Assassin's Creed Infinity

P

polonyc2

Fully [H]
Joined
Oct 25, 2004
Messages
25,803
Assassin's Creed Infinity will turn the series into a live-service game with multiple historical settings

The next AC game aptly codenamed Assassin's Creed Infinity is set to be a live-service game that will evolve and expand over time, according to a new report from Bloomberg...instead of it being one isolated look into a historical period, Infinity is instead looking to stitch different settings together with room to expand and develop each one post-launch...Bloomberg says Ubisoft has been inspired by the longevity of games like Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto 5, which continue to make Epic Games and Rockstar a stupid amount of money

following the report, Ubisoft posted a separate blog post confirming that the game is in development, along with providing a bit of additional context...

https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/arti...d-the-future-of-the-assassins-creed-franchise

RIP Assassin's Creed
 
Last edited:
They were already treating Odyssey and Valhalla as live services. Drip feeding content on both instead of normal worthwhile expansions. I aptly ignored both after finishing the core game.
Live service is a plague on the gaming industry and I can't wait for it to die.
 
Chasing the success of outliers like those games rarely goes well and it's generally not a question of throwing resources at the project like some execs seem to think. All the game companies chasing Fortnite's success reminds of everyone trying to make the next WOW about a decade ago.

As much as I hate what they've done with GTA 5 Online Rockstar was at least smart with their approach, first they made a story driven SP game that was good enough to be profitable by itself and then took the assets from that to make a micro transaction ridden online version that they could add to if it managed to be popular. It doesn't seem like the RDR online portion has been as successful but the SP portion has still made them a ton of money since they didn't skimp on that.

Unfortunately it sounds like they're skipping making a fully fleshed out base game and are going to dole out content piecemeal to milk it for as much as possible. In fact it almost sounds like they plan to make a basic framework to sell a bunch of dlc for, which makes some sense when you look at how poor of a value dlc usually is however most people buy dlc more because it adds to a game they enjoyed than because of the gameplay it adds. The MT stuff doesn't work for SP games and the AC series doesn't really lend itself to being an online MP game but I suppose that doesn't mean they won't do either of those things anyway.
 
Infinity is technically a good game to turn into live-service as every AC game is basically the same outside of a new historical setting and main characters...I hope the attention to detail in the various cities does not get dumbed down as that was one of the best parts of the series
 
Last edited:
I like the concept in theory. It works in MMO's, GTA Online, and titles like Destiny that have seasonal updates. Plus the last few AC games have been so massive and repetitious they would have been better with less initial content and more varied updates. Trick is, it's Ubisoft. I'm sure they'll find a way to make the concept annoying.
 
Domingo said:
I like the concept in theory. It works in MMO's, GTA Online, and titles like Destiny that have seasonal updates. Plus the last few AC games have been so massive and repetitious they would have been better with less initial content and more varied updates. Trick is, it's Ubisoft. I'm sure they'll find a way to make the concept annoying.
Click to expand...
I don't know how can you overlook the fact that all money printing live service games are multiplayer. A single player game you play and you finish, you don't keep playing it after you completed it, well at least the vast majority doesn't. If they released one huge expansion that adds to the story every year that is a much better opportunity to make money than trying to keep players in the game indefinitely spending on microtransactions.
 
M76 said:
I don't know how can you overlook the fact that all money printing live service games are multiplayer. A single player game you play and you finish, you don't keep playing it after you completed it, well at least the vast majority doesn't. If they released one huge expansion that adds to the story every year that is a much better opportunity to make money than trying to keep players in the game indefinitely spending on microtransactions.
Click to expand...

So far they're mostly multiplayer games, although Destiny walks the line and is 1/2 SP game. Based on what their new release (and the leaks) say, it very well could be expansions instead of microtransactions. Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are very similar games that take place in different regions. They're also flat-out gigantic and most people only see a fraction of. Based on the trophy/achievement statistics, a small fraction. They could save money by making those core games much smaller and offering seasonal updates. That would cut down on development time and let multiple dev teams work on different parts of the same game concurrently. It's basically a game that gets "sequels" on a regular basis but is still one title at its core. Or, Ubi could be Ubi and screw it all up. I just know that right now Ubi makes giant games that people are only scratching the surface of. They're also notoriously repetitious. I'd rather have them shrink 'em and give me sequel-like updates every 6-12 months instead of a bloated new $60 sequel every 2 years.
 
If this series were still primarily assassination based I would have been interested. Sadly now that its evolved into a 'witcher 3 lite', they'll really have to impress to get attention from the people who preferred the stealth/planning mechanics of the original games.
 
