New Assassin’s Creed, but without new gameplay elements. A new brand without an iota of innovation. Empty promises in grandiose presentations. All the same game model that many players use. pretty much boring. Allegations of poor working conditions, bullying, sexism and sexual harassment. Departure of experienced developers. All this and much more has been the case with Ubisoft lately, which negatively affects the quality of games.
Ubisoft lost ground and his games lack variety. Developers in studios around the world are creating vast open worlds that vary in setting and story. These worlds are jam-packed with main missions, side quests, and all sorts of activities, so we slowly don’t know what to do next.
But from the point of view of the game, from the point of view of mechanics, they are de facto the same. Whether it’s the last parts Assassin’s Creed, Big difference or Special Squad Ghost. When he needs to come up with something new, he looks to other companies for inspiration. So what, a mythological adventure in an action-adventure Immortals: Rise of the Phoenix we had a good time and had a little laugh at the antics of the Greek gods, but you can expect more from such a big company than just a Nintendo imitation of Zelda.
Best reflects the situation at Ubisoft. Departure of experienced developers. It’s quite common in this industry for someone to leave from time to time to pursue their dream elsewhere. However, over the course of 2020 and 2021, Ubisoft experienced a massive exodus that resulted in a major artery being cut. At least that’s what those who remained were supposed to call the departures according to the Axios server. This, of course, influenced the development of games. Some projects had to be stopped and others slowed down, leading to the postponement of important titles.
To better represent this outcome, within 18 months, at least 5 of the top 25 people with the highest ratings had to leave the development of Far Cry 6, and 12 of the 50 most experienced developers left the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla team.
Between them head of development department Eric Baptizat, who moved to EA Motive, where he is working on the Dead Space remake, and art director Rafael Lacoste. He did it after 8 episodes of Assassin’s Creed and 16 years at Ubisoft, he headed to Haven Studios under PlayStation Studios to join his former colleagues led by the pretty Jade Raymond.
Patrick Plourde will definitely be missed too. He spent almost twenty years at Ubisoft. and has worked on, for example, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry 3, Watch Dogs 2 and Child of Light. He founded an independent consulting firm this year and will work with Ubisoft, among others.
It was assumed that less experienced developers would also leave.. As a result, in 18 months, the Ubisoft Montreal and Toronto teams had to lose 60 people. There were more reasons to leave. An important one was fierce competition from other studios with the prospect of higher pay, especially in Montreal. In response, the company increased the pay of its Canadian employees, which in turn didn’t sit well with those who didn’t receive raises in other parts of the world.
Another reason was dissatisfaction with the management and direction of individual series. It also played a big role bizarre investigation into allegations of sexual harassmentI toxic conditionsk in the workplace, when employees felt that the promised restructuring and the formation of a new team of creative bosses would not solve anything. It even led a group of disgruntled employees to reach out to game fans to help improve the situation at Ubisoft and the video game industry as a whole.
He threw sticks at the feet of the developers Serge Hascoe. Creative Director Takes Over Ubisoft managing the creative vision of each game. You could say he was responsible for the success of big brands like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, but he’s also credited with the commercial failures of The Division 2 and Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
It was also the one who approved and rejected the ideas of individual teams. For example, he blocked the plan of the main character in Assassin’s Creed and canceled RPG from the creative director of Dragon Age. Mike Laidlaw was hired by Ubisoft in 2018 to work with the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey writers at Ubisoft Québec. big budget adventure about king arthur. The project, codenamed Avalon, was to focus on a single-player story and offer a fantasy world as well as a cooperative multiplayer entry modeled after the Monster Hunter series.
However, in early 2019, Laidlaw left Ubisoft after the project was cancelled, ostensibly due to Hascoat’s dislike of fantasy and demanding that the game be better than Tolkien’s. Trying to change fantasy to Greek mythology or put everything in a sci-fi setting didn’t help either. Hascot rejected everything. That’s how influential he was at Ubisoft.
He stepped down from his high-profile position at Ubisoft at the end of 2020 when allegations of sexual assault surfaced at various studios in the company. Hascoeth is said to have made a mistake along with head of Canadian research Yannis Mallat and global head of human resources Cecilia Cornet.
He stood at the helm of creative approval for more than six months. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. Only in the summer of 2021, he was replaced by Igor Manso, a company veteran with twenty years of experience, who most recently led the development of Riders Republic.
The impact of Hascoet, the departure of important developers and everything else that we have just talked about has little effect on games, which have recently been published and which have yet to see the world. She is one of them Skull and Bones.
