Ubisoft on Thursday announced that it delayed “a smaller unannounced premium game” to next year along with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. It turns out that the premium game in question is Assassin’s Creed Rift, and it has been delayed to spring 2023, Bloomberg confirmed on Friday.
An unnamed source familiar with Ubisoft’s plans told Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that the game publisher’s office in Bordeaux, France, which is heading the project, asked for more time to develop and polish Assassin’s Creed Rift because it was falling behind in terms of the development schedule. The spring 2023 release window means that it could come out anywhere between March and June of next year. Ubisoft said in a press release that it would release the game in fiscal year 2023-24.
“While this additional development time is a reflection of the current ongoing constraints on productions across the industry, we are hard at work to design the most efficient working conditions to ensure both flexibility for our teams, as well as strong productivity. while delivering the best experiences to players,” the company said.
Assassin’s Creed Rift was originally going to be developed as an expansion of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but Ubisoft decided that it would be a standalone game to fill the void in its release schedule for the current fiscal year, which already has Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Skull and Bones coming out in October and November, respectively. And instead of setting it in Norway like the base game, Assassin’s Creed Rift will take place in the Middle East. Whether that encompasses the entire region or a particular Middle Eastern country remains to be seen.
Although Ubisoft hasn’t publicly announced Assassin’s Creed Rift, it might reveal more information about it while discussing the future of the Assassin’s Creed franchise in September. The company is also planning on releasing a massive live service title called Assassin’s Creed Infinity, which is currently in the development stages.
