Assassin's Creed: Codename Infinity has a brand new name. Designed to be "the single entry point for our fans into the Assassin's Creed franchise," the Animus Hub is going to be a critical component of the series in the years to come. Now, thanks to a recent reveal during a preview hands-on event for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, we’ve finally got our first real look at the new hub, and there are a ton of exciting features for us to unpack.
It's an exciting time, with a plethora of upcoming Assassin's Creed games in development at Ubisoft. However, the new Assassin's Creed Shadows will be our first chance to experience the Animus Hub, followed by Assassin's Creed Hexe, with other experiences joining it over time – including new experiments in narrative and multiplayer spaces. So, keep reading to find everything you need to know about the Animus Hub ahead of its expected launch in March 2025.
Animus Hub release date
The Animus Hub will launch alongside Assassin's Creed Shadows on March 20, 2025. This exciting news was revealed during a recent video presentation by Ubisoft that shared a bunch of features and new details about the hub.
The video also confirmed that the Animus Hub will serve as a launch platform for all upcoming Ubisoft games in this series, similar to how COD HQ functions, and offer up expanded narrative threads. It's truly a new era in the franchise, folks!
What's the Animus Hub for?
Ubisoft has always worked collaboratively within its network, with one studio taking the lead and the others acting to support where needed. As the resources necessary to create something on the scale of an Assassin's Creed have increased, a palpable tension when the PS4 and Xbox One were introduced, the series creators at Ubisoft Montreal have traded lead development duties with the Quebec studio. Montreal developed Assassin's Creed Unity (2014), Assassin's Creed Origins (2017), and Assassin's Creed Valhalla (2020), while Quebec led Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015) and Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018).
The Animus Hub is designed to bring a more "cohesive approach" to the development of future games, which should shorten the time it takes studios to iterate, innovate, and implement new ideas. "Rather than continuing to pass the baton from game to game, we profoundly believe this is an opportunity for one of Ubisoft's most beloved franchises to evolve in a more integrated and collaborative manner that's less centered on studios and more focused on talent and leadership, no matter where they are within Ubisoft," the open letter continued.
The Animus Hub isn't the easiest thing to understand, because it doesn't necessarily have a direct comparison. For Ubisoft, it's a way for its talented studios to work smarter not harder as it builds the next generation of the best Assassin's Creed games. For us as players, the Animus Hub will be an evolving hub that will host and connect future Assassin's Creed games together.
Animus Hub gameplay
Described as "your gateway into history" during a video presentation shown on Ubisoft's early January Assassin's Creed Shadows preview event, the Animus Hub isn't a game but is instead an evolving hub that can house the ongoing evolution of the franchise and connect future game releases into a single interwoven experience. However, this isn't just any old launcher. When it releases, the Animus Hub gives players access to four features: Memories, Projects, the Vault, and the Exchange.
The Memory database is where you'll find the latest Assassin's Creed games. All the games are organized in a historical timeline, with the time period of each entry recorded next to its title. It's this feature where you'll get to play Assassin's Creed Shadows, and older entries in the series will also be available to load up via the hub on launch as well, it seems. In the Projects feature you'll have access to "regularly released missions" in Assassin's Creed Shadows called anomalies. These in-game missions will give players exclusive rewards such as weapons, data files, gear, and keys to use at the Exchange.
Speaking of the Exchange, this is where you'll "build your arsenal" and unlock weapons that have certain buffs and effects. The feature will be available to use on day one of Assassin's Creed Shadows. Finally, the last feature in the Animus hub is the Vault. The Vault is where you can dive deeper into the modern story of Assassin's Creed. It's also the feature that has the least amount of information surrounding it, with Ubisoft keeping the details under lock and key. However, we do know that the Vault unlocks as you start your journey in Assassin's Creed Shadows and that from glimpses that we've seen of the Animus hub, there will be "Encrypted Files" that you'll have to unlock, likely through exploration.
While all these above features sound exciting and hint that Ubisoft will be working to actively engage with the Assassin's Creed community going forward, there are also plans to grow the Animus Hub in the future as well. Ubisoft teases that the hub will evolve over the years, promising even more "new content, new features, and new rewards." We'll keep you posted as more changes and updates are revealed.
How will the Animus Hub work?
Assassin's Creed's executive producer Marc-Alexis Cote says that "Infinity is going to be a hub that will unite all our different experiences and our players together in meaningful ways." That answer was prompted by a comparison of the Infinity service (as it was known at reveal) to the Animus – that's the in-game virtual reality machine developed by Abstergo Industries, which allows a user to tap into and explore a genetic memory. This means that, in the future, flagship Assassin's Creed games will be accessible from the Animus Hub, and be at least tangentially connected to other titles available via the platform.
Which Assassin's Creed games will be in the Animus Hub?
Ubisoft has confirmed two new games that will launch through the Animus Hub so far. The first is Assassin's Creed Shadows; the second is Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe, a game said to explore Europe's infamous witch trials from Ubisoft Montreal – with development led by Clint Hocking, the creative director of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, and Watch Dogs Legion.
However, Ubisoft also recently shared that older Assassin's Creed games will be able to be accessed through the hub as well via the new Memories feature, such as Assassin's Creed Mirage, Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. These games won't be free, though, and while we are lacking information on how players can access older titles, it seems like the Animus Hub will reflect what games you can play based on what you've previously purchased. Stay tuned for more insights.
Assassin's Creed multiplayer
On the subject of whether multiplayer features will be implemented as part of the Animus Hub, Marc-Alexis Cote, Assassin's Creed's executive producer, says, "We're actually investigating how we bring back standalone, multiplayer experiences into the Assassin's Creed universe – all connected to the Infinity Hub."
This is a fairly meta-turn for Ubisoft, with Infinity already sounding a lot like the in-game Animus device as seen in the likes of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but that's all that's been confirmed in that regard for now. No multiplayer features will be available on the launch of the Animus Hub, but who knows, a new feature could be added in the future. We'll keep you posted as soon as any updates head our way.
Will Assassin's Creed Animus Hub be free-to-play?
The Assassin's Creed Animus Hub will not be free to play. Understandably, there's been some confusion as to how the Infinity Hub will function, which led to some fans speculating that it would be a free-to-play live service that would contain premium-priced Assassin's Creed games.
While we're still waiting for clarification on the fine details, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had this to say about Codename Infinity in a 2022 earning's call: "It's not going to be free to play, and this game will have a lot of narrative elements in it."
Next, check out our list of the best games like Assassin's Creed, or our guide to all the upcoming Xbox games.
