Did you know that Assassin's Creed Unity didn't have a smooth launch? It's no secret that the highly anticipated title was a major disappointment for almost everyone due to its myriad glitches and flaws that mired an otherwise beautiful game with ambitious design changes, as we pointed out in our review. Post-launch patches and many apologies – such as in the form of free DLC – have remedied the situation slightly, but these mistakes have already dealt significant damage to the publisher's reputation like a hidden blade in the back. But in its third fiscal quarter earnings meeting attended by multiple analysts, Ubisoft still remained positive about its franchise's future.
The publisher believes that it has established a stunning game engine to deliver top-of-the-line visuals, but this feat came at the cost of developmental issues. "In the case of Unity, we had to re-do 100 percent of the engine," said CEO Yves Guillemot. "When you do that, it's painful and it has to be re-calibrated. With this game, a few things were not perfect when it launched and it's going to help the brand shine in the future." Indeed, the company believes the stumbling blocks that came with Unity will assist it with the development of its leaked 2015 title, Assassin's Creed Victory. "We are very confident that the experiences earned and lessons learned on Unity, along with customer feedback, will help us take Assassin's Creed to the next level," Guillemot said.
What do you think of Ubisoft's comments on Unity and its goals for the future? Do you consider the publisher's comments to be as valuable as a Templar's lies, or will you stay your blade before slashing future Assassin's Creed games off of your wanted list? Start a riot in the comments section below.
[source gameinformer.com]
Comments 28
Wouldn't have known it by the sales. 10 million. A broken game and it sells 10 million.
This is why I'm convinced quality will continue to spiral down the drain. Developers have cold hard proof that success is no longer driven by quality of content. People thought 2014 was bad for broken games and non-functioning multiplayer, just wait and see what this year has in store for us.
I may be only one person, but I can promise I will never pre order another Ubisoft game again. $20 bargain bin only from now on- that's assuming they have the game patched by time it drops to that price of course...
They could have waited but greed I guess is more important.
The problem is: I don't think Unity looked good at all - even when it was running at its desired framerate.
If I buy victory at launch I would have learnt nothing, there's still game breaking bugs in unity right now at least on PS4, I'll go back to waiting until the titles drop to $30 or less.
@JaxonH Totally agree. Boycotting is just about the only thing we can do. I worry that Bethesda might just end up going the same way all 'top' publishers do now they have announced an E3 slot. Fine line between making money to make games and making games to make money these days.
I for one will never buy a game at launch.
I wait for reviews & if the reviews are 'game is broken' then I won't touch it until it's fixed.
With the way developers are these days it's just not worth it, to many are previewing upscaled animated clips of their games to make them look incredible & then delivering down scaled unfinished disappointments.
I plonked it on the rental least so I can experience the hilarity, definitely gonna try it without the patches first.
Ubisoft fails to deliver native 1080p on consoles otherwise its poor performance I think that the whole engine need recalibration
I really enjoyed unity and I am looking forward to the setting of victory. However, I have decided to stop pre ordering most games and be more cautious. I was burnt by a few titles last year, not just Ubisoft, so I have learnt from my errors.
@get2sammyb Really? How so, Sammy? I haven't played Unity yet (I'm still working on Black Flag), so I'd be curious to hear your reasons for why you think that. From what I've seen, the game looks visually stunning (excluding the frame rate).
@DrJoeystein 'pe rcent'
All I am hearing from this is Ubisoft saying 'yeah we know it wasn't ready but you suckers bought it anyway'
I refuse to buy anything that broken on launch and I wish it hurt their sales more to teach them a lesson, if you can't put out a working game annually don't release it annually
@ReigningSemtex Thanks for pointing that out! Fixing it now.
Yeah, the whole situation is really sketchy considering how broken Unity was out of the gate. Surely they knew about it? It goes to show that you can't annually release a series like this, even if Unity had over three years of development. Ubisoft should've totally delayed it to avoid all of this, but they better learn from their mistakes from here on out.
@DrJoeystein the ironic thing is I remember everyone had fears of rogue being sub par quality because of lack of info and footage and when it released most people thought it was a pretty solid entry in the assassin's creed franchise and unity got panned by critics.
I think it sold based on the name and people wanting something to play on their new consoles and ubisoft wanted that xmas money whether they were ripping people off or not they wanted that pay day and that's pretty much a terrible way for a company to operate and a massive middle finger to gamers
Excuses, excuses... The shame of it is, AC Unity is actually not a bad game, but these idiots should've delayed it to make it sure it worked properly on launch. Although as Evolution proved, even a year delay sometimes isn't enough.
