At Ubisoft Forward in September 2022, several new projects were revealed by the firm, including a mobile-exclusive, open-world adventure set in China, codenamed ‘Jade’. It has been kept under wraps since then, but recently, a 3-minute long video was leaked, revealing everything you could possibly want to know about an early build of the game.
Despite being a title made exclusively for mobile devices, Assassin’s Creed Codename: Jade looks phenomenal, boasting graphics reminiscent of 360-era AC games. Even though it was an early build of Jade, it ran remarkably well, and both the parkour and movement mechanics and the flow of combat looked top-notch.
The First of Many
We anticipate that many more of Ubisoft’s planned Assassin’s Creed titles will start leaking out across the airwaves in the coming months, and Jade is just the first of them. Here’s the footage, the credit for which goes to u/dattuu on Reddit (r/assassinscreed):
In the leaked footage, we see the player assume control of Dengling Bai, ‘Juzi of the Mohists’, as he tears across the walls of what looks like an ancient fortress, defending it from attackers.
Following a brief read-up online, it seems that ‘Mohists’ were a group of people that lived by ‘Mohism’, an ancient Chinese philosophy of ‘ethics and logical, rational thought, and science’ – which sounds a little Templar-y, to be honest.
As a ‘Juzi’, Bai is a leader of a local ‘unit’ working within a political structure. We’re also introduced to another character, Wei Yu, the ‘Leader of Moxia’. Now, that’s interesting, as Wei Yu has long been a known character in the Assassin’s Creed Universe, having been introduced as a commemorated assassin in Assassin’s Creed II.
In his lifetime, he was best known for the assassination of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Based on the information we have available, we may be living out that story in Assassin’s Creed Codename: Jade.
What Can We Expect From Jade?
If the leaked footage is anything to go by, Ubisoft is certainly going all-out with Jade, producing one of the best-looking mobile-only titles the world has ever seen. That doesn’t even feel like an exaggeration, as some of the combat sequences were reminiscent of recent releases in the franchise, such as Valhalla and Odyssey.
As a mobile-first title, we can likely expect Jade to be riddled with microtransactions, such is the nature of mobile gaming, but there’s a high chance that it’ll be free-to-play if that’s the case. At present, very little is known about Jade, and that includes the launch date.
Watch this space if this leak has got you all riled up.
For more Insider Gaming news, check out our report on the fact that the Assassin’s Creed VR project is still in development.
