Assassin's Creed Rift Rumours Basim

Ubisoft has a new Assassin's Creed game in development, according to a fresh report from Bloomberg's ever-reliable Jason Schreier. Sources say that this title — codenamed Rift — will abandon the open world structure of the most recent Assassin's Creed games, and will focus on stealth-based gameplay. It sounds like Ubisoft may be taking to the series back to its roots — at least for a time.

Interestingly, the report states that Basim — one of Assassin's Creed Valhalla's key characters — will be Rift's lead. What's more, it's said that this game started life as an expansion for Valhalla — but was branched out into its own thing to help fill Ubisoft's relatively thin release schedule. Sounds plausible.

And to be clear, this isn't the long rumoured Assassin's Creed Infinity. Rift will supposedly launch before the supposed live service title, at some point in either late 2022, or 2023.

The report also mentions ongoing struggles within Ubisoft itself. Apparently, the company still hasn't dealt with many of its workplace woes, which has impacted the development of projects like Rift.

Eurogamer has backed all of this up, too, adding that the publication has "heard" of Rift. It was previously told that the game could feature the city of Baghdad as a setting — but things may have changed since then.

What do you make of this? Some fans have been asking for a return to traditional Assassin's Creed for years, but is that what you want? Shake the rust from your hidden blades in the comments section below.

[source bloomberg.com, via eurogamer.net]