We actually know very little about this Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe, except that it will focus on the witch hunts that took place during the 16th century within the Holy Roman Empire. The whole question is whether the eternal formula inherent to the Assassin's Creed license will be there, and the latest rumors from the site InsiderGaming seem to indicate the opposite. Tom Henderson being a regular at divulging Ubisoft's little secrets, we can give these rumors a little credence, especially when they allow us to theorize the contours of this strategy of diversification and experimentation set in motion.
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Assassin's Creed to Infinity and Beyond
This is a subject that we had already partially addressed with the case of Prince of Persia, which Ubisoft is revitalizing by offering projects of very different genres and atmospheres. The publisher is taking advantage of the license's dip in popularity to allow itself greater creative room for maneuver, which is (a priori) not necessarily possible in the case of Assassin's Creed, its economic issues being much more concrete, with a license that releases a new game every year and often (if not systematically) represents the publisher's best seller. Despite this, open world fatigue has been felt for several years now and a need for renewal seems almost obvious. Not an easy decision in the world of AAA, where we would prefer to bet on a horse capable of making huge production costs profitable. It should nevertheless be noted that with Assassin's Creed Mirage, Ubisoft offered a small, gentle turn away from the formula established in the three previous games, but the latter was more presented as a return to the sources of the license. A joyfully regressive bias therefore, but not really a risk-taking or a bold new departure.
It is nevertheless a decision which does not date from yesterday at Ubisoft and which will take shape with the ever so cryptic Assassin's Creed Infinity. The latter is supposed to serve as a HUB with an interface similar to the animus whose aim is to connect all Assassin's Creed productions, with Red and Hexe as the first stones. Marc-Alexis Côté, the project director, declared at IGN in 2022 : “ What I can confirm is that Hexe will not be an RPG. When I say it's a different kind of game, I want people to go beyond the expectations of Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. These are interactions with our RPG design, but Hexe and Red take different paths. I think this approach of Infinity allows us to have different experiences, of different sizes as well. Not everything has to be a 150 hour RPG, to bring more diversity to the places we choose to visit and how we present those time periods. »
Nothing is true, everything is permitted
In this light, many of the rumors presented by InsiderGaming are actually quite unsurprising. Beyond the obvious, such as playing a female protagonist with powers, which seems logical in a game dealing with witch hunting, we will especially remember the fact that they are talking about a “ more linear experience compared to its predecessors with some elements of open world exploration, similar to some of the early Assassin's Creed games. » A cryptic sentence very open to interpretation but which, put into perspective with the ambitions of the Infinity project and Côté's declarations, ultimately seems quite logical. Assassin's Creed is changing and if Red will still be in a similar vein, Hexe promises to be a big departure from the fundamentals.
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Assassin's Creed is a sure bet that can sell or at least arouse the curiosity of potential players just by its name and a vital part of Ubisoft in its financial results. A license now so anchored in the collective imagination with its essential mechanics means that paradoxically, despite a formula which has not been renewed much, the slightest idea of a radical change would be enough to create discontent among a section of its audience. You only have to see certain reactions to the article from Insider Gaming, which claims to have seen a game sequence showing a dark atmosphere in which the heroine takes possession of a cat to create a diversion on guards to escape. Just this little description without the slightest image was enough for some to say that it is far from what they expect from an Assassin's Creed game.
Ubisoft therefore finds itself with a desire and a need to offer projects outside the traditional structure of Assassin's Creed, while taking the risk that these projects will only be Assassin's Creed in name. The question then arises of what makes an Assassin's Creed game. Is it the fight between assassins and templars? Using a secret blade? The presence of towers in an open world to reveal the map with leaps of faith to descend? It is perhaps on this point thatAssassin's Creed Infinity will take on its full meaning, in its ability to unify diametrically different experiences under the same banner while keeping the whole coherent and succeeding in making the public assimilate that a linear game where you play a witch with powers and a another where we play an assassin in Japan can coexist with the same title attached to their covers.