In March of this year, Ubisoft announced the formation of a new $4 billion subsidiary, with Tencent providing 25% of the financial backing. This new division will focus exclusively on the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises. What happens to the rest of Ubisoft or it's IPs is unclear though. Continuing underperformance could mean Ubisoft will have to sell some of it's IP to other companies like EA or Microsoft as rumoured or move more brands like the rest of Tom Clancy's to the new subsidiary. For now, the focus is Assassin's Creed and where it can go after Black Flag Resynched.
Following these developments, reliable insider Tom Henderson reported that internal timelines had shifted. The updated roadmap now has Jade (mobile game set in China) slates to release after Black Flag Resynched in 2026, Hexe (smaller game set in Germany) in 2027, Scarlet (the next major game pitched as Nebula by Ubisoft Sofia) in 2028, and Stardust (possibly a remake of the original) in 2029. Two multiplayer games with 5 year support cycles are also planned for 2026 and 2029, while another major game and remake are planned for after the aforementioned releases.
With new games already in development, it can take some lessons from Shadows and it's direct predecessors. First would be returning to a linear narrative. In Shadows, players are tasked with eliminating several factions across Japan, including the Shinbakufu, yet the storylines of Naoe and Yasuke are never brought together again after splitting them up in Act 3. Especially Naoe's arc feels incomplete, as there is no resolution to it in the third act. Returning to a structured narrative format -as seen in earlier titles that used "Sequences" as chapters- would provide a better flowing story arc.
The second lesson would be recentering the Assassin and Templar conflict. After being largely absent in the last four titles, Shadows reintroduced the Assassin Brotherhood, but only in passing. The game follows Naoe, the daughter of Japan’s last Assassins, but lacks any direct Templar confrontation. Instead, the confrontations happen with Yasuke. Moreover, Valignano is confirmed by other media as a Templar, but still roaming free. In the end of the base game, there was no central conflict that brought everything together and instead it felt like there was a conclusion missing.
The third lesson would be reintroducing Pieces of Eden and a modern day storyline to tie it together. While Shadows featured the Imperial Regalia as potential stand-ins for a Piece of Eden, its significance was never fully explored, nor where they all recovered. And aside from a few lore dumps, it didn't feature a modern-day story either. Earlier entries used the Pieces to drive both past and present storylines, offering a central objective for all factions. A new modern day narrative can be told through cutscenes, as seen in Unity and Syndicate, preserving immersion without leaving the game.
The fourth lesson would be toning down on the XP system, which often lead to level cap. Since Origins, Assassin’s Creed has leaned heavily into RPG mechanics, including character levels, gear progression, and skill trees. However, they also introduced limiting factors. In Shadows, a low-level Yasuke could venture into a high level region and be instantly killed by a drunken samurai, but a few seasons and missions of grinding later Yasuke can easily dispatch the same enemy with little effort. Even though Yasuke is still the same giant that everybody already says he is.
The fifth lesson would be scrapping gear and skill trees, elements that go hand in hand with the character level system. Different pieces of gear grant several buffs or adds modifiers, but only when the player has an high enough level to wear it. For skill trees, a certain level has to be reached as well. In Shadows this new ''knowledge rank'' is reached when enough collectibles have been found. So, instead of deleting collectibles Ubisoft is infamous for, this optional content is now made mandatory for progression. Removing this means the grind Ubisoft titles have become known for are a thing of the past.
So, whether it’s the smaller Hexe -set during the 16th-century European witch hunts, or the larger Scarlet -rumoured to span the Aztec Empire, Mediterranean, and India (likely referring to the Americas) during the age of Conquistadors- future entries could bring back the games more in line with Black Flag Resynched rather than Shadows. However, with the modern-day plotline being very convoluted, Ubisoft might consider bringing back the in-universe's solution proposed by the Isi for the global catastrophe: traveling through time, which would effectively allow for a timeline reset.