Ubisoft's leak-a-thon continues with a dump of Assassin's Creed Hexe info that hints at the return of a familiar 'old man'

Assassins from AC games standing together — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Here we are again with a bucket of new info about a Ubisoft game that wasn't supposed to get out. This time, the leaks are about Assassin's Creed Hexe, an upcoming game in the series that has only been vaguely described as a "darker" installment through official channels.

All of the new details come from a well-known Ubisoft leaker who goes by "Rogue" and has been compiled on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit. According to Rogue, Hexe will primarily focus on Würzburg, Germany at the time of the witch trials in 1625. Surrounding areas will be available to explore too, but it sounds like the bulk of the game will take place in the city.

Hexe's protagonist will be a woman named Anika who is a descendent of Claudia Auditore, who you might remember from Assassin's Creed 2 as main character Ezio's sister. This is important because Ezio will show up in Hexe as a sort of mentor figure for Anika. Dialogue snippets suggest he'll be around long enough to recite The Creed to her and to say, "Come. Leap with me. One last time for an old man."

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Whether or not he sticks around for long is unclear, but other bits of dialogue make it seem like Anika will be alone as she runs from people who want to capture her for supposedly practicing witchcraft. Rogue says Hexe will have "lots of forests", as well as mission objectives like, "find the ritual sites" and "recover the stolen relics". And in case there was any doubt that this would be an Assassin's Creed game with climbing and a leveling system, there's apparently a skill that unlocks "tree-to-tree jumping".

The rest of the leak includes some miscellaneous details, like NPCs reporting suspicious activity immediately and voice lines that sound like pursuers trying to trap Anika before she flees. Rogue doesn't say it themselves, but to me, Hexe seems like it'll lean a bit more into stealth as a necessary survival tactic rather than an alternative to fighting out in the open. That feels like it would fit with the horror-ish tone Ubisoft is going for with it.

Nothing in Rogue's leak narrows down a release date for Hexe. Ubisoft announced the game in 2022 and hasn't really said much about it since then. Technically, the title is still a codename, so for all we know it could be given a new name whenever Ubisoft decides to finally talk about it.

Clint Hocking, a Ubisoft veteran who worked on the original Splinter Cell and Watch Dogs: Legion, was Hexe's creative director until he left earlier this year. At the time, a Ubisoft spokesperson told PC Gamer that Jean Guesdon, head of content for the Assassin's Creed brand, would replace him. Last month, Hexe also lost its game director Benoit Richer. IGN caught that Richer updated his LinkedIn with a new job and didn't hear anything from Ubisoft about who would be replacing him.

While Ubisoft is busy pitching everyone on the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake coming in July, it hasn't said a word about what's going on with Hexe. You'd think that one of the two upcoming games would have more than a logo going for it, but here we are. The other new game, Invictus, also recently had a leak that Ubisoft claimed was "heavily altered (most probably with AI)," from a private test. If the leaks continue at this rate, Ubisoft is going to have to create a hall of fame for all the Assassin's Creed games that qualify as "gaming's worst-kept secret".

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Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.