After some speculation, rumour, and some good old fashioned gossip, Ubisoft has announced that Assassin's Creed is going on a little bit of a sabbatical. That means no new AAA Assassin's Creed game scheduled for release this year. What does it all mean? Probably nothing more than Ubisoft allowing for more development time for the next Assassin's Creed game. Something that no doubt should help re-instate the franchise as one of premiere open world experiences.

This year, we also are stepping back and re-examining the Assassin’s Creed franchise. As a result, we’ve decided that there will not be a new Assassin’s Creed game in 2016. Since the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity, we’ve learned a lot based on your feedback. We’ve also updated our development processes and recommitted to making Assassin’s Creed a premier open-world franchise. We’re taking this year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we’re delivering on the promise of Assassin’s Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences that make history everyone’s playground.

As you can see, the announcement name drops Unity, which to many is seen as a low point for the series. After the numerous bugs and performance issues of that game a lot of fans began to question whether or not yearly installments was the right approach for the series.

This will be the first year without a major Assassin's Creed title since Assassin's Creed II was released in 2009. But, in its place we do get an Assassin's Creed movie, which definitely has potential to be good. Movie good, and not videogame-movie good. So, actually good.