At the recent Assassin’s Creed Showcase contained within the Ubisoft Forward showcase, the publisher finally confirmed what Assassin’s Creed Infinity is. As it turns out, it’s not game per se but a hub that will link future Assassin’s Creed titles. What does this mean? IGN spoke to project leader and Assassin’s Creed VP executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté about the same, who provided some clarification.
In a nutshell, Infinity is “a home for a variety of games of different genres and lengths.” Premium boxed titles, like the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Codename RED and Codename HEXE, along with paid and free content will be mixed. Ubisoft will also add a multiplayer mode that will “unite the franchise’s eras.” Of course, the modern-day setting’s story will also play out within Infinity.
Infinity isn’t replacing the traditional Assassin’s Creed titles (as seen when Ubisoft emphasized that Codename RED was its next “premium flagship game”). “You can absolutely buy [Codename RED] as a box product. But the first thing that you’ll see [when you boot it up] is the Infinity [hub] that makes it coherent. But you can buy [Infinity’s second game] HEXE separately as well.
“This is how we envision things today. So it is still the same games that we were building, but bridged together in the Infinity hub. And obviously, if you’re in the Infinity hub playing RED, you’ll see HEXE come and be available as a memory that you can explore.”
Think of it as an Animus interface but in video game format which acts as a library for all of your Assassin’s Creed experiences (a separate launcher even). New entries aren’t displayed as games but as DNA memories. Of course, while it may appear to be a launcher, Infinity at launch won’t be the final version and will also evolve.
“So [Infinity] will not start out as a game. The version of Infinity that we launch will not be the final version of Infinity. It’s something that will evolve through time as our experiences grow, and we can connect them more together. So I think it opens up a world of possibilities as to what we can do that go far beyond being just a launcher for our different games,” says Côté.
There is currently no launch window for Assassin’s Creed Infinity, Codename RED or Codename HEXE. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that RED and HEXE aren’t expected until at least 2024. Insider Tom Henderson followed up by reporting that RED would release sometime in 2024, while HEXE was initially planned for 2025 but now releasing in 2026.
In the meantime, Assassin’s Creed Mirage will release in 2023 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, Google Stadia, and Amazon Luna.