Entertainment
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the most important Ubisoft game ever – Reader’s Feature-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro
A reader is concerned that if Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a flop, then Ubisoft and the whole games industry will suffer for it.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows – there’s a lot riding on it (Ubisoft)
A reader is concerned that if Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a flop, then Ubisoft and the whole games industry will suffer for it.
I’m worried about Ubisoft. They’re a £4 billion multinational company and I can barely pay my rent most months, but lately I feel like I have more common sense and business nous than them. Not just them but most of the games industry, and I don’t mean that as a way to big myself up but an indication of just how incompetent most big Western publishers seem to be at the moment.
I’m sure it’s all more complicated than I realise but I have been concerned about recent comments that suggest Ubisoft is on the verge of real trouble. Not because they’re my favourite company (although I like them more than many, it seems) but because, as has also been pointed out, if they go under or get bought by some other company – Tencent most likely, according to what they’re saying at the moment – there’s hardly anyone else left.
If there’s no Ubisoft then the only big third party Western publishers left are EA, Take-Two, and Warner Bros. And I’m not sure Warner count, since they’re already part of a large company. And that’s it really, in terms of publishers that can afford to make a triple-A game. Embracer as well, I guess, but I still don’t understand who they are and they’ve yet to make anything of worth in all the years they’ve been around.
There’re others, like CD Projekt, but they’re much smaller companies and while they can afford to make big budget games, they only release one every five years or so. So once Ubisoft go, we are really scraping the barrel in terms of there being a games industry at all, rather than just half a dozen megacorps that just happen to have a video games division (which they’re perfectly happy to gut the second they get a whiff of trouble).
All of which brings us to Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ubisoft’s problems have been slowly building for years now, with no successful new franchises and older ones that are beginning to get long in the tooth. Star Wars: Outlaws has been a failure, that clearly cost them a fortune, they’re nowhere near having a new Far Cry, The Division, or anything else that I’m aware of. All they’ve got is a dozen Assassin’s Creed games, which seems like far too much even for fans.
I would say I am one of those fans, but I am very worried about Shadows, not only because it doesn’t look that impressive but because if it fails then Assassin’s Creed itself is in trouble, and it’s the last thing Ubisoft has that’s a guaranteed hit.
There has been some newer footage for Shadows, that makes me more optimistic about its quality, but it’s never just whether the game is any good or not. If it has bad word of mouth already then there’s probably nothing that’s going to save it, which I believe is what Ubisoft is worried about at the moment.
I don’t want to get into the complaints about historical accuracy because I’m pretty sure that nobody that’s been making them is an expert on 16th century Japan, especially not the usual suspects moaning about it on Twitter and Reddit.
But there has definitely been something off about the game in what they’ve shown before. It’s probably because the other eras Assassin’s Creed is set in don’t usually appear in video games but because Japan does you can kind of tell things aren’t very realistic and Ubisoft is just basing it on pop cultural rather than the history books.
Does that matter? Not if it’s a good game, but nothing I’ve seen so far seems to be doing anything particularly new. Having two separate characters is all well and good but when they’re all doing usual Assassin’s Creed things, what does that matter?
I may be wrong, I haven’t played it, but nothing I’ve seen so far – not even the new stuff – has blown me away and I think that’s true for a lot of people. But Ubisoft need this game to be a hit. If it’s a flop, or even just underperforms, they’ve got nothing else big scheduled, and they are going to be looking at that buyout as their only way out of trouble.
I really hope it doesn’t come to that but I’m not confident and this is a situation where everyone loses if Ubisoft is hoovered up. The less independent companies we have in the games business the less variety there’s going to be and the less risks are going to be taken, and at some point we’re going to reach the point where only $1 trillion companies, where making games is the 20th most important thing they do, are left.
By reader Scooter
Will it be hit? (Ubisoft)
The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.
ArrowMORE: Switch 2 is going to be the weirdest Nintendo console ever – Reader’s Feature
ArrowMORE: A post-mortem of Xbox or: how $3 trillion can’t buy you love – Reader’s Feature
Entertainment – MetroRead More
