Ubisoft plans to bring reintroduce modern framing narratives to its Assassin's Creed series.

Prior to last year's Assassin's Creed: Unity, Ubisoft used the Animus as a narrative conceit to jump between different historical eras over the course of a game's story. The developer reduced that framing narrative in Unity because "it was a completely fresh game on a completely fresh generation."

Speaking in a Twitch community livestream, writer Darby McDevitt said, “We always plan to have more modern day but we have to be really smart about how we do it. There was a plan for a little more modern day in Unity [and] nothing that was actually cut.

“The thing with Unity was that it was a completely fresh game on a completely fresh generation. So creating any kind of modern day is a pretty huge ask. To create a city, for instance, or even part of a city, would require six months of work by many, many artists, designers, modellers. And then you’d need gameplay systems that didn’t feel like you were just fencing.”

McDevitt added that the writing team is working on a First Civilization historical timeline that the writers can refer to in future games.

"As a side-project [we're making] sure all future projects have this cool timeline to go from, creating this huge First Civ history,” he said. “With all the big moments and a ton of small moments you’ve never thought of – so every future writer can say ‘I want to reference Juno again, or Minerva’ and see where she was at a specific date… and how far along was the First Civ-human war going."

The next game in the Assassin's Creed series will be called Victory, and it will be set in Victorian London. It is coming this year to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.