Highlights
- Tencent reportedly delays Assassin's Creed Jade to 2025 due to strategic shift away from Western franchises towards homegrown ideas like DreamStar.
- Assassin's Creed Jade will feature classic stealth, parkour, and assassination gameplay set in ancient China during the Qin Dynasty.
- Tencent's delay of Jade's release comes from a need to refocus resources due to thin margins and competition from successful in-house projects.
Developer Tencent has reportedly delayed its mobile game Assassin's Creed Jade to 2025, following a big strategic shift at the company. The Assassin's Creed game has been in development for four years.
Assassin's Creed Jade is set in ancient China, where users unravel mysteries surrounding the Qin Dynasty. Its website explains that Jade features the "classic" stealth, parkour, and assassination gameplay that Assassin's Creed fans have come to love. Historically, Tencent has succeeded in translating the gameplay of hit titles to mobile devices, as it developed games like Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG Mobile. However, the massive Chinese company seems to be taking a step back from certain franchises.
Assassin's Creed's Timeline is on the Verge of Getting Extra Messy
The overarching Assassin's Creed story has always been convoluted, but upcoming games could make things even harder to follow.
Reuters reported that Tencent is moving away from adapting big-budget Western franchises, instead shifting its focus to homegrown ideas like the recently released DreamStar. This strategic shift resulted in hundreds of employees being reassigned from Assassin's Creed Jade, leading to its delay. One of the main reasons for this change is reportedly the thin margins that come with developing games like Jade, as well as Tencent's rivals focusing on in-house projects like NetEase's Eggy Party and miHoYo's Genshin Impact, both of which have been huge hits and allow the developers to retain all profits. In a recent earnings call, Tencent reported a slight decline in gaming sales, which, combined with other shortfalls, has apparently created a sense of urgency within the company to change.
Assassin's Creed Jade's Release Date Delayed
Back in August, leaked Assassin's Creed Jade gameplay proved that the game was well into development, as the nearly 90-minute video showed a user navigating a large open world, engaging in fast-paced combat, and completing various missions. Fans previously hoped for a release date sometime in 2024, but this has been pushed back to a vague 2025 window according to sources.
Although Tencent has successful mobile adaptions under its belt, it's also fallen short on high-profile projects before. Last year, EA and Respawn decided to shut down Tencent's Apex Legends Mobile due to "quality, quantity, and cadence" issues. More recently, Tencent also canceled the development of its Nier mobile game, which was based on Square Enix's popular franchise.
2025 is shaping up to be a potentially big year for Assassin's Creed fans when flagship game Red is expected to release as well. Earlier this month, new details regarding Assassin's Creed Red leaked, which claimed that an upgraded engine would bring ray tracing to the series for the first time. Stealth will apparently play a bigger role in Red and its combat contains more gore than usual, including decapitations and increased blood.
