Board Thread:Off-topic board/@comment-5174994-20150524025130/@comment-1153722-20150524100324

What risks did Rogue and Black Flag take? They used the same combat system as III did, and they knew their naval system was bound to be a hit because it worked so well. On an unrelated note, I have no clue why people keep praising Rogue so much. It was a good game, but it wasn't great. Compared to Rogue the world was shallow and there hardly were any side-activities to play after finishing the already way-too-short story.

The same team of developers at CD Projekt Red made all three Witcher games, guaranteeing that they don't deviate too much from what made the games great. With Assassin's Creed, there are so many different teams working on different installments in the franchises that communication and sharing of ideas doesn't work too well. Add to that that they are limited by time constraints (you can dismiss the annual release cycle, but even if they get several years of development time Ubisoft does not allow the developers to deviate from the October/November release date).

CD Projekt Red doesn't release an unfinished product, they delayed the game several times to make sure The Witcher 3 would be the product they wanted to put on the market. And it worked, because it's one of the best games I ever played. Releasing a new installment every four years instead of every year also would surely take off all the stress and pressure that surely comes with working on the Assassin's Creed franchise, especially if you work at their Montreal studio.