Assassin’s Creed 4 to Release by March 2014

A new Assassin’s Creed game with a new hero and new time period will launch in fiscal year 2014, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot announced during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. The 2014 fiscal year begins this April and lasts until March 2014.

Guillemot expects the game to be another major step forward for the Assassin’s Creed franchise. It is widely expected that next-generation consoles will debut this year. That puts the next installment of the Assassin’s Creed series in line for a release on next-gen systems.

The latest Assassin’s Creed game is being developed at multiple Ubisoft development studios. Each development team is assigned to specific chapters of the game. According to Guillemot, the game will benefit from each team getting multiple years to focus on their portion of the game.

Featuring a new main character and time period likely means the game will be entitled Assassin’s Creed 4, but that has yet to be confirmed.

No further details on the latest Assassin’s Creed game were revealed, although Guillemot promised more information is coming very soon.

Assassin’s Creed 3 launched in October last year. It stars Native American hero Connor as he fights the Templars during the American Revolution.

During the earnings call, the company also announced Assassin’s Creed 3 has shipped more than 12 million units combining both physical and digital sales. That makes for a 70 percent increase over Assassin’s Creed: Revelations at the same point since its release. Ubisoft shipped more than 4.5 million copies of Far Cry 3.

Ubisoft recently announced the release dates for The Tyranny of King Washington DLC for Assassin’s Creed 3. The three-part episodic bonus content series starts with part one on Feb. 19. Part two launches on March 19, with the final episode expected to debut on April 23.