Continuing the series’ fine tradition, NAMCO Bandai have revealed that Ezio Auditore da Firenze of the Assassin’s Creed franchise will be featured and playable in SoulCalibur V.

The white-clad assassin, who found fame in Ubisoft’s hit adventure franchise, will be available in both versions of the title. However, considering all the previous guest characters, Ezio, perhaps, makes the most sense because the renaissance-era assassin fits closely to fits the series plot and era.

Ubisoft creative director Tommy Jacob has admitted that the development teams have struggled when it comes to nailing down the “identity” of the Ghost Recon franchise, while simultaneously trying to grow the franchise’s user-base.

“It’s been a struggle to nail down and maintain an identity that stays true to Ghost Recon’s roots while allowing the franchise to grow and be competitive in the genre,” said Jacob to CVG. Much like the Assassin’s Creed franchise, the development of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has been outsourced accross different development teams, which has also been a challenge within itself for development.

“It was always going to be a challenge,” added lead game designer Roland Campos Oriola. “It’s the drill when you’re working on a franchise with a quality track record and you want to innovate and offer a different game experience. It takes time and trials to get it right.”

Ubisoft have announced its plans to continue the downloadable content  for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, the latest installment into the acclaimed action-adventure franchise. The publisher plans to “increase the excitement” around its online mode, including some other “good surprises”, with the additional content.

EMEA sales and marketing chief Geoffroy Sardin then went on the confirm the next installment in 2011, restoring the companies comment to the franchise. “Assassin’s Creed is our biggest franchise now, and we will invest to keep it big for the next few years – and maybe the next ten years,” he continued, praising the success of the franchise.

Ubisoft plans to ship James Cameron‘s Avatar on December 1st. But, undoubtedly, the publishers heaviest holiday hitter of this year is Assassin’s Creed II, which shipped last week. That said, according to the company’s internal estimate, Assassin’s Creed II sold over 1.6 million units worldwide during its first week; that’s 32 percent faster than the original in terms of sales timing.

“We’ve made improvements to every aspect of the game. We’ve plunged ourselves into the stunning history of the Italian Renaissance so that we can offer fans a unique, varied and innovative Assassin’s Creed experience,” said Patrice Desilets, creative director at Ubisoft, when announcing the game back in April. Assassin’s Creed II is now available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Kirsten Bell will indeed return as Lucy Stillman in the sequel to Assassin’s Creed, UbiSoft announced today. Kirsten’s character Lucy is… well, boring, but you don’t want to mess with Veronica Mars and her “expressive enthusiasm”.

Anyway, Lucy Stillman was one of the few people protagonist Desmond actually got on with the original Assassin’s Creed, and she seemed to actually care about him. And it looks like she’ll be returning to do the same thing in the sequel, Assassin’s Creed II.

“Being a part of the first Assassin’s Creed video game was an amazing experience. Video games is such a creative entertainment medium, and to be able to see and play myself as a video game character was surreal,” said Bell. “As an actress, it’s both challenging and rewarding to play a complex character with this mysterious background.”

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.”

Speaking exclusively to Gamesindustry.biz, Ubisoft Game Designer Michael de Plater acknowledges that the festive holiday season is a “brutal” duration to release new IPs and that many good games could fall wayside as a result.

“It’s a bit tough to launch a new IP exactly at Christmas when you’re head-to-head with blockbuster sequels. It’s interesting to see a number of big titles, like Heavy Rain, being targeted at 2010 to avoid the Christmas rush,” he explained. “And Ubisoft’s got Ruse coming out in 2010. Even God of War 3′s in 2010, that’s how brutal it is. I mean, you’ve got Assassins Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2.”

“To me, it’s been a period of enormous change, and the last four years I would say has been the time when games have actually surpassed movies as the premium blockbuster entertainment,” he continues.

Speaking of, the summer is basically an empty season for video games. I don’t know why developers and publishers can’t just space things out because, like I said, the summer season is basically empty for video games.

UbiSoft briefly mentioned in their financial report today that several of their major upcoming titles have been delayed. Yes, including Conviction.

Anyway, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2, both of which were slotted for holiday 09 releases, have now been pushed into early 2010. And, in other news, I Am Alive and Ghost Recon 4 were, unluckily, hit with even bigger delays, pushing them into UbiSoft’s 2010-11 fiscal year, which means a release in April of 2010 at the absolute earliest.

“We are disappointed that we have to postpone the release of several major games but we consider that this choice is the best one in the long-term interests of Ubisoft,” reads the publisher’s latest financial report.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is the follow-up to the title that became the fastest-selling new IP in video game history. The highly anticipated title features a new hero, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young Italian noble, and a new era, the Renaissance.

EZIO, A NEW ASSASSIN FOR A NEW ERA – Ezio Auditore da Firenze is a young Italian noble who will learn the ways of the assassins after his family was betrayed and he looks to seek vengeance. He is a lady’s man, a free soul with panache yet has a very human side to his personality. Through him, you become a master assassin.

