Ubisoft Is A Mess Right Now, But The Future Could Be Worse By Skull and Bones Items Stacey Henley Published Jan 12, 2023 Ubisoft cancelling games is just the start - it feels like a merger may be imminent? There was a time when I was a kid when Ubisoft ran this town. In a handful of years, several Ubisoft games peaked at once. The early 2010s were a high point for Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance, and Rayman, while I also have a soft spot for Call of Juarez, Child of Light, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and even the Rabbids. This period of the early 2010s also introduced us to Watch Dogs and Valiant Hearts, and while the South Park games weren’t my scene, they were well received and commercially successful. However, since then things have not gone well. Ubisoft is still making Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Just Dance, and while (the former three, at least) are still selling reasonably well, they are no longer as treasured as they once were. Added to that, it has not really found a new series to replace them - they remain the big guns. Ubisoft ushered in a new era of game design, laying the groundwork for the constantly busy, constantly rewarding open world philosophy, where the map is stuffed with quest markers signifying towers to climb, collectibles to gather, and optional objectives to pursue. Related: 2023 Is Packed With Fantastic Anniversaries However, what was once an industry-leading foundation has become quicksand. Games from other studios are moving away from the Ubisoft formula, offering curated linear experiences, or trusting the players to explore out of order. The closest Ubisoft came to this itself was the middling Immortals Fenyx Rising, which still could not avoid the temptation of a quest marker every six paces. Ubisoft was once the new and the bold, now it is the old and the stale. Immortals Fenyx Rising New DLC This came to a head yesterday. Ubisoft cancelled three unannounced projects, and delayed Skull & Bones for a near-unprecedented sixth time. Coming just two days after I wrote of the perils of games being secretly canned leaving devs with holes in their resume, I feel cursed with the gift of prophecy. But it’s the messages that followed these cancellations that are especially worrying. In an internal email, Yves Guillemot begged teams to deliver their games (those still being made) on time and on budget. “Today more than ever, I need your full energy and commitment to ensure we get back on the path to success,” he told staff. It is never the fault of the regular working stiffs if a project goes over budget. Ubisoft continues to allow its games to balloon in length because some algorithm somewhere says that makes people stick around more, even when it’s abundantly clear that Ubisoft games have lost their spark. We don’t know what the cancelled games were, but if it wants a cheap game made in a short space of time that fans and critics will love, it seems foolish to think it might just have canned a Rayman Legends follow up in order to Skull and bones items for sale online make a 90 hour long Assassin’s Creed epic. Ubisoft has been in disarray for a while now.