Alongside this month’s release of Assassin’s Creed 2, Ubisoft has partnered with Penguin Books to bring us a novel based Ezio’s escapades. Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance will release on November 26th, roughly a week after the game launches.

“This partnership presents at last a way for traditional book-publishing to cross-over with the ever growing and increasingly exciting world of gaming media,” said Penguin editorial director Alex Clarke. I’m not sure what “at last” means in this situation. There have been books based on game franchises for quite a while now.

The description from Amazon is just as over the top as you would expect:

‘I will seek Vengeance upon those who betrayed my family. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am an Assassin…’ Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, a young man embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family’s honour, he will learn the art of the assassins. Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli – knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live. To his allies, he will become a force for change – fighting for freedom and justice. To his enemies, he will become a threat dedicated to the destruction of the tyrants abusing the people of Italy. So begins an epic story of power, revenge and conspiracy. Truth will be written in blood.

Now imagine reading that for 528 pages. I don’t know that I would make it through.

Not to be outdone by Bioware, Ubisoft confirmed some carnal experiences for Assassin’s Creed 2. Bioware has long been champion of the cause for sex in video games, with sequences like those in Mass Effect and the upcoming Dragon Age: Origins.

The Ubisoft announcement came in the form a response to a fan by Benoit Lambert, director for the sequel to everyone’s favorite medieval stabfest. He called Ezio a womanizer, but would say little else. “There’s a bit of sex. I can’t say more.” Sounds like we’ll get some sideboob and a “tastefully” cropped shot of some pixelated buttocks. In any case, I’m sure we’ll have the answers November 20th. The moment you say “we’ve got sex,” you’ve issued a challenge to the league of perverts who also happen to be gamers.

Source: VG247

As happens time and time again to the PC versions of multi-platform games, the PC version of Assassin’s Creed 2 will be delayed. All console versions of the game will still release on time, November 17th.

The news was delivered via Ubisoft’s Twitter page as such:

Assassin’s Creed 2 PC has moved to the first quarter of 2010. A bit more time for the dev team to deliver the best quality game to you.

That’s all well and good, but it’s certainly disappointing. The PC version of the first title was a bit of a mess, so maybe it’s for the best.