RENAISSANCE ITALY – Italy in the 15th century was less a country and more a collection of city-states where families with political and economic strength began to take leadership roles in cities like Florence and Venice. This journey through some of the most beautiful cities in the world takes place in a time in history where culture and art were born alongside some of the most auspicious stories of corruption, greed and murder.

A NEW-FOUND FREEDOM – You will be able to perform missions when you want and how you want in this open-ended world that brings back free-running and adds elements such as swimming and even flying to the adventure. The variety in gameplay adds another layer for you to truly play through the game any way you choose.

DYNAMIC CROWD – Discover a living, breathing world where every character is an opportunity for the player. Blending in with the crowd is easier, working with in-game characters provide ample rewards but can also lead to surprising consequences.

BECOME A MASTER ASSASSIN – Perfect your skills to become a master assassin where you brandish new weapons, learn to disarm enemies then use their weapons against them and assassinate enemies using both hidden blades.

In an accidental leak discovered by some tipster, unprotected files on its Ubisoft site reveal the newest version Splinter Cell: Conviction, which show what “going back to the drawing board” has done for the title. The video doesn’t feature game play, but what it is, is ten seconds of greatness.

Along with the video, it was also spotted by Gamekyo on the E3 show floor a banner showing the new Sam Fisher.

[Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell : Conviction video from E3 2009 via Gamekyo]

Many already assumed that Assassin’s Creed 2 would be releasing later this year, but what many of us wanted to know was if we were right for thinking so. Anyway, it seems that we were right.

Today, Ubisoft revealed that gamers should expect the game later on this year, more specifically around the time we all say “Marry Christmas”, which, if you didn’t know, is Holiday 2009. 

“Our creative team is working hard to top the experience of Assassin’s Creed,” said Patrice Desilets, creative director at Ubisoft. “We’ve made improvements to every aspect of the game. We’ve plunged ourselves into the stunning history of the Italian Renaissance so that we can offer fans a unique, varied and innovative Assassin’s Creed experience.”

Additional details on Assassin’s Creed II are revealed in the May issue of Game Informer. Assassin’s Creed 2 will be available for “all current gen consoles and the PSP”, but they aren’t saying nothing about it coming to the Wii.

Truly Assassin’s Creed was one of the best games of 2007 and we have been waiting for an announcement ever since UbiSoft mandated that there would be a sequel announcement when fans demanded it the most. Well, it looks like the fans have demanded it but this should help them until the official announcement. Yeah, we’ll still have to wait.

During Ubi’s first-half fiscal 2008-09 conference call, which was today, there was a question asked about there being a Assassin’s Creed sequel. While an Ubisoft executive would not confirm the game’s release for fiscal ’10, lead exec did concede that “we are working hard on the product” — CONFORMATION!!!

But, it still seem that Ubi is still keeping to claims that an Assassin’s Creed sequel won’t be released until there is “more anticipation for it.” If you ask me there’s alot of demand for it so what are they waiting for? Anyway, it was confirmed that Altair, the main character of Assassin’s Creed, will be playable in there latest upcoming game, Prince of Persia. However, there was no details given about the game, go figure, but there looks like there’s going to be some very interesting rumors on this game.

There’s no doubt that Prince of Persia is one of the most promising titles of the year and it seems Ubisoft is just adding to that promise everytime we hear news about the game. After all Ubi did say that they had “something special planned” for PS3 owners because the 360 owners had the chance to pick there achievements. However, one game that the upcoming Prince of Persia video game was compared to the most was Assassin’s Creed – it’s running on that same engine. And we’re guesting that since those game were compared alot Ubisoft has decided to reveal a Altair playable skin in Prince of Persia.

Anyway, the only way that you can get the code is if you are registered on the official Ubi website. Once you have a copy of Prince of Persia, link your Ubi account to your Xbox 360 Gamertag or PSN screen name to access the Altair skin.

Those who pre-ordered Prince of Persia from GameStop will also get a code to access the Prince of Persia Classic skin. Pre-orders will also get a free upgrade to the Limited Edition game, which includes special packaging, a making-of video and the original soundtrack. Although Ubisoft is mum as to what additional skins will be made available, but has confirmed that there will be additional skins for the Prince and Elika.

[Prince of Persia's New Creed via IGN]

Update:

Images will be unveiled in the next Joypad magazine set to appear on April 29.

Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced that a new Prince of Persia is scheduled to release Holiday 2008 for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and PC. This new Prince of Persia marks the debut of the critically acclaimed franchise on next-generation consoles. Developed by Ubisoft’s award winning Montreal studio that brought you Assassin’s Creed(TM) and the same all-star team that created the previously acclaimed Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy, Prince of Persia is opening a new chapter in the Prince of Persia universe, featuring a new breed of gameplay. The game is poised to rejuvenate the action-adventure genre in addition to introducing a brand-new illustrative art style.

Ubisoft will also release a Prince of Persia game specifically designed for the Nintendo DS(TM) system, featuring an entirely new storyline and new characters. More details to be unveiled in the future.