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Assassin's Creed Shadows will reportedly launch from the Animus Hub, previously known as Assassin's Creed Infinity
Assassin's Creed Infinity is now known as the Animus Hub, a platform connecting all Assassin's Creed games, inspired by Call of Duty HQ and contextualized within the series' lore.
Assassin's Creed Infinity, the still mysterious connective tissue that'll soon tie all Assassin's Creed games together, has now been renamed to the Animus Hub.
Ubisoft couldn't really describe Assassin's Creed Infinity without confusing everyone back when it was first announced in 2022. At the time, the company revealed that Infinity would be a "hub that will unite all our different experiences and our players together in meaningful ways," and might even "bring back standalone, multiplayer experiences into the Assassin's Creed universe."
Looking to Call of Duty HQ might be a better comparison - a platform from which you can download and launch several games all falling under the CoD umbrella. The idea doesn't solve any existing problems, besides tangentially connecting the series, but at least there's a precedent for the idea.
In an interview with Game File, Assassin's Creed's vice president executive producer, Marc-Alexis Côté, revealed the name change to Animus Hub, which admittedly sounds like a cooler way to make the platform work in canon.
In Assassin's Creed games, you don't actually play as ancient wall-running warriors, Greek heartbreakers, or Japan's first Black samurai. You instead play as modern-day characters who enter a virtual reality device called the Animus to relive the genetic memories of historical figures. At first, we followed main man Desmond Miles before moving on to other characters in subsequent games. I'm guessing the Animus Hub rebrand is looking to contextualize the platform within the series' lore, though I wonder how that'll affect the modern-day portions in all upcoming Assassin's Creed games.
Assassin's Creed Shadows, the forthcoming Feudal Japan RPG, also has the same setup. "You are in the Animus," Côté explained, "... the game is launched from the Animus," but more details will be spilled closer to the game's launch on November 15.