Back in 2007 Ubisoft released the very first Assassin’s Creed game, and with the exception of 2008 there has been a new entry in the franchise every year since, making for a grand total of nine games. Seriously? There’s been nine of them? And I’ve played ’em all.

But now there’s a fascinating rumor circulating that there will not be a new Assassin’s Creed game this year as Ubisoft indeed on performing a major renovation of their flagship franchise.

Word comes from a 4Chan user that claims to be a developer at Ubisoft developer, as reported on NeoGaf where his/her replies to questions are being compiled. He or she states that, “There won’t be an AC in 2016. You may screencap this and refer to it when nothing is shown in E3 2016. You’ll have to wait until 2017 for it. The reason: It will be a complete revamp of the series.”

This in itself perhaps isn’t massively shocking given the state of Assassin’s Creed: Unity at launch, but what is surprising is what the revamp aims to do: “The game is going for a Witcher feel, with player progression, freeform combat system. Horse is back, and boats too. It’s made by the Black Flag team.”

What’s more the ancient Egypt setting not only puts the story before the existence of Templars and Assassin’s, but is also apparently so that the developers won’t have to be quite as restricted by historical accuracy.

of course normally a claim like this could be instantly dismissed, except that Kotaku writer Jason Schreier claims to have heard the same thing from three different sources, all three of which confirmed a 2017 release date, and two of which named the game as being Assassin’s Creed: Empire. Apparently the decision to delay Empire’s 2016 launch was made after the backlash Unity caused.  Jason says he has not been able to verify if the 4Chan user is truly a Ubisoft employee or not.

Regardless that’s just enough information to make this rumor worth paying attention too. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate got the franchise back on track to a degree, but it seems clear that it requires much more than that at this stage.