Ubisoft complains about the market and postpones Skull and Bones

Ubisoft is having a hard time. French company in recent years he looks clueless on the outside, she’s shelving projects, can’t find the right approach for free and live service games, and apparently can’t rely on one of her classic games and cash cows. To make matters worse, the games don’t sell very well despite great reviews.

The Paris-based firm, which employs more than 20,000 people worldwide, fell significantly short of expectations in 2022. For this reason, Ubisoft will take drastic measures in the future, including more careful investment in the development of individual gamesto cut costs by about $215 million over the next two years. He also canceled three more unannounced games. So as of July 2022, the publisher has canceled at least seven different titles. (including the free shooter Ghost Recon Frontline and Splinter Cell VR). This will allow developers to focus on building core brands and live services. Fans fear that the remake of the first Splinter Cell will not be canceled.

Ubisoft admits that it is unable to adapt to the changes. According to him, the games industry is moving towards mega-brands and long-term games that can reach players all over the world, on different platforms and through different business models. Ubisoft has been preparing these games for four years, but it will take some more time to bring them to the market. In this case, previously announced projects are especially expected. Assassin’s Creed. It has been suggested that the same path is followed by TV series The Far Edge. Ubisoft only talks about its biggest brands, and that’s just these two pluses Special Squad Ghost, Rainbow Six and Department.

Continue recently released games didn’t achieve the expected results. Ubisoft is particularly offended by the lesser interest in Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Just dance 2023. In the final weeks of 2022 and early January, Ubisoft expected more from these two games. Despite good reviews and positive feedback from players, sales were poorer, especially for the new Mario and Rabbids adventure.

Even if Ubisoft wants to invest more carefully, so for the sixth time moved the release of the problematic Skull and Bones. The Pirate Event was scheduled to take place on March 9, 2023 for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Amazon Luna. It is now scheduled to sail at the start of fiscal year 2023 and 2024. This means that it will not be released until April this year. The Ubisoft CEO is still talking about spring. The fiscal year itself runs until March 2024.

According to Ubisoft, the extra time spent developing Skull and Bones has already paid off with impressive quality improvements, as confirmed by recent playtests. Management expects players to be pleasantly surprised by the evolution of the game.. Although some current and former developers that Kotaku spoke to are skeptical that this could be the main selling point.

What else does Ubisoft want to release? By the end of March 2024, he wants the Skull and Bones games to see the light of day. Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Avatar: Pandora’s Limits and other unannounced premium games, incl. one big, as well as promising free games for some of their brands. Among the upcoming free games: Division Heartland for PC, consoles and mobile games Division revival and Assassin’s Creed: Codename Jade.

The CEO described the big game in an email to staff as the biggest preparation in Ubisoft’s history and looks forward to revealing more at E3 this June.