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New Assassin’s Creed will be ‘more next-gen’

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag lead game designer Jean-Sebastien Decant has confirmed that the next installment in the historical action-adventure series will be “much more on the next-gen side.”

Decant said that this year’s pirate-themed adventure was more of an extension of the current-generation versions of the game. However, subsequent titles will be based more around PlayStation 4 and Xbox One architecture.

"When you start and you don’t even know the specs or what they are going to do you don’t think about that [next-gen consoles] or you’re going to be sick," he told GameReactor.

"We thought about next-gen graphics and in order to explore that we used the high-end PCs on the side, and then we continued just what we started with the previous games and build upon that. I think next next-gen is going to be for the next games. The next games are going to be much more on the next-gen side. This one is really on the edge."

Looking ahead, Decant said that future Assassin’s Creed titles could offer more social integration, and that certain gameplay elements will need to be refined to keep things fresh.

"I think we’re going toward a gaming place where the open world will be shared with other players," he said. "More and more. Socially speaking, but also maybe multiplayer stuff. And we will have to consider the open world much more like a platform that we could sustain for years."

"There are lots of things we want to refine on the combat side, on the parkour, on the stealth. Of course," he continued. "We managed I think to bring back the stealth in Assassin’s Creed, which was something that was a bit put on the side in the previous episodes. So on that we’re very happy and I also think we kind of totally exploded the limits of the game by bringing the naval and the ship customisation and the ship battles.

"So we made progress, thanks actually to the thematics that we chose. Next time we will have to find thematics that will help us also to expand the game once again."

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is out now for PS3 and Xbox 360. The game hits PS4 and Xbox One on November 22. Read our review of the game here.

What would you like to see from the next Assassin’s Creed game? Let us know in the comments section below.