That Middle East Assassin's Creed game has reportedly been delayed

gamesradar.com:

A new Assassin's Creed game said to be set in the Middle East has reportedly been pushed back due to production issues. 

That's according to a new report from Bloomberg (opens in new tab) which tallies with another recent report from Kotaku (opens in new tab). As many suspected, this is apparently the "smaller unannounced premium game" that Ubisoft mentioned at its most recent earnings call, which was delayed alongside Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. 

Like Ubisoft's Avatar game, Bloomberg reports that this Assassin's Creed, codenamed Project Rift, is now expected to launch in the next fiscal year. It was reportedly targeting a February 2023 launch, but because the game is "running far behind schedule," its timeline has been extended to the spring – sometime in May or June. 

Ubisoft has yet to officially announce or even title Project Rift, which apparently started out as another DLC for Assassin's Creed Valhalla but evolved into a standalone game, nor has it ever given it a public release date. We only have leaks, reports, and now internal delays to go on for now. Hopefully we get some official details at Ubisoft's September event, which promises to reveal "the future of Assassin's Creed." 

By the way, be careful you don't confuse Project Rift with Project Red, rumored to be an entirely separate component of Assassin's Creed which will take the franchise to Asia – potentially including Japan, though this particular setting is extra unconfirmed. Project Red is said to be part of Assassin's Creed Infinity, which Ubisoft has technically acknowledged, though the specifics of the evolving game are still up in the air. 

We do know that Assassin's Creed Infinity isn't a free-to-play game, so that's something.