Assassin's Creed Was Meant to End With Desmond Miles in Assassin's Creed 3 — Then Success Changed Everything

Assassin's Creed was never meant to be a forever franchise. According to the guy who ran Assassin's Creed 3, it was supposed to bow out with a present-day Desmond Miles finale. Then the first two games blew up, plans changed, and the series took a hard left. Here’s how that happened and why killing Desmond actually made sense.

"The problem with success is it drags it out."

The plan: a tidy trilogy, then lights out

AC3 creative director Alex Hutchinson — who’s now fresh off leading the sci-fi sequel Revenge of the Savage Planet — says the original Assassin’s Creed roadmap was simple and locked in before he even joined: make the two historical games you know, then do one last entry that’s a full-on Desmond-in-the-present story. And that would be the end. He laid all this out in a new chat with FRVR.

What success did to that plan

While AC3 was in development, Ubisoft looked at the numbers and decided to keep the train rolling. That’s when Brotherhood and Revelations slid in between AC2 and AC3. Fun wrinkle: Brotherhood started life as DLC and then ballooned into a full game. By the time AC3 was finally ready to land, the franchise had gotten heavy with extra lore and side stories — drifting away from the clean historical hook that made the first two entries hit.

AC3’s course correction

Hutchinson’s team wanted to pull the series back to that core: accessible historical adventure first, sci-fi scaffolding second. He makes the broader point that genres and franchises fall apart when they get too self-referential and niche. He even points to the old-school RTS scene before the MOBA wave — it kept chasing the hardcore and shed a lot of mainstream players. The AC3 crew did not want a canon-policing vibe where you need a wiki open to keep up. Think the way Far Cry resets itself: you can jump in cleanly without feeling like you missed a decade of homework.

Why Desmond had to go

Desmond had been in every game up to AC3, but keeping him around also kept the continuity knots tight. Killing him was the reset button — controversial with diehards at the time, sure, but it opened the door for new players and new eras. History has kind of backed that move up: Assassin’s Creed is still one of the biggest names in games, 18 years after the first release, and this year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows is already out.

• Original plan: trilogy ending with a present-day Desmond game and the franchise ending there
• Before AC3 shipped: Ubisoft slotted in Brotherhood and Revelations (with Brotherhood morphing from planned DLC into a full title)
• Impact: the series got dense and lore-heavy, drifting from its historical core
• AC3 goal: refocus on accessible historical storytelling and give newcomers a clean entry point
• Result: Desmond dies in AC3, fans argue, franchise keeps thriving

One last note for collectors

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is also finally headed to Switch 2 in December. You can probably guess the downside: Ubisoft is sticking with game-key cards instead of true physical releases.