Assassin's Creed III delayed for PC, next games will go further back in time

Assassins Creed III has been delayed for the PC, while future instalments of the popular game series will go further back in time rather than continue their gradual shift towards the present day.

Alex Hutchinson, Creative Director at Ubisoft, delivered the bad news that the third title will not launch on 30 October on the PC, but the console version appears to be unaffected. Hutchinson did promise that the game will be out in time for Christmas, however, and that the delay wont be long, so we can probably expect it out by the end of November.As for future games, Hutchinson told a Comic-Con panel: “I dont think well necessarily always go forward, or were dooming ourselves to run out of history.”The first game dealt with the Crusades in the 12th Century, the second covered the Renaissance in the 15th Century, and the upcoming third game deals with the American Revolution in the 18th Century. If this trend continued then players would only have a small period of time left to play in, with modern history making for a less convincing playground for the Templar versus Assasins storyline.Hutchinsons comments suggest the studio is already looking at other time periods for future titles. There is a lot of potential over the course of history and once the games break the existing sequence the possibility of jumping back and forward to other iconic periods opens up.Sources: Joystiq, Associated PressUpdates: According to GameSpy, the game is still on for October 30th release.

Ubisoft PR just contacted us to let us know that the PC version of Assassins Creed 3 is still "coming out on October 30, day and date with the console versions." Joystiq, who we sourced in our initial post, has updated their story as well. So apparently Alex Hutchinson, who is the creative lead on Assassins Creed 3, simply misspoke at the Comic-Con panel yesterday. Im still pretty skeptical about AC3 making that release date on the grounds that history is not on Ubisofts side. Nearly every PC version of a multi-platform Ubisoft game has met with some sort delay, most recently Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Rayman: Origins. Its hard for me to believe that Assassins Creed 3 is going to break from that unfortunate tradition.