Leaked footage may reveal a cancelled Assassin's Creed game in China

Assassin's Creed fans may have got an unexpected look at a cancelled game set in ancient China. Engadget reports that leaked footage appears to show Assassin's Creed Destiny, a reportedly abandoned project linked to Ubisoft and Tencent-owned TiMi Studio Group. The footage has not been presented as an official announcement by Ubisoft. ¹

What the footage appears to show

The report says the leaked material, first highlighted by MP1st, includes prototype gameplay and placeholder footage set in 206 BCE during the Qin Empire. It reportedly shows an assassin climbing castle walls, performing stealth kills and using combat weapons including a distinctive umbrella. The title shown in the footage is Assassin's Creed Destiny, although the game's development history and final status remain based on reporting around the leak rather than a formal Ubisoft confirmation. ^{1 2}

The material is therefore best treated as a glimpse at an alleged prototype, not a recovered announcement trailer. Prototype footage can represent an early build, a test project or a concept that changed substantially before cancellation. In this case, the available reporting says the project was cancelled, meaning there is no indication that the footage points to a future release.

A different China-set Assassin's Creed project

Ubisoft has officially explored the same broad historical setting through Assassin's Creed Codename Jade, a mobile open-world game set in third-century BCE China. Ubisoft's own presentation describes Jade as a project set around the Warring States period and the Qin dynasty, with stealth, parkour and combat among its planned features. That official project is separate from the reportedly cancelled Destiny, but the overlap helps explain why the leaked footage has attracted attention. ³

The distinction matters: the leaked game should not be described as Jade, and Ubisoft's official material does not confirm that Destiny was ever announced publicly. The available evidence instead places the alleged project in the same franchise and a similar historical period, while leaving its exact development timeline unclear.

What this means for Assassin's Creed

Ubisoft has already used China as the setting for Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China and has continued to develop the idea through Jade. The reported Destiny footage suggests that a larger-scale China-set concept was also explored behind the scenes, but it does not establish that the project was close to release or that its ideas will appear in another game.

Our opinion

The most interesting part of this leak is not the promise of a game that is never coming; it is the reminder that major franchises can explore several versions of the same historical idea before one reaches players. The footage may make Destiny look like a fascinating lost chapter, but an early prototype is not enough evidence to judge how the finished game would have played. For now, it is a reported development curiosity rather than a new Assassin's Creed announcement, and readers should keep that distinction in view.