Seven studios team up to deliver Assassin's Creed III this October

Ubisoft has revealed that Assassin's Creed III, which brings its popular franchise to the American Revolutionary War, will release on October 31 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows, on October 31 -- a Wii U version is also under development. The Parisian publisher points out that this is the largest project in its history, with a development cycle of three years and twice the production capacity of any previous title from Ubisoft. Seven internal studios have collaborated to build Assassin's Creed III, including the series' primary developer Ubisoft Montreal. As the first numbered release for the franchise since 2009's Assassin's Creed II (it's received installments like Brotherhood and Revelations since), it's built on a new in-house game engine called Ubisoft-AnvilNext, which the company says features breakthroughs in visual quality, character models, and AI. Assassin's Creed III also introduces a new hero to complement its Revolutionary War setting: Ratohnhaké:ton, or Connor, an assassin of Native American and English descent. Previous entries took place in Renaissance Italy and the Crusades-era Middle East. Since Assassin's Creed's debut in 2007, the series has gone on to sell over 31 million copies. It's had trouble retaining its creative directors, though, losing Patrice Desilets in 2010 to THQ, and Alexandre Amancio several months ago to an advertising agency.