14 DAY TRIAL // A series of job postings coming from the Massive studio of publisher Ubisoft suggests that the Assassin's Creed franchise might be getting a spin off which uses at least some of the mechanics of the real time strategy genre.
Massive is looking for fresh blood for the company, suggesting that they have a big project coming up and the Twitter message announcing it says, “Ubisoft’s Massive studio teaming up on a project for Assassin's Creed. Openings to join them or at Ubisoft Annecy: http://ubi.li/un3a4.”
Job openings are also available at the Annecy studio which Ubisoft has, the one that was involved in the development process of the multiplayer element of the recent Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
Massive has created video games in the Ground Control and World in Conflict series and it seems unlikely that they abandon the real time strategy space, which is their strong point, to work on a simple third-person spin off for Assassin's Creed.
World in Conflict and its Soviet Assault add-on were good experiences that brought the focus close to the battlefield and allowed gamers to control individual units, with a strong emphasis on micro management and small unit tactics.
Yves Guillemot, who is the chief executive officer of publisher Ubisoft, has already revealed that a new Assassin's Creed video game is being prepared for 2011 but has not mentioned who is in charge of developing it.
Fans of the series assumed that they would be getting another entry in the main story of the franchise, pushing forward the convoluted story and maybe visiting a new historical period, but there's also the possibility of Ubisoft preparing a spin off which would give other studios time to develop a main game for 2012.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has been a success, managing to sell a lot of copies and introduce multiplayer to the franchise, and already had a strategy element included, with the gamer in charge of managing a number of other assassins.