Leaked Video Exposes Scrapped Ubisoft-Tencent China Assassin’s Creed

A joint venture between Ubisoft and Tencent to build a mainline Assassin’s Creed game set in 206 BCE China collapsed before it left the prototype phase. Footage published by MP1st of the canceled project, internally titled Assassin’s Creed Destiny, reveals a playable build featuring Qin Empire architecture, stealth mechanics, and placeholder combat animations.

The leaked video shows a character scaling castle walls and executing stealth kills. One weapon visible in the unpolished footage resembles an umbrella engineered for lethal strikes. These assets point to early-stage development rather than a near-finished product.

Ubisoft’s reliance on Tencent for this specific historical setting traces back to a 2018 strategic partnership where the Chinese conglomerate helped fend off a hostile takeover bid from Vivendi. In exchange, Tencent acquired a 5 percent stake in the French publisher. Leveraging that partner to navigate ancient Chinese history was a calculated move. The Qin dynasty, marked by Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s brutal unification of warring states, requires cultural precision that Western studios have historically struggled to deliver without local expertise.

Scrapping a mainline console title leaves a massive gap. The last core franchise entry, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, launched in late 2023. Ubisoft has since restructured its entire release pipeline following severe financial pressure and the commercial underperformance of titles like Star Wars Outlaws and Skull and Bones.

Assassin’s Creed Jade remains the only active project tied to ancient China. Announced in 2022 as a mobile-exclusive game, it represents a fundamentally different tier of investment compared to a mainline console release. A 2024 Reuters report pushed its expected launch window into 2025. No release date has materialized. A Ubisoft executive recently confirmed to VGC that the mobile spinoff will include co-op gameplay, a feature absent from the leaked Destiny footage.

Whether any mechanical concepts or weapon designs from the scrapped Destiny prototype survive inside the codebase of the upcoming mobile game is unknown. Ubisoft has not commented on the leak or the cancellation.