This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
What will the next Assassin’s Creed game be? At the time of writing, we don’t know, which is an odd position to be in for fans of this particular franchise. The game is set to release in 2020, which means that Ubisoft is still trying to play its cards close to the chest.
That doesn’t mean the rumor mill isn’t hard at work trying to decipher the setting of the next installment. And, as with many of recent Assassin’s Creed games, a few unfortunate leaks have made the new game the worst kept secret in the games biz.
If you’re looking for all the info that is currently available about the next Assassin’s Creed game, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll run through everything we know, from a tease within another Ubisoft title to rumors and rumblings from around the web.
Bear in mind that Ubisoft hasn’t announced anything official as of yet, so you’ll have to take some of the following with a grain of salt…
Assassin’s Creed 2020 Setting: Viking Era
The first proper tease for the next Assassin’s Creed game appeared in another Ubisoft title, 2019’s multiplayer shooter The Division 2. Despite sharing a publisher, these games have very little in common, but that didn’t stop Ubisoft from sneaking an Assassin’s Creed clue into its premier loot shooter.
Within The Division 2‘s Potomac Event Center, gamers discovered a poster, which shows a historical figure holding onto an artifact that looks a lot like the Apple of Eden from the Assassin’s Creed series. The poster’s title, “Valhalla,” points to the Norse religion that was popular in Viking times.
It seems like a pretty clear tease from Ubisoft that the next Assassin’s Creed game will be set in the Viking era. This belief has been backed up by the usually-reliable website Kotaku, which claims that two well-informed sources have confirmed the Viking setting.
Assassin’s Creed 2020 Title: The Rumour Mill Likes “Ragnarok”
But what will this new Assassin’s Creed game be called? At the moment, we don’t know for sure, but there are loads of rumors floating around the web. For instance, the aforementioned Kotaku report about the Valhalla poster claims that the next Assassin’s Creed game is being developed under the codename “Kingdom.”
One rumor – which made its way to ResetEra – claimed that the next game in the series will be called Assassin’s Creed Ragnarok. This has become a popular moniker on the web, but it’s worth pointing out that the “leaked screenshots” that complemented the rumor have since been debunked as fake.
Meanwhile, plenty of fans have taken to simply calling the game Assassin’s Creed Vikings. Until we know for sure what Ubisoft is planning on officially calling it, Vikings might be the simplest name to use in casual conversation.
Assassin’s Creed 2020 Gameplay: Might It Have Co-op?
Although those fake screenshots give us good reason to doubt the Ragnarok rumor, it’s unclear if the entire post was fan-made fiction or if there were any nuggets of truth in there. After all, the rumor does raise some interesting possibilities: the ResetEra summary tells us that there will be “large scale conquest battles” included in the upcoming title and that co-op gameplay “is returning, and can be used in most side quests and world exploration.”
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In terms of story details, this particular rumor also suggests that this new game will take a protagonist called Ragnar Lodbrok (who’s named after the historical figure that Travis Fimmel plays in TV’s Vikings) to locations such as Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. If this rumor turns out to be true, expect to see a focus on exploration with plenty of RPG elements.
Assassin’s Creed 2020 Release Date: Will It Really Be Next Year?
Both the ResetEra rumor summary and the report from Kotaku agree that the next Assassin’s Creed game will launch in 2020. If this is true, it would make 2019 the first year in franchise history without a single installment, whether it be in the main series or the spinoffs.
There could be a benefit to Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed skipping 2019, though: with the PS5 believed to be launching in 2020 at the earliest and Microsoft’s next-gen plans yet to be formally announced, holding off until next year could allow the next Assassin’s Creed game to launch as a cross-generational title that will span the current crop of consoles and the mysterious next generation.
Also, let’s not forget that Ubisoft is also partnered with Google on the upcoming Stadia platform, which aims to bring console-free gaming and online game streaming into the mainstream. Stadia is set to launch in the second half of 2019, which would allow a 2020 release for the next Assassin’s Creed game to be a key moment in Stadia’s first year on the market. Might we even see some Stadia-exclusive extra content? We’ll just have to wait and see, of course.
Assassin’s Creed 2020 News: We Could Learn More at E3
Speaking of official announcements, there’s one event coming very soon that could provide the perfect opportunity for Ubisoft to lift the lid on its next Assassin’s Creed game: the E3 2019 conference, which takes place in Los Angeles this June, is an ideal time to make a big splash.
Ubisoft has already nabbed its place on the E3 2019 schedule, announcing a press conference that will take place on Monday, June 10 at 4 pm ET. If they’re planning to announce the next Assasin’s Creed game in the near future, Ubisoft would be wise to pick this press conference as the time to do it, since the entire gaming press and heaps of fans will be watching this presentation closely.
If and when Ubisoft does drop some details about the next Assassin’s Creed game, we’ll be sure to keep you furnished with all the latest, and we’ll update this article with official information when we have it. In the meantime, feel free to leave your own wishlist for the future of this franchise in the comments below…
