The Assassin's Creed team at Ubisoft never imagined placing a woman in the lead role during the era of the Kenways, which spans Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Flag, director Ashraf Ismail told IGN.

"Really early on, we decided to tell the story of the Kenways," Ismail said. "So we already had in place the idea to tell Edward, Haytham and Connor. This was actually years ago, we had this." He continued, "We actually never thought, 'Could this be a woman?'"

Historically, there weren't many famous female pirates, Ismail said, and he didn't want players to fixate on that detail. Still, there's a lot of history between pirates and now, and Assassin's Creed may explore a leading lady in another, main game. The lead character of Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation for Vita was a woman, and that story fed into directly the prime Assassin's Creed 3 narrative. Ubisoft may continue this trend with future games.

"I would say it wouldn't be surprising to see a female assassin coming up in a mainline Assassin's Creed," Ismail said. "But for us, for AC4, it was always Edward."

If choosing the gender of protagonists was a business decision, it would fall to Ubisoft's brand team, and Ismail said he didn't know what they were cooking up for the "next few games."

"But the concept of a female assassin, I can tell you it's not a no-no; it's not something we're trying to avoid at all."

Epic Games art director Chris Perna, recently sounded off about selling a female protagonist, saying "it's tough to justify something like that," at least from a business standpoint.