Some rather interesting screenshots have surfaced recently showing what appears to be a 2.5D fighting game based around the Assassin’s Creed franchise called Assassin’s Creed Duel. A user on Neogaf discovered the screenshots when looking through the online portfolio of Benoit Perreault UI Designer/Artist who worked for Ubisoft up until March last year.
Although Perreault claims that the work was never anything more than some simple fan art, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a stretch to think that the project was at least pitched at some point. This is also backed up by the text at the bottom of the screenshot that lists XBLA and what I assume is a misspelling of PSN, which indicates that at the very least there were specific target platforms in mind for the concept.
The projects legitimacy is further backed by the fact that Perreault lists the screenshots alongside his other industry work and projects which is a rather curious place to leave some fan art that you jumbled together in your spare time.
In all honesty it’s extremely unlikely that the project will ever come to fruition. Not only does the Assassin’s Creed franchise roll out games fast enough to often be criticized as a ‘milked’ franchise, but it also tends to stick to its base formula continually and sells well regardless. Personally I would think it’s unlikely that Ubisoft would want take a risk on the game when they currently have another installment of the game coming later this year in the form of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and also are launching their new IP Watch Dogs later this year, not to mention many other games the studio are working on currently. With all that’s going on, they probably have enough on their plate right now.