Domingo said:
So far they're mostly multiplayer games, although Destiny walks the line and is 1/2 SP game. Based on what their new release (and the leaks) say, it very well could be expansions instead of microtransactions. Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are very similar games that take place in different regions. They're also flat-out gigantic and most people only see a fraction of. Based on the trophy/achievement statistics, a small fraction. They could save money by making those core games much smaller and offering seasonal updates. That would cut down on development time and let multiple dev teams work on different parts of the same game concurrently. It's basically a game that gets "sequels" on a regular basis but is still one title at its core. Or, Ubi could be Ubi and screw it all up. I just know that right now Ubi makes giant games that people are only scratching the surface of. They're also notoriously repetitious. I'd rather have them shrink 'em and give me sequel-like updates every 6-12 months instead of a bloated new $60 sequel every 2 years.
Click to expand...
But what you are describing would not be a live service but a game that gets new regions / time periods as expansions. There would be nothing wrong with that.
 
M76 said:
I don't know how can you overlook the fact that all money printing live service games are multiplayer. A single player game you play and you finish, you don't keep playing it after you completed it, well at least the vast majority doesn't. If they released one huge expansion that adds to the story every year that is a much better opportunity to make money than trying to keep players in the game indefinitely spending on microtransactions.
Click to expand...

the AC series would be a perfect fit for multiplayer...multiple player assassins roaming their huge sandbox world...but maybe the Hitman developers would sue Ubisoft :D
 
I don't even see the point. If you want to do a new historical region it will take forever and cost a lot. Might as well make it a separate game, with new improvements and the like. Only thing I can see is they want to do shorter games in regions that they think might not sell as much (Asia, Africa outside of the Mediterranean?). In which case they can always do those as separate, smaller games and charge less. Like Assassin's Creed Rogue. Not every game needs to be 80+ hours.

But it sounds more like an MMO to be. In which case I am not interested. Valhalla was okay, just repetitive and soulless.
 
polonyc2 said:
the AC series would be a perfect fit for multiplayer...multiple player assassins roaming their huge sandbox world...but maybe the Hitman developers would sue Ubisoft :D
Click to expand...
LOL, a multi player game where players rarely if ever meet might as well be single player.
 
M76 said:
LOL, a multi player game where players rarely if ever meet might as well be single player.
Click to expand...

Previous games in the series did have multiplayer but obviously the modes were designed around MP.
 
Basically you don't own anything when you play the game unless you keep coming back for the graphics.
Multiplayer would be interesting though PVP or something.
 
Domingo said:
So far they're mostly multiplayer games, although Destiny walks the line and is 1/2 SP game. Based on what their new release (and the leaks) say, it very well could be expansions instead of microtransactions. Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla are very similar games that take place in different regions. They're also flat-out gigantic and most people only see a fraction of. Based on the trophy/achievement statistics, a small fraction. They could save money by making those core games much smaller and offering seasonal updates. That would cut down on development time and let multiple dev teams work on different parts of the same game concurrently. It's basically a game that gets "sequels" on a regular basis but is still one title at its core. Or, Ubi could be Ubi and screw it all up. I just know that right now Ubi makes giant games that people are only scratching the surface of. They're also notoriously repetitious. I'd rather have them shrink 'em and give me sequel-like updates every 6-12 months instead of a bloated new $60 sequel every 2 years.
Click to expand...
If you're going to call Destiny "½ SP game," then you may as well call every MMO game ever released the same.
 
  • Like
Reactions: M76
like this
Armenius said:
If you're going to call Destiny "½ SP game," then you may as well call every MMO game ever released the same.
Click to expand...

In general, I don't like games that try to be a bit of both. I'm fine with a game offering both SP and MP but they need to be defined and separate of each other. Not the odd mixture of both.
 
IMO, Destiny (1 and 2) = mostly a single player game with other people running around doing single-player stuff, too. Raids and Crucible are (obviously) true multiplayer parts of the game, but they're sectioned off like a different game. I know some MMO's let you go at it alone, but Destiny doesn't really have much outside those modes. You don't really coordinate with people in the regular game outside of the occasional random world event. Assassin's Creed could probably do that if they felt like it. You're already murdering people by the thousands so having hordes of assassins running around wouldn't make it any less realistic.
 
vegeta535 said:
That is a big NOPE for me. Has any live service game even had any success outside of f2p ones?
Click to expand...
I mean I get a lot of the hate on live service games after some of them were major flops (cough Anthem cough) but are we really ignoring the really successful ones like the Division and Destiny series?

