Ubisoft is more committed than ever to Assassin’s Creed and will increase the number of developers by 40% to fuel its expansion. This change comes as the company focuses on its most successful franchises in the midst of a difficult couple of years. After reporting a loss of operating income from $500 million last year, the French publisher announced that there will be almost 3,000 developers working on the hit historical fantasy franchise. If you thought there were too many Assassin’s Creed games before, wait to see what comes.
The company announced on May 16: “As part of our increased strategic focus on our greatest growth opportunities and progressive reallocation of resources, Ubisoft will significantly increase the number of talent working on the Assassin’s Creed franchise by 40% in the next few years to boost its ambitious expansion”. Ubisoft confirmed in a call with analysts that there are currently around 2,000 developers working on the series, and that this change will eventually bring the number of developers closer to 2,800.
Los 800 additional developers in Assassin’s Creed they will come from other projects and franchises, and the company plans to continue reducing the number of employees overall through restructuring and attrition. It was reported that Ubisoft has already lost more than 700 people in this way since last September, since canceled various projects and various offices were closed.
In recent years, Ubisoft had moved away from the strategy of releasing one Assassin’s Creed game every year, allowing large open-world RPGs more development time and offering seasonal DLC to keep players interested until the next release. It’s not yet clear if the company plans to re-release an Assassin’s Creed game every year, if there will be more variety in future releases, or if the 3,000 developers are simply enough to sustain the unsustainable budgets and production processes that They drive the next generation of blockbusters.
Ubisoft will reveal more about its plans for the future of the franchise at its summer games presentation in Los Angeles in June. Meanwhile, it is expected that Assassin’s Creed Mirage arrive sometime in early fall.
