Ubisoft Requires a Fresh Start

During the previous console generation, Ubisoft underwent a gradual loss of identity that began in 2015 and culminated in a complete collapse of its essence. This was evident in the studio’s unironic introduction of in-game NFTs and the repeated postponement of Skull & Bones. Despite having a 40-year history of producing AAA hits and unique licensing agreements, Ubisoft has devolved into a provider of uninspired live-service games, mobile ports with microtransactions, and undependable release dates. The question remains: what has become of Ubisoft?

Ubisoft has been around longer than most of its players have been alive. It is responsible for developing and publishing hundreds of games, including iconic franchises such as Prince of Persia, Far Cry, Trackmania, Toms Clancy, Rabbids, Rayman, Just Dance and of course, Assassin’s Creed.

At the company’s Summer Game Fest show, we got reveals about Massive Entertainment’s big licensed games, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws, as well as a decent look at the new 2D Prince of Persia game, which actually looks pretty good. But for the most part, we saw sequels, live-action games, and mobile games. XDefiant is a free-to-play team-based shooter, and after the sea-jumping show we saw Skull & Bones – a live service we played in 2017 and 2018 but has since faded into obscurity. Then there were several mobile-first games like The Division Resurgence and Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade, as well as a new Crew game, The Crew Motorfest. We also got another Ubisoft TV show and a look at Assassin’s Creed VR. It was far from the worst stream at Summer Game Fest, but it didn’t do much to get excited about Ubisoft.

So let’s talk about how we got here.

Everything changed for Ubisoft in 2015. Assassin’s Creed: Unity shipped the previous November, and it turned out to be the most abandoned installment in the series to date. It was the first Assassin’s Creed built specifically for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and Ubisoft surpassed it on all fronts: Unity was riddled with visual and mechanical bugs, and it was so playable at launch that Ubisoft publicly apologized for the game and eventually released it. free DLC, all while releasing a frenzy of fixes. That same year, Ubisoft also debuted Watch Dogs – and the game was also a visual disappointment, especially compared to its 2012 trailers.

Until now, Ubisoft had an annual Assassin’s Creed event, releasing one main version per year from 2009 onwards. Syndicate was released in 2015, and by 2016, Ubisoft was openly talking about series fatigue and announcing plans to reevaluate its approach to its tentpole franchise. In particular, longtime producer Jade Raymond left Assassin’s Creed and Ubisoft entirely in October 2014, just before the Unity disaster.

This was the stage when the French media investment group Vivendi tried to take over Ubisoft. Vivendi began buying shares in the studio in 2015, and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot went on a publicity tour against the raid, arguing the importance of remaining independent on stage at E3 and beyond. At the same time, the Guillemot family, who founded Ubisoft in 1986, began their own acquisition spree, increasing their control of the studio alongside Vivendi. The battle ended in 2018 when Vivendi agreed to sell all of Ubisoft’s stock for nearly $2.5 billion, a hefty return on its investment. This deal was successful because Vivendi sold a significant portion of its ownership to Tencent, an existing Ubisoft investor and one of the world’s largest video game companies. At exactly the same time, Ubisoft and China’s Tencent announced a strategic deal to bring Ubisoft’s games to PC and mobile devices in China. Since then, Tencent’s stake in Ubisoft has grown significantly, and today it owns 49.9 percent of Guillemot Brothers Limited in addition to its studio shares.

I feel like you can see this period of financial turmoil in Ubisoft’s creative output from 2015-2019. Ubisoft kept releasing entries into its established franchises, but it wasn’t churning out original genre-changing hits like it used to. The studio was kind of restrained. In 2019, Ubisoft delayed several big games in its lineup — including Skull & Bones again — and executives said they wanted to slow down even more between releases. In 2020, Ubisoft faced serious allegations of systemic sexual misconduct and sexism, and a handful of longtime executives were fired or resigned.

In an investor call in 2021, Ubisoft’s CFO said the company was focused on developing its library of free-to-play and mobile games. Since then, Ubisoft has done just that, developing Rainbow Six, The Division, and Assassin’s Creed mobile games and focusing on live iterations of its franchises, old and new. Ubisoft also seriously tried to make the in-game NFTs something that… didn’t.

The most recent Assassin’s Creed games, Valhalla and Odyssey, have been great, but they’ve suffered from the same open-world bloat as Far Cry, offering overly large worlds with too little variety or innovation. The studio’s latest announcements include licensed games, live services, mobile addresses and microtransaction specials – with Assassin’s Creed represented in most of these categories. The most interesting Assassin’s Creed title on Ubisoft’s slate is Mirage, the next release in the main series in October. It’s a condensed Assassin’s Creed experience that was originally designed as a small add-on for Valhalla, and it pays homage to the series’ roots, featuring a map and a return to stealth combat. It sounds like the original Assassin’s Creed – which maxed out at around 15 hours instead of the 60-plus hours of recent games – and feels like what Ubisoft’s players have been searching for over the past eight years. Unfortunately, Ubisoft doesn’t see it that way and is only charging $50 for the game. That’s not a bad thing for gamers, but when Ubisoft charges $70 for The Crew Motorfest, it says something about how the studio sees value in terms of game size and paid DLC, not content.

To me, Mirage is a welcome step back in terms of scope, but it feels almost incidental to Ubisoft’s larger plans to build freemium experiences and mobile games for the global market. The studio may be on the cusp of a renaissance, with room to find its voice and reshape entire genres, but I don’t think microtransactions and open-world tedium will push it over that edge. Ubisoft used to be weird and profitable in the world of value games, but both descriptions are fading fast as the studio chases hot monetization trends and relies on innovation from other creators. Mirage is one path for Ubisoft to pursue quality design rather than accounting goals. A game like XDefiant represents a whole other potential – it might be profitable, but it definitely doesn’t feel like Ubisoft.