I'm not saying this next AC game sounds like a great plan, I'm just saying it doesn't necessarily mean it's dead before it even got announced. The basic concept actually makes some sense, it's the EXECUTION that really makes or breaks it rather than just being "live service"
 
Colonel Sanders said:
...are we really ignoring the really successful ones like the Division and Destiny series?
Click to expand...

The successful ones that initially didn't face much in the way of competition. How's that working out for Division 2 and Destiny 2?

Colonel Sanders said:
I'm not saying this next AC game sounds like a great plan, I'm just saying it doesn't necessarily mean it's dead before it even got announced. The basic concept actually makes some sense, it's the EXECUTION that really makes or breaks it rather than just being "live service"
Click to expand...

At least you know what you will be getting upfront. What is offensive with paid for live service games is that its usually an excuse to deliver a broken half developed shell stuffed with obnoxious F2P mechanics and microtransactions. If its free you haven't wasted a purchase and can choose whether and how much time/money you want to invest in it after having tried the game, with full knowledge of the F2P/P2W mechanics.
 
I still don't understand what they're going to do with Infinity...start out with 1 historical setting and then it will jump to another one with a new content update?...I like the way they currently do it especially with the 2 year gap between games...focus on one historical setting/city- release 2-3 major DLC and move on...the yearly release was too much but this live-service model is taking it to another bad extreme
 
MavericK said:
Knowing Ubisoft this will be a $60+ game with tons of microtransactions and "season pass" bullshit.
Click to expand...
Nah they'll probably give us a break and make it $40 for the base content, of course it will likely only be 10-20% of the normal content. Expansions will be smaller than that and cost $20-30 and they'll have a ton of weapon and armor packs for sale to make up for having little variety in the base game.

Since the add-ons will be the big money maker for them I doubt they'll have a season pass for the expansions but they might have one for weapon/armor packs or for MP maps that are tacked on to push microtransactions. They will likely have a deluxe version of some sort it might include the first expansion or two but there won't likely be a price break other than an exclusive* in game item or two being thrown in.

This is assuming they stick with this game as a service plan and don't turn it into primarily a MP game.

*Exclusive until they repackage the game in a GOTY, Complete Collection, or Remastered edition.
 
MavericK said:
Knowing Ubisoft this will be a $60+ game with tons of microtransactions and "season pass" bullshit.
Click to expand...
That is Odyssey and Valhalla, this will be something much worse. Most likely just an empty sandbox for "future live content expansions"
 
M76 said:
That is Odyssey and Valhalla, this will be something much worse. Most likely just an empty sandbox for "future live content expansions"
Click to expand...

To be honest, I'm not even sure what they're going for. Even if they add in more regions and stories the effort will be the same. You still need to hire the voice actors, make the new props, animation new characters and design new weapons and maps.

Maybe they've hit a wall with how bloated and long the games have become (and therefore development costs) and don't want to reduce the size/length to avoid backlash. Because if they're doing "season expansion packs", I assume the length will be more on par with an Assassin's Creed game from 5 or so years back. Might just be Ubisoft's attempt to spin shortening game size in a "positive light". I put that in quotes, because if true, their marketing approach is awful and makes it sound like an MMO.

Suppose we'll have to wait and see. In any case I think this is the wrong direction for a series that is supposed to be story based.
 
Ubisoft is hell bent on running this franchise into the ground. I want to be upset about it, but I'm not sure I even really care anymore. Black Flag was the last truly great Assassins Creed game. This just lets me finally lay to rest a franchise that I've spent the last 5 iterations thinking "why did I buy this?"
 
Flogger23m said:
To be honest, I'm not even sure what they're going for. Even if they add in more regions and stories the effort will be the same. You still need to hire the voice actors, make the new props, animation new characters and design new weapons and maps.

Maybe they've hit a wall with how bloated and long the games have become (and therefore development costs) and don't want to reduce the size/length to avoid backlash. Because if they're doing "season expansion packs", I assume the length will be more on par with an Assassin's Creed game from 5 or so years back. Might just be Ubisoft's attempt to spin shortening game size in a "positive light". I put that in quotes, because if true, their marketing approach is awful and makes it sound like an MMO.

