Ubisoft continues to expand and grow their award-winning and widely successful Assassin’s Creed universe. Just last year, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Gold, their first dive into a new multimedia format of storytelling beyond the already established novels and comics. And, clearly, Ubisoft doesn’t intend to stop there.
Multiple novels, comics, manga (now dubbed illustrated fiction), and audio plays have just been announced; more projects are expected throughout the year. After all, Ubisoft has studios all over the globe, and they finally seem to be tapping into their international market. The bulk of this particular announcement seems to come from Asian creators. This is refreshing news for the Assassin’s Creed universe, hopefully as an opportunity to have more diverse storytelling and characters — a shortcoming in the series that desperately needs to be filled.
With the growing size of its universe, Assassin’s Creed has now divided its stories into three categories:
- Classics: direct adaptations based on stories from the videogames.
- Chronicles: new adventures featuring favorite iconic Assassins.
- Originals: new narratives featuring new protagonists and time periods.
As the games evolve into a more customizable RPG experience, Assassin’s Creed now needs to differentiate between player canon and Ubisoft canon. This will mostly be seen within the Classics category and the most recent games. Both AC: Odyssey and AC: Valhalla had different leads based on player choice, and it will be interesting to see which leads Ubisoft decide to “officially” stick with, or if they end up alternating.
Missing from this announcement was any updates on the Netflix live-action Assassin’s Creed. The series was reported to be in development back in October 2020. Since then, neither Ubisoft nor Netflix has given updates. With a Ubisoft Forward scheduled for Saturday June 12 at 12pm PT during E3 2021, further Assassin’s Creed universe news is likely.
A more detailed list of the announced Assassin’s Creed projects can be found here on the Ubisoft blog.
