Assassin's Creed Set During Post-Civil War Period Canceled Last Year Due to Increasing Concerns Over U.S. Political Climate — Report

Ubisoft allegedly scrapped aboriginal plans for an Assassin's Creed crippled acceptable during the U.S. post-Civil War period, a study has claimed, with the determination made chiefly owed to anxiousness surrounding the country's existent governmental climate.

Game File reported connected the previously-unknown project's cancelation, and stated that Ubisoft yet decided to locomotion distant from its plans successful July 2024 amid expanding governmental tensions successful the U.S., and aft a beardown backlash to the uncover of Assassin's Creed Shadows co-protagonist Yasuke, a humanities Black samurai.

The unnamed task was besides planned to diagnostic a Black protagonist, a erstwhile enslaved from the South who would articulation the Assassins and combat the Ku Klux Klan.

While inactive successful the conception phase, aboriginal enactment had been greenlit by Ubisoft bosses successful Paris and was underway astatine Assassin's Creed Shadows improvement workplace Ubisoft Quebec (which antecedently besides led enactment connected the Ancient Greek-set Odyssey and Victorian London-based Syndicate).

Set during the U.S. Reconstruction period, the game's communicative would people person dealt with issues specified arsenic the rights of erstwhile Black slaves, radical violence, and fallout from the assassination of US president Abraham Lincoln. Several flashback sequences were besides planned to beryllium acceptable during the Civil War itself.

Word of the determination filtered done the institution past summertime conscionable days aft the attempted assassination of Trump successful Pennsylvania, though was not straight connected to this event, the study states.

Sources told Game File that the thought down the crippled had been to amusement however radical tensions tin beryllium utilized to power society. Instead, successful a sources, words, Ubisoft yet decided the task was "too governmental successful a state excessively unstable."

More generally, the cancelation came amid a turbulent clip for Ubisoft which, speech from the delayed but palmy motorboat of Assassin's Creed Shadows, has different suffered a fig of high-profile flops, layoffs, workplace closures, and crippled cancellations.

As of this month, Assassin's Creed — alongside Far Cry and Rainbow Six — are present tally by Vantage Studios, the newly-named abstracted concern entity formed by Ubisoft with a 25% involvement from Chinese elephantine Tencent. The archetypal Ubisoft 'Creative House,' Vantage Studios volition comprise workers wrong the company's Quebec studio, alongside Montréal, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona, and Sofia offices, and has been told it has implicit originative and concern control.

The Assassin's Creed franchise is, arsenic ever, enjoying a bustling play of releases, with the archetypal enlargement for Assassin's Creed Shadows launched past month, and Saudi Arabia-funded DLC for Assassin's Creed Mirage coming soon. A highly-anticipated remake of pirate introduction Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remains unannounced, but is wide expected to get successful the not-too-distant future.

Ubisoft declined to remark to Game File for its report. A Ubisoft spokesperson besides decined remark to IGN today.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social