Assassin's Creed Was Supposed to Culminate with End of the World and Space Travel
Escaping in a spaceship during the end of the world - that's what the Assassin's Creed finale was supposed to look like a decade ago.
Since the release of the first Assassin's Creed in 2007, the series has gone through quite a few changes. The series, planned as a trilogy, has ultimately received more installments, both main ones and spin-offs. This had an obvious impact on the story planned by the creators, who originally have prepared a completely different ending than the one we saw in 2012. As it turns out, the Assassin's Creedtrilogy was originally supposed to end with Desmond Miles' space journey.
The information comes from... a text by Belgian student Lars de Wildt (now a researcher at the Catholic University of Lvov) and his paper titled Marketable religion: How game company Ubisoft commodified religion for a global audience. De Wildt interviewed Patrice Désilets (one of the creators of the series) and Alex Hutchinson (creative director of Assassin's Creed III). The latter has discussed this a recent interview with the Eurogamer.
NOTE: the following text has information about the plot of the first installments of the Assassin's Creed series (up to the third numerical game). Read at your own risk!
Hutchinson confirmed de Wildt's information, which suggests that AC3 was supposed to put more emphasis on the modern era. Desmond Miles - the trilogy's true main protagonist - was supposed to fight the Abstergo Corporation. But what's most interesting, the finale would take place in 2012 and - according to a now-defunct prophecy - we were supposed to witness the end of the world.
No, it wouldn't be Desmond's tragic end. He would have escaped from Earth in a spaceship, and he wouldn't be alone. Along with Lucy, Desmond would embark on a journey to found a new civilization:
Briefly put, the third game would end with a resolution of the conflict in the present day, with Desmond Miles taking down Abstergo using the combined knowledge and skills of all his ancestors, including AC1's Altair and AC2's Ezio. Also, it is the end of the world in 2012, and Desmond Miles and Lucy are starting a new civilisation somewhere else - as Adam and Eve.
To make matters more fun, Lucy's name was already a clue to Ubisoft's original plans. As we read in de Wildt's work, her namesake was... the skeleton of a female australopithecine, which is one of the most famous paleoanthropological finds in history.
Source: Lars de Wildt via Eurogamer.
As for the reasons why this ending was eventually scrapped, we can only guess that the culprit is... the second part of the series. The story of Ezio turned out to be so popular that it received its own sequels. In this context, an apocalyptic ending to the series must have seemed like killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