At E3 2017, the game was announced with great fanfare. It was designed to appeal to and please all fans of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag naval battles. golden age of pirates in the indian oceanwhere players can sail alone, be accompanied by other players, or fight in exciting PvP battles. Blend of Black Flag and For Honor we should have enjoyed the fall of 2018. But then there was silence and one delay after another.
In the meantime, we’ve been reading rumors of a core premise change that turns a full-on pirate action game into a free-to-play, story-flexible game in the spirit of the various seasons of the popular battle royale Fortnite. The rest should have stayed, but even that didn’t catch on, and after a few development restarts and tumultuous moments at Ubisoft’s Singapore team, we’re back with Skull and Bones. In a light that’s so dim.
We don’t have the habit of criticizing the game from the presentation. We are mainly waiting for our own impressions of the game. But we’ll make an exception here because we really can’t think of what developers have been doing in Singapore for the past 5 years.
Compared to what we were shown a few days ago at the presentation during the replay, the new version of Skull and Bones poorer atmosphere. When we announced it in 2017, we got a better feel for pirate battles at sea.
One would expect things to get even better as the years go by, but the opposite is also true. Skull and Bones obviously paying extra for using old technologies and the developers don’t even try to disguise it. Instead, they use everything they can from the old Black Flag and Rogue. They just redesigned the ship controls into a more arcade style where you can turn a huge ship very quickly to fire a cannon at the enemy. And they removed the powerful ship boarding where you fought the soldiers in good close combat. Here is a short film that was shown five years ago instead.
Well, we’ll forgive the developers for that, because in a multiplayer-focused game, you put yourself at another risk. But we cannot forgive worst graphics, animations and outdated technology, which, when compared with last year’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, hurts the eyes to the point of pain. It’s nice to see how the development of both projects diverged and probably everyone gave the authors in Asia a good bath in the problem and the management hoped that the developers would somehow pay off together.
But today we will not only complain. There are also things we love about Skull and Bones. This is an opportunity to go through the whole game alone or with friends at your side, when it is supposed to fight against terrible pirate hunters and conquer fortresses. easier than being alone. They go hand in hand with this. dedicated servers for battles with other playersi so that PvP is not confused with PvE.
We like to think about what might happen to us during a mission. important to have lots of food and ammoto keep your crew cool and able to attack and defend effectively. If you do not pay attention to the morale of the crew, then a flock of raiders and vagabonds will rise up against you, and you may lose the ship and part of the progress. This applies even if the battle is lost. At least that will be able to save most of the cargo. That is, provided that the other player does not get it first.
The most important thing in the pirate world is yours reputation. The better it is, the more opportunities you get. Whether it’s higher rewards or a better ship. However, upgrading and building a new ship is a longer journey, as you start as an outcast who has lost everything in this dangerous world. You will need to mine various raw materials such as ore or wood, hunt dangerous game for meat and hides, and obtain blueprints to create more powerful ships. Just don’t expect to have to do it on foot.
The ships are divided into three groups. Cargo ships are slower and suitable for carrying large amounts of loot. Navigation ships sail faster, but have less cargo space and less hull endurance. Warships have more room for weapons, but are harder to maneuver.
It must be during the fight important strategy, a correct assessment of the enemy’s capabilities through binoculars, a sufficient amount of ammunition and the best of all friends who will cover your back not only in battle with other ships, but also during base looting, which, unfortunately, occurs only from the sea. It only reaches land in safe pirate lairs, where you can craft new ships and equipment, stock up on supplies for your expeditions, choose contracts, and chat with other players.
This is a decision regarding Sea of Thieves at least it will freeze. Studio Rare is more daring in this case, but on the other hand, this pirate “fantasy” adventure has repetitive gameplay, which, most likely, also threatens Skull and Bones.
On the other hand, it looks like Ubisoft has faith in their latest project, though there have been speculations that Skull and Bones wasn’t canceled just because the Singaporean government backed the local studio financially.
True or not, well In the coming months and years, Skull and Bones will have a lot of new content that will be free for all players.. Other large and smaller themed events, ships, weapons and more are expected.
We would like to know how the story will be built. All we know is that we will start from scratch and must work our way to the top. Previously, a story campaign was promised, where we will meet iconic characters and unforgettable rival pirates.
While we don’t have a lot of faith in Skull and Bones coming out on 8/11/2022, we hope Ubisoft recovers from it all soon and brings us in the future thoughtful gaming experience. Whether it’s the next Assassin’s Creed, the delayed return of The Settlers, the highly anticipated Beyond Good & Evil 2, or the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It is in the remake of the cult Prince of Persia that you can see some kind of self-reflection of Ubisoft, when, after complaints from fans about the quality, the project was transferred from the Indian studios Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Mumbai to the homeland of Ubisoft. Montreal, where the Sands of Time trilogy was born.
Source :Indian TV
