Assassin’s Creed 3 puts players at the helm of naval ships circa the American Revolution. Could the seafaring, ship-based combat and gameplay been its own title altogether? According to the game’s lead developer, apparently so.

A post made earlier at GameRanx reported that Alex Hutchinson, lead developer for AC III, has said that the popularity of the naval battles alone could have made them their own game. “When we looked into it we realized too that no one had done third-person action-adventure sailing, you know in this period. So we’re like, great, it’s brand new; it’s probably too risky to do as it’s own game,” he said.

Ubisoft isn’t afraid to make mini-titles to milk one of its headline franchises. After all, both the original Assassin’s Creed and its sequel both spawned a host of off-shoot games like Altair’s Chronicles and Assassin’s Creed: Recollections before the third game was given a final release date. But perhaps naval combat will still have the chance to see its own game; after all, we’re probably still a long way off from the release of Assassin’s Creed 4.