Suppose we'll have to wait and see. In any case I think this is the wrong direction for a series that is supposed to be story based.
Click to expand...
I think what they are going for is cutting development cost by virtually removing actual development. Instead of releasing a new stand alone game every 2 years, they are going to release campaigns for the same game. How often and how big is anybody's guess. I never had a problem with Odyssey or Valhalla's size, on the contrary that's what made them appealing. I hate it when every trail becomes familiar in a game and you get to know the entire map in a few hours. I don't know why would anyone backlash over the size of a game.
 
I'm in the camp of thinking it's a viable concept that developers haven't fully taken advantage of. I'd rather pay a lesser fee ($25-30) for a shorter Assassin's Creed or Far Cry game with regular paid updates instead of grindy rehashed sequels. That said, it's Ubisoft. They'll find a way to screw this up. Probably just because they'll overcharge up-front. Fighting games have been tinkering with this concept for years and they always charge full-price up front...which has been a big problem after a month or two of hardcore fans. The games have huge surges every time the base games are on sale. Had Street Fighter 5 been $25 initially, it could have been a huge success.
 
M76 said:
I don't know why would anyone backlash over the size of a game.
Click to expand...

Because development resources are finite. Often the bigger a game gets, the more things get procedurally generated instead of hand crafted. Personality gets lost. No Man's Sky is a good example of this. Infinitely larger than any other game, and yet despite no world being the same, they all manage to look and feel the same. What you often end up with is a game that takes to long to get where your going, and nothing interesting to show along the way. A perfect recipe for fast traveling and missing it all anyway.

RDR2 nailed size perfectly. Big enough to feel big, small enough to make everything feel real. It's full of interesting things to find and is genuinely beautiful everywhere. I've never felt any of that in Valhalla. It's a good enough looking game, but it doesn't look as good as RDR2, which is several years older. I've never had any interesting encounters on the road, or seen anything off on the distance where I think, it's worth side tracking to check out. Valhalla leaves me wanting to fast travel everywhere, RDR2 made me forget fast travel exists.

To each their own, and if your happy games that focus primary on just how big the map can be, that's cool... But to me, "less is more" often rings true.
 
Part of me hopes they separate the series into two camps:

They continue storyline games
and
Keep infinity running as long as they can and build a fanbase for it.

Then both camps will be happy, and, their bottom line will be happy. BUT I doubt they'll do that, they'll put all their eggs into the Infinity basket, it'll fail, then we'll never get another AC game.
 
Viper87227 said:
Because development resources are finite. Often the bigger a game gets, the more things get procedurally generated instead of hand crafted. Personality gets lost. No Man's Sky is a good example of this. Infinitely larger than any other game, and yet despite no world being the same, they all manage to look and feel the same. What you often end up with is a game that takes to long to get where your going, and nothing interesting to show along the way. A perfect recipe for fast traveling and missing it all anyway.
Click to expand...
No, procedural generation is necessary and a good thing, you can't expect every rock formation to be hand crafted, I never felt the scenery repetitive in Odyssey or Valhalla, exploration was the main drive for me to play those games. I never though that if the world was smaller the game would be better.


Viper87227 said:
RDR2 nailed size perfectly. Big enough to feel big, small enough to make everything feel real.
Click to expand...
What? You serious? Small makes it feel fake not real. I hate it when in games there is 500meters between major settlements, or less. Even big games like ghost recon feel unrealistically crowded sometimes, landmarks being too close to one and another and scenery changing too fast to be believable. There is no such thing as too big. A game doesn't become boring because if size it does because of bad design.
Viper87227 said:
It's full of interesting things to find and is genuinely beautiful everywhere. I've never felt any of that in Valhalla. It's a good enough looking game, but it doesn't look as good as RDR2, which is several years older.
Click to expand...
I only played RDR2 for a few hours before quitting it, it didn't look particularly attractive, and when I tried to explore in it it gave zero rewards, no hidden secrets, no stashes, no nothing, it's the worst example you could come up with. I picked up several missions in it that forced me to traverse a lot of terrain and found nothing interesting on the journey. In Valhalla and Odyssey your journey is constantly interrupted by points of interest, none of that is in RDR2.


Viper87227 said:
I've never had any interesting encounters on the road, or seen anything off on the distance where I think, it's worth side tracking to check out. Valhalla leaves me wanting to fast travel everywhere, RDR2 made me forget fast travel exists.
Click to expand...
In Valhalla it never even occured to me to skip journeys. Wait there is fast travel in RDR2? I could've sworn there isn't and I cursed the game for the lack of it, that's part of why I abandoned it because it was extremely tedious, to gallop through barren land with nothing of interest for miles, do a 1 minute conversation then gallop back, only to get attacked by a proceduraly generated ambush and get killed. So yeah, procedural is not always good. It's not the tools, but how you use them that matters.
 
