MikeMcD

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Fans threw a lot of heat Ubisoft's way when they announced Assassin's Creed Revelations earlier this year. The new title is the third AC game in as many years. The franchise fatigue expressed by many fans reminds me of how I felt when Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was announced in 2005. Splinter Cell, like Assassin's Creed, was a breakout hit for Ubisoft that became a franchise to be iterated upon as fast as possible. After playing the original game and its sequel, Pandora Tomorrow, I had little interest in a sequel set to follow its predecessor by a mere 18 months. However, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory surprised me, it took what I thought was a set formula and tweaked it in just the right way to make me enjoy the series all over again.
Six-years later, Assassin's Creed has undergone a similar evolution, but with even more games in a shorter period of time. The franchise is the most successful new IP this generation, and one of Ubisoft's only AAA franchises with mass appeal (along with Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell.) With Ubisoft stakeholders looking toward's Call of Duty's success at annual iteration, the pressure is on to follow the same model. Last year's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was a nice start, even if many expected that the next game in the series would have a 3 in the title and be set for release in 2012 at the earliest.

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