Looking from the outside in, Assassin's Creed seems like an interesting historical fiction adventure that sees players take on globe-trotting quests throughout world history. Jumping into the series for the first time, players soon realize that there's an entire meta-narrative based in present day that permeates throughout the series as well. As a concept, it's an interesting juxtaposition of the Assassin-Templar conflict compared to present day; in reality, its execution has become more and more uselessly complex and disappointing.
As the series has marched on annually, and now semi-annually, the modern day story continued while many of the historical locations tied up and moved on to new time periods. While this constant release schedule did in some way affect the Assassin's Creed franchise as a whole, one of the greatest victims was the modern day meta-narrative. The franchise has since seen a great rebirth in the adoption of more RPG-related mechanics, among other improvements, but the series' meta-narrative with Abstergo continues to lag behind.
The Merit of the Modern Day Story
Arguably, the modern day story wasn't always this way and was genuinely interesting for a while. The establishment of the meta-narrative in the first Assassin's Creed and its subsequent continuation in Assassin's Creed 2 onward had an incremental buildup that was relatively enjoyable, even if it took a back seat to the meat of the game. There was merit in using science fiction to justify re-visiting these different points in history because it added context to the stories Desmond was reliving in the Animus. Beyond that, the timeless nature of the Assassins vs. Templars conflict and the doomsday prophecy added a unique aspect of encouragement for players, even when the series didn't need it. Going as far as Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the game's modern day narrative was slow-going, but it had a legitimate rising action.
It wasn't until AC3 where the series seemed to lose control of the complicated narrative each Assassin's Creed game had built up to previously. The games leading up to Assassin's Creed 3 seemed to be setting up Desmond, the protagonist up until Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, to have a heightened importance in the franchise's future. As it turned out, Desmond was instead sacrificed to save the Earth in an unfulfilling and sudden finale. The series basically killed off the protagonist it had been building up as an integral portion of the story. From there, Desmond's progression was largely retconned and the modern day story just petered off.
The Present Day Narrative, Post-Desmond
Part of why the modern day took a backseat to the actual historical assassin gameplay was due to Desmond's death. The game no longer had its central source justifying the journeying into the past in the first place. While initially it seemed the series was setting up Juno as the franchise's next antagonist, she was eventually killed off in a comic book in the extended Assassin's Creed universe, not even in a mainline Assassin's Creed title. Now the more recent Assassin's Creed titles are trying to piece together the present day meta-narrative, but what used to partially be the backbone of the franchise is now over complicating a game about revisiting important era of history in fun, adventurous ways.
Much of the modern day story content in Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Rogue, Unity, and Syndicate takes a very vague, hands-off approach. Likely in an effort to restructure the modern day content to suit a more cohesive and direct story, players take on the role of nameless drones who are literally playing Abstergo "virtual reality games" based on some of Desmond's (and others) DNA history. If hardcore fans were wondering why not many people cared about the Animus or Abstergo, players can likely point them to any of those games as a justification.
Now it seems the series has reintroduced a new protagonist Layla for the present day story. To what end her purpose lies is still vague, considering Layla's story still continues after Assassin's Creed Odyssey. She quickly becomes an Assassin cell leader, beginning the search for First Civilization/Isu artifacts. She eventually finds the Staff of Hermes and is quickly corrupted by its great power and psychological effects. Things are more complicated for the modern day story now compared to any other entry in the Assassin's Creed series prior.
Nix the Animus Project
While at first, this meta-narrative served as an important jumping off point for Assassin's Creed games, now its becoming more of an unneeded complication to the core of the series' plan. It's hard to understand why there's such a strong push by the franchise to continue focusing on the modern-day aspects of the story when the meta-narrative's true purpose cannot be identified. Even the lore that involves the Pieces of Eden, the First Civilization/Isu, and their powerful artifacts are more interesting when incorporated into the historical fiction.
How these artifacts affected key moments in history is what makes Assassin's Creed's story so special. The franchise's story can still include that over-arching plot device without a person in modern day being the catalyst for visiting these moments in history. Assassin's Creed should focus on these moments in history entirely, and weave it into the meta-narrative of Assassins vs. Templars throughout history. The games don't necessarily need the Animus or more specifically Abstergo to achieve the narrative complexity or compelling universe it's trying to craft.
Regardless, even with Odyssey's rather gruesome ending clueing players into what's next for Layla and the modern-day story, it's hard to say players are interested in what comes next. The core of Assassin's Creed has always been about the history, not about the convoluted modern setting that the series seems to be beholden to.
Assassin's Creed Ragnarok is rumored to be in development.