Q-BZ said:
https://www.gamepressure.com/newsro...ay-be-a-live-service-game-claims-jason/z53576

For whatever it's worth.
Click to expand...
"Taking into account how the latest installments of the series looked like, the decision to bet entirely on the live-service formula seems logical. A particularly clear example of preparing for this kind of change was Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Within the campaign of this installment, several main story threads were essentially put at our disposal. The very structure and size of the game, in turn, enabled us to play it for months. As you can see, Ubisoft intends to continue this direction, but this time it goes all the way."

Can someone translate this? Because it reads as complete nonsense world salad to me. WTF does it mean "several main story threads were essentially put at your disposal"? Are they trying to say that there were parallel paths in the campaign? Yeah, there were and it was great that you could choose which thread to unravel first, but WTH does that have to do with live service and playing for months?
 
M76 said:
No, procedural generation is necessary and a good thing, you can't expect every rock formation to be hand crafted, I never felt the scenery repetitive in Odyssey or Valhalla, exploration was the main drive for me to play those games. I never though that if the world was smaller the game would be better.
Click to expand...

I agree it's necessary, and is pretty standard in open world games by now. What matters is the amount of attention the world gets after. Using procedural generation to build a baseline is fine, but it's not good at creating things that are interesting. That still requires (a lot of) human touch. The bigger the world, the less that gets touched. Especially when you are a company like Ubisoft that tries to recycle the same shit year after year already.

M76 said:
What? You serious? Small makes it feel fake not real. I hate it when in games there is 500meters between major settlements, or less. Even big games like ghost recon feel unrealistically crowded sometimes, landmarks being too close to one and another and scenery changing too fast to be believable. There is no such thing as too big. A game doesn't become boring because if size it does because of bad design.
Click to expand...

It's fine that we disagree on this, but understand that we absolutely do. You speak as if your opinion is fact. It's not. I don't worry about games feeling too crowded or landmarks being too close. That has never registered as a consideration to me. There is absolutely a thing as too big, and for me it generally happens any time an open world make makes a point to brag about how big its world is. For me, the bigger a game gets, the more likely it is to be boring. If I wanted to walk around the woods and look at nothing, I'll go outside and walk around in the woods. I want games to give me things I don't get to experience in real life. If there's not interesting and unique stuff to find when going from A to B, I'll get bored with it.

M76 said:
I only played RDR2 for a few hours before quitting it, it didn't look particularly attractive, and when I tried to explore in it it gave zero rewards, no hidden secrets, no stashes, no nothing, it's the worst example you could come up with. I picked up several missions in it that forced me to traverse a lot of terrain and found nothing interesting on the journey. In Valhalla and Odyssey your journey is constantly interrupted by points of interest, none of that is in RDR2.
Click to expand...

A few hours barely gets you out of the boring introduction in RDR2. If your argument is "these things aren't there because I didn't play the game long enough to find them"... you need a new argument. There is shit all over RDR2 to come across. I find my experience to be completely opposite of yours, RDR 2 was constantly giving me interesting things along the journey, where as there was very little of interest to find in the last few AC games. Especially Valhalla. As to not finding it attractive, you must have been playing it on a potato, because the game is just about unrivaled with the hardware to push it.

M76 said:
In Valhalla it never even occured to me to skip journeys. Wait there is fast travel in RDR2? I could've sworn there isn't and I cursed the game for the lack of it, that's part of why I abandoned it because it was extremely tedious, to gallop through barren land with nothing of interest for miles, do a 1 minute conversation then gallop back, only to get attacked by a proceduraly generated ambush and get killed. So yeah, procedural is not always good. It's not the tools, but how you use them that matters.
Click to expand...
Yes, RDR2 has fast travel, of sorts. You can fast travel from your camp to towns, and you can also use trains and carriages to get from town to town. It's not fast travel like most games where you can bounce around at will, but it is there.
 
I might find this interesting if done right. I've only played the last ~three AC games and one of the thoughts I've had was the idea of jumping between games which is in some sense what the present-day narrative in AC tries to accomplish. The present day storyline doesn't stitch the standalone games together very effectively for me, because each individual game is so large and you're in it for such a long time. If I imagined the last three games combined into one, with a story mission that jumps back and forth between them a bit, that would have been complex but interesting. Extrapolating that notion to a live service game set in multiple time periods? I'm game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top