The game director of the upcoming Assassin's Creed Red has shed light on the reasons behind the game's delays. Originally slated for a November 2024 release, Assassin's Creed Red was pushed back to February 2025, and subsequently to March.

Charles Beauvais, a 19-year veteran at Ubisoft with various design and directorial roles across the Assassin's Creed franchise (as well as Watch Dogs and For Honor), discussed the reasons for Red's delay in a recent interview. He emphasized that the development time was spent primarily on "tweaking and polishing" rather than "major shifts" in gameplay or design.  Beauvais mentioned that during this period, the focus for Assassin's Creed Red was on balancing the game progression and creating a more fluid parkour and combat experience.

He clarified that these adjustments were "really subtle," stating:

“What we really did [with the extra time] was go back on the parkour, for example, and think, Okay, how can we make the parkour on the rooftops even more fluid? You’ve seen the rooftops – the architecture is quite intricate. So how do we make it more fluid? How can we make some transitions faster?

“Same thing on combat. Can we fine-tune the combat to make it feel even more impactful? So, it’s much more tweaking and polishing than, let’s say, we’re redoing this or adding that. We’ve made some changes in the game progression balance, but it’s really subtle. We felt like we had a good experience, it was just polishing it and making it even more balanced that really helped.”

Following Red's two delays, many players expressed concern about the game's progress and worried about behind-the-scenes development issues.  Beauvais' new details about the team's focus during Red's extended development provide insight – and reassurance – that the delays have allowed the team to refine core gameplay elements, rather than overhaul key aspects of the popular stealth-action franchise.

Parkour has been a major selling point of the game so far, and knowing the developers used the extra time afforded by the delay to refine and optimize this mechanic (along with others) is undoubtedly good news for players eager to see what the game brings to the series. Following the notoriously buggy and technically flawed launch of Assassin's Creed Unity (particularly with its parkour), Ubisoft’s fine-tuning of the game systems should ensure the "more fluid" parkour and "more impactful" combat promised – two cornerstones of the Assassin's Creed experience.

While any delay is usually disappointing for eager players, it’s always best for a game to ultimately launch in its best possible state.  After technical issues followed the launch of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor last year, Ubisoft stated it would take player "precious feedback" into account after "learning lessons" from that launch, and this may have been a factor in the eventual delay designated to Assassin's Creed Red.  In the case of Assassin's Creed Red, Ubisoft appears to be taking its time to address the finer details of the Assassin's Creed experience for the 14th mainline entry, set in 16th-century Japan.