Assassin's Creed Infinity is now The Animus Hub, a launcher for modern Assassin's Creed games that Ubisoft definitely doesn't want you to call a launcher

gamesradar.com:

With Assassin's Creed Shadows imminent, Ubisoft has lifted the veil on The Animus Hub, the project once known as Assassin's Creed Infinity, which it definitely doesn't want you to say is a new Assassin's Creed launcher.

In a presentation ahead of today's big Assassin's Creed Shadows preview, Andrée-Anne Boisvert, a long-standing producer on the Assassin's Creed series, introduced The Animus Hub by saying "we're building a new home for Assassin's Creed moving forward, a place that will allow us to see our beloved franchise through an entirely new lens."

Boisvert explains that The Animus Hub is the project that you may have heard of under the name Assassin's Creed Infinity, which was first hinted at and then confirmed by Ubisoft in 2021. At the time, the project was thought to be a live-service entry in the series, and it wasn't until June 2024 that Ubisoft confirmed the new name and hinted that it might serve as a launcher for Assassin's Creed Shadows.

It's clear that Ubisoft doesn't want The Animus Hub to be thought of as just another launcher, however. Boisvert explains that "my nightmare was to suffer from another level of what we call  'launcher-ception'" - presumably the idea that you'd boot Assassin's Creed Shadows through a platform like Steam, only to then have to actually launch the game with another button press once the Hub had opened. She claims that "the Animus Hub is not a standalone launcher." Instead, "it's directly embedded within the Shadows executable," and should feel like a "seamless experience" because "if we couldn't get you directly into your game fast, then we consider it a failure."

Those specific games will be games from 'period 2' of the Assassin's Creed franchise - Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla, Mirage, and Shadows - and beyond. Boisvert explains that "we will also be integrating the Animus Hub in its constantly evolving form into all of our future titles," namedropping Assassin's Creed Hexe and multiplayer project Assassin's Creed Invictus,