Could one of the projects recently scrapped by the French publisher have been leaked?
According to the French website Origami, Ubisoft canceled a secret Assassin’s Creed co-op game codenamed AC League. Origami claims to have verified the information with six current Ubisoft employees and has a reputation for reliability. This is not Assassin’s Creed Invictus, the arcade, Fall Guys-inspired, PvP multiplayer game that was previously leaked as being in development. AC League was originally intended as a co-op mode for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was later released as a standalone title. Ubisoft Annecy (Steep, Riders Republic) was the developer. The team has contributed to several Assassin’s Creed games, including the multiplayer modes for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Assassin’s Creed III, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Over the past year, the developer considered whether to keep League as an add-on to Shadows; however, the DLC was deemed too lengthy and costly to meet the desired quality standards. The developer had two options: attach the cooperative framework to a more traditional Assassin’s Creed game already in development by another Ubisoft division, or reduce League‘s narrative and scope and sell it as a small, standalone cooperative Assassin’s Creed game based on Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ubisoft Annecy chose the second option and launched an invite-only alpha test in May to refine and improve the game before giving it the green light. The game would have featured teams of up to four players undertaking joint missions, presumably similar to those in Assassin’s Creed Unity, the last title to support online cooperative multiplayer.
Executives at the newly created Vantage Studios subsidiary carefully reviewed all internal projects regarding the circumstances surrounding the game’s cancellation and canceled many of them. Last week, the leaders of the Assassin’s Creed League project were notified after an internal meeting that the project had been canceled. Of Ubisoft Annecy‘s approximately 270 employees, 85 were working on the project.
Although the project has effectively been shut down, Ubisoft Annecy‘s cooperative technology will reportedly be retained for use in future Assassin’s Creed games. However, these cooperative modes will need to be much cheaper than what Assassin’s Creed League promised, which ultimately led to the game’s cancellation.
