Ubisoft has been pushing its Assassin's Creed franchise pretty hard lately, with the sequel to last year's trio Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines and Assassin's Creed II: Discovery — Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood for the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, and PC — slated for later this year, but it seems that the journey will come to a year-long pause for 2011 as the company has decided to give the franchise a rest.  Kombo has the details and a quote from Creed's associate producer, Jean-Francois Boivin.

"Honestly, I think for the benefit of everybody – and business can come back and override everything I say because at the end of the day it's about selling games – I believe that this license needs a breather...

...You can't plough a field every year. Once every three years – or once every something – you have to let it breathe. You have to let the minerals back in. I think it's the same thing with any license, really...

...I don't think there's going to be an Assassin's Creed in 2011. I think we're going to let it breathe a bit and really focus on bringing something new and exciting for the next time around. This [Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood] is the end of Ezio's story. This is it."

Kudos to Ubisoft for not overworking one of its best franchises and slamming it into the ground with annual releases whether there's a creative need for one or not.  I enjoyed last year's title and am looking forward to this year's edition, but I agree that it's time for Ezio and his counterparts to spend some time on the bench.  Franchise fatigue is becoming a serious problem in this age of repetitive Guitar Hero releases and an endless array of ongoing shooter titles that seldom tread new ground.  I have no problem with annual appearances from a franchise if each release does something remarkably different (a Super Mario Bros. title and a Mario Kart title can co-exist on the calendar, for instance), but more of the same every few months is overkill in an era where there are so many creative, original games demanding attention.