Assassin's Creed Infinity won't be free to play, Ubisoft confirms

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(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Details about Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Infinity may be thin on the ground right now, but we do know that the game won't be free to play.

During a recent earnings call (via VGC), Ubisoft confirmed that Assassin's Creed Infinity won't be among the upcoming "high-end free-to-play games" it spoke about earlier this year.

"It’s not going to be free to play and this game will have a lot of narrative elements in it," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said.

"It’s going to be a very innovative game but it will have what players already have in all the Assassin’s Creed games, all the elements that they love to get in them right from the start.

"It’s going to be a huge game but with lots of elements that already exist in the games that we published in the past."

In addition, Ubisoft confirmed that Assassin's Creed Infinity is still in early development, so it's unlikely that we'll get our hands on the game for some time yet.


Analysis: what is Assassin's Creed Infinity?

Assassin's Creed Valhalla screenshot

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Well, that remains a somewhat difficult question to answer as Ubisoft hasn't exactly been forthcoming with information. 

According to a Bloomberg report from earlier this year, Assassin’s Creed Infinity will be an online game that will tie all the strands of the series together across multiple games and will, therefore, be set across multiple different historical time periods. Bloomberg also claims the game will have live service elements, meaning we could see it continually updated and evolving with new content – and the name Infinity certainly suggests continuous evolution.

Following the report, Ubisoft confirmed that Assassin's Creed Infinity is in the works, but hasn't revealed much about what it actually is. From what Ubisoft has said, we know the game will 1) not be free to play 2) will have a large narrative focus.

The fact that Assassin's Creed Infinity will be a full-priced game or platform (or whatever it ends up being) with a narrative focus suggests there's perhaps more to the game than we're expecting right now.

It's unsurprising that Ubisoft is planning another Assassin's Creed project given that the series was recently confirmed to be the publisher's second most profitable franchise of all time. But it looks like it'll be a while before we have any solid details on what to expect from Assassin's Creed Infinity, and even longer until we get our hands on it.

Vic Hood
Associate Editor, TechRadar Gaming

Vic is TechRadar Gaming's Associate Editor. An award-winning games journalist, Vic brings experience from IGN, Eurogamer and more to the TechRadar table. You may have even heard her on the radio or speaking on a panel. Not only is Vic passionate about games, but she's also an avid mental health advocate who has appeared on both panels and podcasts to discuss mental health awareness. Make sure to follow her on Twitter for more.