Assassin’s Creed Shadows Story Will Continue In Multiple Future Entries, Dev Reveals

So no satisfying ending or payoff?

Why play now?

I think it's really hilarious thay they think it will sell enough to have multiple games, considering how bad this game is being received. Thats not even to mention how dysmal the sales were for Star Wars Outlaws, Skull and Bones, and Avatar Frontiers of Pandora.

This game will be a colossal flop, and Ubisoft absolutely deserves it. That is what you get when you ignore feedback from literally everyone.

Even if this game functioned worse than Unity at launch, there's basically no world where it's a "colossal" flop, but it would affect sales of the next game. Plenty of previews are positive, so even if this entry is less well-regarded than its predecessors, it will still have its fans and likely do better than Outlaws.
- Plenty of early reviews for were positive for Concord and Dragon Age Veilguard, but those ended up being pretty worthless reviews. Access media has ruined critic credibility. It would be stupid to trust a reviewer that knows their media outlet won't get review copies of the next game from a publisher if they review the game badly, because that will absolutely change the review to be more favorable.
  
  If Star Wars Outlaws, a game connected to an IP that absolutely has a way bigger market than Assassin's Creed, did that badly, I can almost guarantee that Shadows will not do better than Outlaws.
- Yes, I am excited for it
The previews say, it is not that bad. Considering the previous history of the franchise, I think it will sell good.

That's a huge problem I have with the franchise though! It's been their cash cow so every game has some sort of riff on the whole future story bit, but they can't commit to any of it and there's no end in sight. So I refuse to get attached to their overarching story because I have no confidence that it will every complete!

The two scenarios that will play out are (and I'm not saying which one is likely, just these are the only two):

Assassins' Creed continues to be huge -> They will never end the overarching story and it will keep trickling in
Assassin's Creed dies out -> They won't know it until their last one bombs so bad that the suits never make another, leaving it open

So why be invested in the story at all?

They cornered themselves by trying to make that future story span multiple games. Especially because everything was written around one character, Desmond Miles and later Layla Hasan. They could have done a “Who do you think you are?” type of format and introduce a new character every game who has to explore his past to solve a problem in their future and just make every story stand alone with an ending but in the same universe. That way they can write better stories without the bagage of the previous games. The whole save the world with the Pieces of Eden story was so dumb
The intrigue that they set up in AC1 and 2 in the future story had me hooked. Then, as good as Brotherhood was as a video game, it jumped the shark at the end of that game as they realized they could no longer afford to get Kristen Bell in the VO booth every year. I never even played AC3, but I heard the story spoiled on a GOTY podcast at the time, and I basically facepalmed when I heard it described.

What's the source for this?

https://www.famitsu.com/article/202502/34257 That’s the source
- Thanks. For those that don't read Japanese (and want to drop it in their favorite MTL or what have you), here's the relevant interview answer from creative director Jonathan Dumont:
  
  ――ネタバレは避けますが、ゲームのオープニング時の映像はちょっとびっくりするような、怪しげな感じでした。本作をクリアーするころには、その謎は解決するのか、あるいは謎に近づくことができるのでしょうか？
  
  ジョナサン 　これは現代編の新しい出発点です。時間とともに発展するストーリー部分があるため、今後の複数のシリーズでも続きのストーリーが語られることでしょう。ここで目にするのは、長年のファンにとってすばらしく感じられる部分であり、新しい物語を予感できるはずです。また同時に、新しいプレイヤーにとっても非常に期待を持ってもらえるようなコンセプトになっていると思います。
Game developer is the source
- Can we get a link? If you mean https://www.gamedeveloper.com/, they've only had one article specifically on Shadows this year and it's about a service platform for the series, not the story.

The article that OP was trying to link to: https://pkinsight.com/assassins-creed-shadows-story/