It seems there’s little or no chance that 2011 will see the release of an Assassin’s Creed game. The series’ associate producer, Jean-Francois Boivin of Ubisoft said the popular ‘stealth-em-up’ needs a “breather” following the release of ‘Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’ later this year.

“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,” he said.

In an interview with EuroGamer to promote the release of ‘Brotherhood’ this November for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Boivin added, “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,” he told EuroGamer.

He continued, “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.

“We can see a lot of the music games that are releasing year after year – the interest is a lot less than it used to be. The excitement is a lot less than it used to be. You want to keep people excited. You gotta make people miss it a bit. It’s like, ‘Oh man! I’m so happy it’s back!’ But if you keep force-feeding to people then people are like, ‘Yeah, enough of your Assassin’s Creed’.

Fair enough, most franchises could do with a break to get the creative juices flowing, though Boivin was quick to point out that the break won’t last too long. “If we skip a year, I think we’re good. But yeah, I think we could do something really true to the license if we skip a year and release it in 2012 or 2013. We need to keep it fresh though; we need to keep it relatively close by, because we have to keep the interest there. I don’t think we do a service to this license if we pull a Duke Nukem on people, you know what I’m saying? It’s hard to answer.”