sweet first look at the game, I think many fans can start putting their concerns of a rushed game to rest. With the game coming in October, less than a year since Assassin's Creed Revelations, some were worried AC would go the way of Call of Duty, but Ubisoft has a large amount of development houses working on this project who have been working on ACIII for three years now.

[Update: Check out these new Assassin's Creed 3 gameplay details and the first trailer]

Assassin’s Creed 3 releases on October 30, 2012, for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

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Source: Game Informer (via All Games Beta)