Well-known British humorist and author Danny Wallace will be cast as one of the key roles in Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft announced today. The voice and likeness of Wallace will be cast for the character of Shaun Hastings. A pivotal character in the game, Shaun will serve as a historian, guide and source of information for the player as he proceeds through the game.

“When the UK suggested Danny to us, we were completely open to the idea. Danny has been fantastic to work with, and his manner and particular style of humor has worked out perfect for the role of Shaun” said script writer Corey May. Speaking on his own involvement in the game, Wallace said “Going right back to my days of working on Sega Power, I’ve always been a keen gamer, and being involved – and actually being in a game like Assassin’s Creed II is amazing! I have to say, I’m rather excited.”

With the recent re-configuration of Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ubisoft needed more time to make things prefect. According to Ubisoft’s Production Manager, they gave it time by using Assassin’s Creed as a way to make money, and to continue with the games development.

“Because actually we felt that the game wasn’t well received [at Ubidays] and some of the critics were actually saying that we were missing the gameplay, when we started having maybe a bit of trouble bringing back the core gameplay, and we saw the success that Assassin’s was going to have, Ubisoft made the decision to say, ‘look guys, take the time you need to do this game, we’ve got someone bringing in the money for the next year so we’re okay, we won’t ship a game that’s not good, so go ahead and take the time to do it’,” said Andréane Meunier to Eurogamer.

“That took the pressure off us and allowed us to rework the core values that we wanted to bring out,” he continued.

Sometime back, we had confirmation that UbiSoft were “working hard on the product”, but with the confirmation they didn’t give a release target for the game. Now, an industry analyst, Michael Pachter, thinks that he has the prefect release target for the game.

In a note to investors today in anticipation of Ubisoft’s third-quarter earnings report, Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities predicted that Assassin’s Creed 2 will be out before the end of the company’s 2010 Fiscal Year.

“We believe investors should focus on Ubisoft’s prospects for FY:10, particularly as its products continue to sell well on the strong Wii and DS platforms, and as it rolls out a suberb [sic] lineup. We expect solid year-over-year growth from the casual (Nintendo) games lineup, with the introduction of two new brands next fall, and expect strong revenue contribution from Assassin’s Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction and Avatar next fiscal year.”

[Analyst: ‘Assassin’s Creed 2′ Coming Before April 2010 via MTV Multiplayer]