Rayman as a character reminds me of most platformer mascots from the ’90s, which I suppose is appropriate since Ubisoft introduced him in 1995. He’s full of personality and light on unique abilities: run, jump, punch, run-while-jumping, run-while-punching, etc. I’m oversimplifying, but to a degree you could put his abilities on another character and they’d still make sense — which is essentially what Ubisoft did, since Rayman Origins is a four-player 2D platformer where everyone plays someone who controls roughly like Rayman.

Origins’ brilliance is it keeps that simplicity on the surface, but ends up feeling incredibly varied thanks to its level design. As you play, it becomes increasingly obvious that the levels don’t waste your time by asking you to repeat actions. Sure, you jump on a lot of heads and punch a lot of guys, but the levels constantly provide new toys to play with, and then remodel them in multiple ways before you have time to lose interest.

As previously expected, a new Assassin’s Creed game will be out before the end of 2012.

The news was confirmed by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot during a conference call with investors today. He didn’t provide any specifics about what the game will be called or entail, just that it’s planned for release at some point next year.

Ubisoft has added a developer to its stable of internal studios today as it announced the acquisition of RedLynx.

RedLynx is a Finland-based developer best known for the Trials games, Trials HD on Xbox Live arcade in particular. Other, newer titles it’s released include WiiWare racer MotoHeroz and iOS platformer 1000 Heroz.

Yet another leak has sprung from Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification. This time the ratings board has prematurely outed an unannounced Ubisoft game by the name of Rayman 3D.

GoNintendo discovered the slip-up on the OFLC’s website, where the game has been rated PG for mild violence. Given Ubisoft’s support for the platform and the “3D” bit in the title, it seems reasonable to suspect a 3DS release for Rayman 3D; the OFLC’s database, however, lists the game for multiple unspecified platforms.

Between Rayman Origins and this mystery project, Rayman fans should have plenty to look forward to in the near future — provided Rayman 3D isn’t just another Rabbids spin-off, that is. We’ll bring you the official details as soon as they’re available.

A new map is on the way for the multiplayer modes in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood once the game’s community reaches a set number of online kills.

An announcement on Ubisoft Germany’s official AC: Brotherhood website (via Joystiq) revealed the multiplayer event, which will unlock the “Rome by Night” map as players top a cumulative 25 million kills.

The progress bar on Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Network community site lists the current total at zero kills, so it’s not clear if the tracking isn’t functioning properly or if the promotion simply hasn’t started yet. Either way, now’s as good a time as any to start working on your backstabbing skills.

Ubisoft revealed Project Dust at their E3 press conference earlier this week, the new game from Out of this World creator Eric Chahi. But in a new Q&A with Chahi released by Ubisoft, Chahi reveals Project Dust is taking inspiration from another classic PC game: Populous.

“Project dust is the spiritual heir to Populous,” Chahi explains. “The game is set in an extreme version of Planet Earth where nature unleashes her power in a much more violent way than what we are used to.” This includes tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions (which, sadly, kind of sounds exactly like the real Planet Earth these days), and the game is about using powers to harness these disasters and their elements to help the people of the planet survive.

“In this kind of God game, users will play with powers to manipulate the world around them,” Chahi further explains. “Ground, water, lava, fire, plants, and trees — model the world like a child playing sand castles on the beach. With such powers, players will help their people resist, expand and migrate so they can accomplish their quest to find a safe place.”

But Populous isn’t the only inspiration behind Project Dust — Chahi also sites a 1999 trip to the Yasur crater in Vanuatu, and also Rez “because music is an important part the universe of the game.”

Project Dust is coming in spring of 2011.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is fresh out the gate, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier still has a few months to go, but there are apparently two more Tom Clancy games under development at Ubisoft. Eurogamer discovered as much when they translated a Dutch interview with Tom Clancy brand manager Michel Verheijdt.

“At this moment I’m working on two Tom Clancy games which have just gone in development,” Verheijdt told Control Online. “I can’t say anything about it, or I’ll have to send Sam Fisher after you.”

It seems likely that at least one of these unannounced titles will be a return to the popular Rainbow Six franchise, especially when you consider that it’s been over two years since we last heard from the series. As for the other mystery project, it’s just about anyone’s guess at this point. Sequels to EndWar or H.A.W.X. are both strong possibilities, as are entirely original games — or maybe we’ll finally get that Sum of All Fears remake we’ve all been dying to play. Keep your fingers crossed, Affleck fans.

We’ll keep you posted as the official details crop up.

Avatar the movie is making tons of money and breaking all sorts of records. Ubisoft’s Avatar the game, on the other hand, is not. In light of the game being projected to sell 2.5 million copies across all platforms — a figure well below the expected number of somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million copies — Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed to investors recently that Ubisoft will begin focusing more on their franchises rather than spending more on licensed titles like Avatar.

“Our plan is to take more care of our high end franchises, we will leave less place for licensed games,” Guillemot said in an investor call, reports GamesIndustry.biz. “So the goal is to reuse the investment and licenses and put more emphasis on the making of our brands bigger and make sure they can come more often with high quality. So it doesn’t mean we will stop but we’re going to spend less in licenses in the future.”

Given the success that the movie has enjoyed, it’s surprising to discover that the videogame hasn’t done better — particularly when considering that it was released on six platforms. But given the quality of many licensed titles out there, it might be for the best that Ubisoft instead shifts some of its efforts towards it franchises, which include Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia, and Assassin’s Creed. Ubisoft has released more than a few games based on licenses in recent years, including Surf’s Up, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lost, King Kong, and Naruto.

Although Avatar didn’t lose money for Ubisoft, Guillemot seems to think that there’s more money to be made by focusing on their own high quality titles — or at least ones that don’t require them to fork over a whole lot of cash in licensing fees.

Think that World War II is overused? What about World War II with assassins? Assassin’s Creed II won’t be out until November, but Ubisoft is apparently thinking about the setting of the next game. Even more interesting is the possibility that the assassin would be a woman.
Producer Sebastien Puel told magazine Xbox World 360 (via Computer and Video Games), “We’ve had discussions on [the topic of a female assassin]. It could be really interesting but we’d need to find the right time period and place for that. ”

“Where would that make sense? We don’t want to just decide we want to change and have a female hero as the first inspiration is always the time period, but if you’re talking about, say, World War II the economies in England and France were run by women because the men were off fighting.”

“So maybe in this context you were a woman in England during WWII. Why not? Nothing prevents us from doing it.”

Ubisoft is definitely set on going ahead with this franchise. “What’s so great about Assassin’s Creed is that we can just expand and expand,” said creative director Patrice Fortier.

“I’m often asked if we’re doing a third game after ACII… I mean, we could do 35 of these.”

In the meantime though, we’re still waiting for the second game. It’s due November 17 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and will be set in the Renaissance.