Ubisoft made minds race and pulses stop today with the following headline on Ubiblog:
“Assassin’s Creed and Final Fantasy XV Collaboration Revealed at Gamescom”
A quick look at the replies to the announcement on Twitter reveals a mix of excited disbelief and shock and horror at the prospect of two behemoth gaming franchises coming together.
Could this be a completely unexpected crossover game? A mini mobile game? An animated short? Will we see the likes of Altair and Ezio leaping off the backs of Chocobos, or Cloud and Zidane scaling Renaissance-era towers?
Alas, no. A click on the link details the true nature of this ‘collaboration.’ This all stems from the respective development teams’ mutual admiration and has resulted in a decision to ‘pay homage’ to each other’s franchises.
At this week’s Gamescom event in Germany, the two teams showed off an artwork mash-up of Bayek from Assassin’s Creed: Origins and Noctis from Final Fantasy XV. The blog post mentions the existence of Easter Eggs that fans may have missed in each game’s trailer videos before going on to reveal new in-game content for Final Fantasy XV.
It will all begin on August 30th when Noctis (provided the player has the Dream Egg from the Moogle Chocobo Carnival) will receive an Assassin’s Creed outfit.
That’s right. No game crossover. No animated mash-up. An outfit!
The following day, the “Assassin’s Festival DLC” will be available for free download. This will add a special event to the game in the town of Lestallum with ‘new activities’ promised, including the ability for Noctis to ‘explore more like an assassin’. There will also be special items to unlock including…. another Assassin’s Creed outfit…. at least it’s free!
There is, as of yet, no news on how Final Fantasy might feature in Assassin’s Creed. A Moogle Chocobo Carnival in the streets of ancient Cairo seems unlikely, so perhaps a Noctis outfit for Bayek? This collaboration seems set to be more cross-dressing than crossover…