Ubisoft takes a year off from releasing Assassin's Creed games

Ubisoft published a brief blog post today ahead of its latest earnings report to announce that it won't be releasing a major Assassin's Creed game this year.

The company has released at least one such game every year since 2009, and it's interesting to note that Ubisoft cites the troubled launch of Assassin's Creed Unity (pictured) in 2014 as its prime inspiration for wanting to take a breather.

"Since the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity, we’ve learned a lot," reads an excerpt of the blog post. "We’re taking this year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we’re delivering on the promise of Assassin’s Creed."

Language like that implies the company is reconsidering the core design philosophies of Assassin's Creed games, which is a bit beyond the scope of the engine overhaul Ubisoft chief Yves Guillemot blamed for Unity's sorry state at launch.

However, there's also significant financial incentive for the breather, as Ubisoft's latest financials describe "a slower launch than expected" for last year's Assassin's Creed Syndicate. This is well in line with comments Ubisoft's CFO made to investors in November, when he attributed sluggish first-week Syndicate sales to -- you guessed it -- the widely-publicized bugginess of Unity.