Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Assassin’s Creed Infinity has a new name and no microtransactions

By

Yasuke in Assassin's Creed Shadows fighting an enemy. He's dressed in his samurai armor.
Ubisoft

Ubisoft quietly confirmed new details on Assassin’s Creed Infinity, a hub that’s set to launch alongside Assassin’s Creed Shadows, on the franchise’s official Reddit on Friday. It not only revealed that Animus Hub would be the official name, but that the rewards would be free.

Recommended Videos

The post was in response to a datamined leak (since taken down via DMCA request) that purportedly revealed a lot of information about the Animus Hub and how it would integrate with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Along with revealing the new name, we learned that the Animus Hub would include a battle pass with cosmetics that can be purchased with Isu Coins, the in-game currency. This led to people assuming that there would be microtransactions involved.

Related: 
Best new movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Max (HBO), and more

Assassin’s Creed Reddit community manager Ubi_Waldo called the rumors “inaccurate,” but did confirm the Animus Hub name. Ubi_Waldo clarified that while there will be rewards in the hub, they’d be “entirely free.” “There are no paid subscriptions or paid battle pass featured in the Animus Hub,” the post read.

A Message From the Team on the Animus Hub
byu/Ubi_Waldo inassassinscreed

There’s been some confusion around what the Animus Hub would actually be. Assassin’s Creed Infinity was always a code name, so we expected that to change, but Ubisoft announced it as part of a “cross-studio, collaborative structure” between Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Quebec that’s led by veterans from the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Was it a new game? Was it just the name for the team? Either way, Ubisoft seemed to be putting the weight of Assassin’s Creed’s future on its shoulders.

Assassin's Creed Shadows: Official Cinematic World Premiere Trailer

Then, a Bloomberg report claimed that Infinity would be a “massive online platform that evolves over time.” It would apparently contain multiple settings that would change as the franchise moved forward. That was also vague. Maybe it was a live-service title, but as we found out in a later IGN interview, it’s just a hub that will host all the Assassin’s Creed games starting with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. It’s like a launcher, but with an Animus interface that will tell its separate story — hence the new name.

However, in 2022, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that Animus Hub would not be free to play. We’ll have to wait to see the final result when Shadows launches on February 14, 2025.

Carli Velocci
Carli Velocci
Former Contributor, Games
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
Topics

Editors’ Recommendations

How to get Knowledge Points and what they do in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
One of the protagonists in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

By the time we get to Assassin's Creed Shadows, most of us will be familiar with how the games work. Since transitioning more towards RPGs than stealth games, the titles have not only gotten longer but also embraced skill trees. Naoe and Yasuke each have unique progression paths to work through, but right away you will notice that most of the best abilities are gated off. Like Scouts, Knowledge Points are a new feature that you will need to master if you want to be the best assassin possible. We'll share all our knowledge about Knowledge Points with you.
How Knowledge Points work and how to get them

Knowledge Points are a separate system to XP that allows both Naoe and Yasuke to unlock the better and more powerful skills in all their skill trees. Unlike XP, you can't earn them by performing normal tasks or taking out enemies. Instead, Knowledge Points are rewarded for doing specific non-violent activities in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Read more
How long is Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Yasuke in Assassin's Creed Shadows fighting an enemy. He's dressed in his samurai armor.

It's no secret that the Assassin's Creed games have gotten longer and longer over the years. This is typical for Ubisoft open-world titles, but many are hoping that Assassin's Creed Shadows has scaled back on the bloat a bit. There's always fast travel and finding the fastest ways to earn XP to cut down on the grind, but there's only so much time that can be saved. If you're worried that this game might be another 100-hour time investment to fully complete, let's use our Eagle Vision to scout out how long Assassin's Creed Shadows is before you start playing.
How long is Assassin's Creed Shadows?

As you would expect, the amount of time you could put into Assassin's Creed Shadows will vary wildly based on how you approach it. You can focus on just the story and nothing else, tackle a handful of side missions and activities, or attempt to complete anything and everything the game has to offer.

Read more
Assassin’s Creed Shadows fixes my biggest problem with the series
The two protagonists in Assassin's Creed Shadows

The Assassin's Creed games have been on a steady path away from stealth ever since the series' first entry. I don't mean that stealth options were stripped out or haven't evolved, but it lagged behind the pace of a more direct approach. While Origins is seen as the major splintering point for the series into a full-blown action RPG, the series' identity crisis can be traced back much further. By the time we got Black Flag, stealth had become so inefficient and inessential that there was hardly a reason to bother with it at all outside of self-imposed challenges.

When the series did pivot into action RPGs, complete with weapon and armor scores, and made the protagonists more and more powerful, I fell off of the franchise. It not that I don't enjoy that style of game, rather that it wasn't what I came to Assassin's Creed for. With Assassin's Creed Shadows Ubisoft finally fixed that power creep problem without stripping those options out of the game. And that's thanks to its two character setup.
Jack of all trades, master of all
What caused me to fall out of favor with Assassin's Creed isn't that the series wanted to give players more options outside of a stealthy approach. Plenty of games proudly boast how they offer players the freedom to play sneaky or go in guns blazing. However, the issue with Assassin's Creed's for me was that one method invalidated the other.

Read more