How GameStop Pushed Assassin’s Creed to Become an RPG — Alex Hutchinson

6 minutes Julian Haag

Assassin’s Creed didn’t just grow bigger with Origins; it fundamentally changed genres, and one surprising force behind that pivot was the used-games economy around retailers like GameStop. In this piece, we unpack how market pressures nudged Ubisoft toward RPG systems, why that shift made sense at the time, what it meant for players, and how the series is recalibrating today.

When Assassin’s Creed launched in 2007, it wore its identity proudly: a stealth-first, parkour-powered action-adventure with historical playgrounds and tight, directed missions. A decade later, Assassin’s Creed Origins blew the doors off that formula with loot tiers, experience levels, sprawling skill trees, huge regions, and a checklist-driven structure that set the tone for Odyssey and Valhalla. The switch wasn’t accidental. It was, in part, a response to a particular 2010s reality: boxed copies were routinely traded back to retailers, and publishers were hunting for ways to keep players engaged longer.

To understand why that matters, think about incentives. In the heyday of physical sales, retailers thrived on used game trade-ins. A game that could be completed and resold quickly would cycle through multiple hands with only the store profiting from each subsequent sale. Publishers, watching revenue caps on each unit, sought strategies to delay the resale window. There were many experiments across the industry—online passes, bonus DLC, live service hooks—but for a single-player series like Assassin’s Creed, the most player-friendly lever to pull was simply to give you more to do and more reasons to keep the disc in the console.

RPG mechanics are the Swiss Army knife of “more.” A level curve stretches the critical path; loot and gear scores introduce incremental goals; talent trees encourage build-crafting; and a wide spread of activities ensures constant dopamine hits. Compared to building dozens of bespoke stealth missions, these systems scale across a massive map. Designers can layer progression over exploration and pepper the world with encounters that feed the same treadmill, turning raw acreage into hours of forward momentum.

Origins landed that pitch. It reframed Assassin’s Creed as a character-driven RPG where your power grew alongside your knowledge of the world, and combat evolved from rhythmic counters to stat-informed battles. Odyssey and Valhalla doubled down, with even more content and longer arcs. The upside was obvious: players hungry for sprawling adventures got value-packed epics to live in for hundreds of hours. The trade-off? Some fans who loved the focused stealth fantasy felt the identity blur, and fatigue set in when main quests sprawled behind level gates and repetitive side tasks.

That tension is precisely why the conversation has shifted again. Mirage deliberately veered back toward the series’ roots—tighter runtime, stealth priority, and a more concise toolset. It felt like a deliberate acknowledgment that not every entry needs to be a 100-hour odyssey to feel premium. Meanwhile, newer releases have sought a middle path: still open, still imbued with modern systems, but more curated than the peak bloat of the late 2010s.

The real story here isn’t that retailers “forced” a genre change. It’s that business pressures often shape design in invisible ways. In the early 2010s, physical resale was a big pressure. Today, it’s different. Digital adoption dominates; subscriptions and season passes influence roadmaps; and live operations demand long-tail engagement measured in months and years. The levers change, and so do the games.

So, did the RPG pivot “work”? On paper, yes. Assassin’s Creed remained a top-tier franchise, grew its reach, and established a template many players loved. The sheer scale of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla made them streaming staples and gave players a reliable destination for historical tourism and power fantasy. Critically, though, it also taught a lesson that many studios are now relearning: more isn’t always better—better is better. Variety matters. Pacing matters. The joy of stealth is not the same as the satisfaction of min-maxing gear, and different players value different flavors.

For designers, there are a few takeaways worth bookmarking:

  • Respect player time. If the runtime is big, the friction should be small. Fast travel, smart UI, and sensible level curves keep the journey fun rather than fatiguing.
  • Make the grind optional. Offer difficulty and progression toggles that let players bypass power gates if they want a purer narrative run.
  • Tie breadth to depth. A massive map shines when every region has unique mechanics, enemy behaviors, or narrative hooks—not just another checklist.
  • Build identity first. Whether stealth sandbox or stat-heavy RPG, decide what the fantasy is and let every system reinforce it.

For players, the series’ evolution is a reminder that franchises can and do reinvent themselves without losing the audience entirely. Assassin’s Creed managed a rare feat: transform its core loop and still feel like Assassin’s Creed, thanks to its historical settings, conspiratorial lore, and signature traversal. That said, nostalgia for the old format is real, and Ubisoft’s willingness to release entries that scratch both itches—some compact and stealth-focused, others sprawling and RPG-forward—might be the healthiest long-term approach.

It is also worth noting how economic forces continue to move the goalposts. The used-game challenge that helped incentivize longer single-player campaigns has largely given way to engagement-driven models shaped by digital storefronts and subscriptions. In this landscape, the rationale for length has shifted from “avoid resale” to “retain players.” The best answer, however, remains the same: craft experiences that are memorable and intentional, regardless of hours logged.

Looking ahead, the brand sits at an interesting crossroads. The aspiration to build ongoing platforms, experiment with new locales and protagonists, and calibrate scope from entry to entry suggests Assassin’s Creed has learned to be flexible. A stealth-centric installment can live alongside a bigger RPG-style adventure without either undermining the other. That elasticity might be the series’ greatest strength in a crowded market.

In the end, GameStop didn’t single-handedly turn Assassin’s Creed into an RPG—but the ecosystem it thrived in absolutely nudged the franchise in that direction. Origins capitalized on the tools RPGs offer to stretch time and deepen investment, Odyssey and Valhalla pushed the envelope on scale, and more recent titles have tightened the focus to keep the fantasy sharp. What we’re left with is a franchise that has lived multiple lives and is better for it, as long as each new entry knows exactly what kind of experience it wants to be and respects the players who will spend their precious time inside it.