Here's an announcement and a rant about Assassin's Creed IV

By Ian Coppock

I kid you not. The next Assassin's Creed game has been leaked, and there's a piece of artwork to prove it. Also, a trailer. 

Apparently, someone at Ubisoft fell asleep on the "release teaser" button, and the gaming media is slowly buzzing about the latest cog in the AC machine. The company quickly retracted the trailer, but not before a small handful of media-savvy bastards, such as myself, found the incriminating material.

I'm a huge Assassin's Creed fan, which goes hand-in-hand with my history nerdyness. But the announcement of a new AC game not even six months after the release of Assassin's Creed III fills me with consternation, not excitement. Yes, the game looks very epic and beautiful and blah de blah, but the franchise is starting to blaze a trail of no return: cash cowdom.

Remember the Shrek films? It all started with a very original idea: a satirical take on fables. The first movie was awesome, and something I enjoyed very much. As you may also recall, it smashed some records and made Dreamworks filthy frickin' rich. So, the logical next step is to make MOAR movies, right? Sure. The second one was alright. The third SUUUUUCKED. I got about five minutes into the fourth one before feeling the need to rewind my retinas on a pair of toothpicks. And I haven't bothered to watch all the side material and home releases.

My point is that the Shrek franchise started off strong, but was diluted into mediocrity by Dreamworks' valuing cash over art. They bled the series beyond dry by putting out shitty films that still made money, at the expense of their reputation. And I'm not just picking on Shrek, here. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of media series that started off great but were worn down and pressed beyond their time. Garfield comics, The Office TV show and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies immediately come to mind.

I'm worried that Assassin's Creed is headed down the same road. Rather than break new ground or put the series through a longer development cycle, Ubisoft appears determined to milk AC for all it's worth and then some. We've already seen this; I loved AC I, II, and III but Brotherhood and Revelations were thinly-disguised cash cows, whose main plot points could have been resorbed into the other games without skipping a beat.

It wasn't that they were bad, so much as unnecessary. Well, Revelations was actually kinda bad.

I'm concerned that, like Brotherhood and Revelations, Assassin's Creed IV will turn out to be a pea soup-thin story in heavy makeup. Ubisoft has defended its practice of releasing a new AC game each year by saying that they're just addressing demand, but I don't buy it. The ball's in your court, Ubisoft. It takes more courage to put three years into an amazing game than eight months into a crappy one, but those of us who love this series will thank you for it. And we're happy to wait. Half-Life 2 came out in 2004 but you don't see that series losing any fans over something as trivial as time!

But, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this will turn out to be the best game yet in the series and I'm just ranting like that old guy at the store who chastised me for eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch instead of bran flakes.

But I'm not holding my breath.