@ReigningSemtex Right! It turned out to be ironically opposite with Rogue and Unity. And yes, the massive sales are due to brand recognition and the fact it was a brand new AC on next-gen consoles. It truly looked promising during its aggressive marketing campaign, so no one would've guessed it would turn out to be as disappointing as it was. I certainly didn't see that coming. :/ But hey, this all serves as a good lesson for everyone. Publishers and developers, delay your game if it's not fit to ship. Quality over profits (focusing on the former over the latter can come back to bite you hard). And gamers, be VERY wary about pre-ordering games. Sometimes it's best to wait and see how a game turns out before you buy one with your hard-earned cash on day one.
Ubisoft cost themselves a decent amount of my money.
I played the original Assassin's Creed on Xbox 360. Thought it was decent, but heavily flawed (WAY too repetitious & awful combat), and never went back to the series. But since I heard AC2 was amazing, I was going to give the series another shot.
However, with Ubisoft releasing this series yearly (never a good idea) & this fiasco with Unity, I am not going to bother supporting this series. I had the Ezio Trilogy in my backlog, but it's never going to be played by me.
Too many games out there to play to be bothered with companies that knowingly releasing buggy garbage to consumers.
@Godsire- Oh man. I understand why you wouldn't want to play the Ezio trilogy...but AC2 and Brotherhood are the best in the series, and AC2 is one of my top 10 favorite games. Both of them are absolutely phenomenal. Revelations is pretty good (great story), but went astray a bit trying new things. Other than that, if you have the trilogy already, I recommend you at least play the second one. Pinnacle of the series.
This new gen is proving to be disastrous with new software launches that need patches required day one. Like others no longer prepared to pre-order, wait for the reviews and go from there.
After the fiasco of Unity's launch I wonder how many will now buy Victory at launch?
People will never be happy though.
Regardless of what the problems are.
(Awaiting comments such as Im supporting broken games and other assumptions and uneducated rubbish)
Just look at call of duty, same game repeated year on year, people complained, so they changed things up, people complained.
Point is, they tried new things and some other areas suffered, hardly the worst thing to happen in gaming.
If they mess up Victory, I will not bother with the series anymore.
@ToOGoodOfAPlaya I think it's awesome Ubisoft tried new things as well, but to release it in the state it was in is -in my opinion - unacceptable. But I definitely agree with you on CoD. I thought AW did a lot to shake things up, which was commendable and really nice. But people still say it was bland and the same game as the one before it. 'sigh' that's just not fair. lol And this is coming from someone who's played nearly every title since the first one.
I've just finished Black Flag yesterday. It's Unity worth buying? I've been reading about patches and people complaining it's still flawed. I also guess it'll drop price sometime, but I want something to play soon
@Farmboy74
Yep, I am never going to pre-order anything again. Like you said, wait for the reviews & judge from those.
@jmbenetti
I brought AC Unity in the Xmas sale from Amazon for £22 and by this time the 6GB patch had been released.
Like you needed to finish Black Flag first, and I have now spent around 20 hours playing Unity in its current patched state. So far I have seen one NPC stuck in a wall to a castle, the game has crashed on me once and froze briefly after returning from the map screen. But nothing as game breaking as previous versions so far.
Gameplay wise it's a very different beast to Black Flag, which I really enjoyed. While it's not as good as Black Flag or Brotherhood, it's a lot better than 3 and I would say it's closer gameplay wise to Brotherhood. You can hide behind objects and they have improved the Parkour which is really good once you get use to it. As usual finding myself getting sucked into things, the companion app you can get on Google or ITunes allows you to unlock extra chests and equipment.
Bottom line if you a fan of the series, I would buy it but for no more than £25.
@Farmboy74 Thanks for the detailed answer. I've really enjoyed Black Flag, but I've wanted to know if Unity worthed the money before buying it. I'm from Argentina, so I won't be buying any retail games because the prices here are very expensive. I'll just wait for Unity being discounted at PSN store, or save the money for something else. Thanks again!
The title is quite misleading to what is written here. It's not the PS4 as it is Ubisofts engine that they had to redo.
@JaxonH the 10 million is the number of Unity and Rouge sales combined. They havnt released individual sales yet
@Bigdoggy Hey, just saw your comment about the title. You're right, it could be viewed that way. But we usually just say "PS4" even if we're talking about a multi-platform game (PS4 = multi-platform on Push Square, basically), so what I mean by the title is "Ubisoft Admits Difficulties Developing Assassin's Creed Unity for All Systems," I suppose. And I didn't try to tie the PS4 to the problem, but I unintentionally did (I just thought the title would sound more complete with that on the end). Thanks for the feedback!
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