Ubisoft, as we see them now has been bringing out lacklustre games like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction, Far Cry 6, Hyper Scape and Watchdogs Legion. Yet, once upon a time, Ubisoft had Far Cry as a huge new experience in an open world that was loved for having charismatic villains that were the face of the game. Assassins Creed was a unique concept at one stage. Ubisoft was at its peak as one of the biggest publishers a long time ago and it was deserved. What happened?
Promises not being kept
This might be one of the biggest reasons Ubisoft has fallen from grace. We have been given some sensational trailers or gameplay. Notably the original Watchdogs trailer. It looked incredible, at the time people thought it could compete with GTA. The graphics were some of the best seen to that day. Then, Watchdogs was released. Buggy, bland, and the graphics weren’t as good as the trailer we were shown. We were simply mislead, but it worked as it got us interested in Watchdogs.
The Division was similar, it was shown to have better graphics and the gameplay looked far more tactical in the gameplay trailer than what we actually got.
Generic
If someone were to ask me what Ubisoft games have become I would use one word, generic. When we look at Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed they all start to become the same game in different locations. Assassin’s Creed did try and change the formula, but Odyssey and Valhalla felt too similar to Origins and have begun to suffer. It’s got to a point with Ubisoft, particularly with Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry that there are literally no differences in the games’ bar locations and characters. The games are just reskinned. Which is exactly what they did with Far Cry Primal using the exact same map but reskinning it.
Ubisoft games have also gotten too big, particularly Assassin’s Creed. When Odyssey was released fans begged for a smaller. more condensed map, instead Valhalla got even bigger. It’s great to have big maps, particular when traversal is fun like Black Flag or Zelda BOTW.
We have Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction, which I could hardly play. It’s essentially Rainbow Six Siege dumbed down with zombies and it just doesn’t work as a zombie game. It was a half-finished game that lacked content and improved nothing from the foundation of Six Siege.
Uncertainty of games releasing
This isn’t as big of a problem as some others. But still, it remains, what has happened to some of the games Ubisoft had trailers for. We saw Skull and Bones about five years ago and heard nothing for ages. Now gameplay got leaked and it looks so poor. In fact, it looks like degradation of what Black Flags ship combat was. There seems to be no hand to hand combat and instead of boarding the enemy, you just get a cutscene and then you’re back to sailing. A pirate game has so much potential, I’d even say that Ubisoft could do what Rockstar did with Red Dead Redemption did but in a pirate era. There’s still no word on a final release date.
The remake of Prince of Persia was surprisingly delayed yet again and has changed development team. It was troubled in development just like Skull and Bones and Beyond Good and Evil 2. It seems many of Ubisoft’s games of late have had troubled development periods or releases.
Then we have Beyond Good And Evil 2. Maybe too ambitious. The pre-alpha demo made it look so vast that it almost looked impossible to do, which it might be. The creative director left in 2020 and the game was reportedly in development crisis and it could be a case that they will throw in the towel with Beyond Good and Evil 2.
Most people nowadays refer to Ubisoft in a bad manner. Ubisoft has shown they don’t particularly care about the fans anymore and want to make easy money. This could hopefully change with a new untitled Star Wars game in development, an Avatar game and more on the horizon.
