Actor Nolan North, who played Desmond Miles in the Assassin's Creed games, recently gave an interview to Fall Damage. It turned out that he didn't know about his character's death for some time, until he was once written about it on a social network.
Technically, it was Desmond's death scene, and I didn't realize it. I found out about it from Twitter when someone asked "Are you upset about Desmond's death", and I was like "What?".
Nolan was very surprised, as there was no scream or other elements that usually accompany the death scene of an important character.
Then the actor continued and talked about his conversation with the developers:
The good people at Ubisoft told me that "he's not technically dead." I think the original idea was to make 8 - 9 games with Desmond. But, as often happens in the entertainment industry, different developers, creative directors come along, and they have their own vision for continuing the story.