The official Assassin's Creed web site gives us a brief taste of the second entry in the series and clues us in on when we can expect concrete details on Assassin's Creed 2—next Thursday.

The teaser consists of little more than a short Flash animation, rendered in a hand drawn style noticeably similar to that of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions—focusing on the concealed blade Altair used in the original—and his Vitruvian Man. The final drawing hints at some sort of winged contraption that may indicate we'll be doing some flying (or at least some floating/humming of the Batman theme song) in the sequel.

The teaser also notes that we'll see more in the upcoming issue of Game Informer, with the date April 16, 2009 presumably indicating when the games mag is allowed to lift the veil on Ubisoft's sequel.

Given the Italian pedigree of the teaser, we'd think those rumored details of Assassin's Creed 2 taking place in Venice are sounding more and more likely. We're sure to know by next Thursday. Keep an eye peeled!

Assassin's Creed 2 Teaser [Official Site - thanks, Andrew!]
Assassin's Creed 2 Teaser [YouTube - thanks, Gavin!]

Send an email to Michael McWhertor, the author of this post, at mike@kotaku.com.