The Assassin's Creed series has changed an awful lot since the first game came out over ten years ago. What once was a rather linear series, based on strong stealth mechanics, has evolved into a string of open-world RPGs that provide a wide variety of gameplay approaches. While it may be hard to think that Ubisoft could make the franchise any bigger than it already is, the company has recently revealed that it will be taking a dive into the world of live-service titles with Assassin's Creed Infinity.
Ubisoft has done what it can to build up as much early hype for Assassin's Creed Infinity as possible, but details on the project are currently very sparse. At this point the company is simply promising something new for the franchise that has never been done before, but many fans are cautious of what this new project could entail. The main source of apprehension is that AC Infinity will employ some kind of live-service model, which has seen varied success in the industry over the last couple of years. There is one thing, however, that Ubisoft could bring back to try and quell some AC Infinity anxieties.
Assassin's Creed's Competitive Multiplayer Mode
Looking at Assassin's Creed's current state, it's hard to believe that the franchise once dabbled in competitive multiplayer. Starting with Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, AC had a unique multiplayer mode that compelled players to outwit their opponents and hide in plain sight to rack up kills or complete other objectives. The mode proved popular enough to be featured in four different AC games, each of them building on the last with colorful characters to play as and interesting locales to hunt for targets. Unfortunately, once AC Unity came around and shifted to a wider open world with online co-op, competitive multiplayer was abandoned.
How Assassin's Creed Infinity Could Use Competitive Multiplayer
Looking forward to Assassin's Creed Infinity, there are a number of questions around what its live-service model will look like exactly. While there have been some connectivity features over the years, Assassin's Creed as a franchise has little in-game interaction between players. This was a very different story when multiplayer was available, but even then, the larger focus was still the singleplayer experience. This kind of format could prove to be an issue with a live-service model, as it seems to work best with competitive multiplayer games and struggles with games that are mostly marketed as singleplayer, such as Marvel's Avengers.
Bringing back competitive multiplayer could help Assassin's Creed Infinity in more ways than one, by melding better with a live-service model, while also helping longtime fans feel more comfortable with this shift for the franchise. It will already be a huge experiment for the franchise, so bringing back an experiment that many fans are already familiar with could make whatever live-service decisions Infinity makes seem more palatable. If competitive multiplayer became a cohesive part of Infinity's core mechanics, consistent updates like new maps and cosmetics could ensure it never leaves the franchise again.
Assassin's Creed Infinity as a project is still rather nebulous at the moment, so it's hard to say exactly what Ubisoft has planned for it. Support is still ongoing for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, as the Discovery Tour update recently became available for fans of the viking adventure. It's possible that fans won't know more about Infinity until support for Valhalla dies down, and it's not entirely clear when that's going to be. For now, it's probably best to temper expectations until next year and see if Ubisoft will be able to pull back the curtain on this ambitious next step for Assassin's Creed.
Assassin's Creed Infinity is currently in development.