Ubisoft Montreal has declared that Assassin’s Creed will “definitely” include cooperative play at some point in the future, though pointed out that there are fundamental challenges to overcome when implementing such a feature in regards to the main campaign.
The series will see the introduction of multiplayer for the first time with AC: Brotherhood, though co-op will remain absent from the sequel.
“I think eventually there will definitely be co-op in the brand,” said Brotherhood director, Patrick Plourde, during an interview with GamesRadar. “For this one, we focused first and foremost on the validation for multiplayer – and the templar angle was interesting. In campaign, co-op comes with a lot of challenge.”
“At GDC the Saint’s Row guys were like: ‘if you want your game to have co-op – especially in a sandbox – you need to build it from the ground up.’ They’re right – it’s a couple of years of turnaround to make sure co-op would work.”
Ploudre added that Ubisoft wants to take its time with incorporating fresh ideas, noting it feels confident enough to put some on the backburner for the time being while slowly but surely evolving the brand with each subsequent instalment.
“With Brotherhood we were expanding the brand, but we also have the quiet confidence that we’re successful enough to take our time. That’s super liberating – we have great ideas, but we can put some of them on the backburner for the time being then – next time round – revisit some of those old ideas.”
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood will be sneaking on to store shelves across North America on November 16, with a UK release due on November 19.