Props go out to our neighbors to the west (from my office anyway) for their nab on this big news. Of course, we all knew there would be a third one. The big question will be: what next?

In an exclusive interview with the German TV show PLAY’D Ubisoft’s Philippe Bergeron reveals surprising details on Assassin’s Creed 3. The Lead Mission Designer for the current „Assassin’s Creed 2“ mentions two possible settings for the franchise’s third main game and talks about a future online mode.

„There are two things that come to mind: There is medieval Europe, which would be very interesting trying to play a King Arthur story line. Another one that is a personal favorite of a lot of people on the floor is feudal Japan, which is something that would be very interesting just culturally to discover and I think also to make players discover aswell”, says Philippe Bergeron, Lead Mission Designer at Ubisoft Montreal. “But we don’t know anything yet. It will be decided over time – it usually takes about six months to a year before we know what our next setting is.”

When asked about features that didn’t make it into Assassin’s Creed 2 but will probably considered for Assassin’s Creed 3, Bergeron says: “One thing that we want to look at in the future is replayability. Because that’s one thing that everybody on the floor thinks very highly of. We want to be able to give players the chance to not only play the game once but once it’s done go back in that game and just get better at it.”

Will there be an online multiplayer mode in Assassin’s Creed 3? Well, probably yes:
“We’re definitely looking into it. I mean, it’s unavoidable – multiplayer is now part of our industry and everybody needs to put their hands into it. So we’re definitely looking at possibilities of making Assassin’s Creed an online experience while still keeping with the strong narrative qualities.”

The whole interview is shown on http://www.playd-magazin.com The interview is part of today’s show and the interview with Philippe Bergeron is held in English with no dubbing or subtitles, starting at 14’40’’. Just so you needn’t sit through 15 minutes of German you don’t understand.

Online multiplayer could be a major addition but only if it’s not added at the expense of the fantastic single player experience which is the true heart of Assassin’s Creed and goes to show that not every game must have online multiplayer.