Ubisoft Comments on Buyout Reports, Says That It 'Regularly Reviews Options'

Yep, get ready for a sale and then 40% of the staff getting laid off

I think it's a no brainer the Ubi formula is done and done. Many have grown tired of the same games in different wrappings. Some things need to change in a serious way. I also have had a good time with both Far cry games and AC games, but man, lately it's become very stale ...

The conspiracy theory is that they deliberately ran the company into the ground so that they could buy it for pennies on the dollar.
A very plausible, if dangerous, scenario imo.

I honestly thought AC Shadows might see the company put into administration when it tanked but they delayed the launch so...

@BeenGamingSince_83 I think the formula itself is fine. They just need to stop jerking themselves off, lower their scopes and focus on quality over quantity. I´ll take an AC Odyssey any day, if it´s a third or even a fifth of the size, just super polished and with loads more thought and effort put into the remaining content.
Although the concept of "here´s a huge open world, you have 5 different story missions you can do, pick which one to do first" is terrible, since it never allows for a coherent and meaningful story progression

I don’t understand how they have made such a mess? Was Valhalla not a massive hit? Mirage did ok also I think as did the POP game? Xdefiant was a miss and outlaws needs some work but I think it’ll do ok in the long run.

Perhaps they should give their customers what they have been asking for. Splinter cell, Rayman and whatever other IP they own but seek to do NOTHING with

Well, of course the leadership of the company is exploring all options. If they weren’t then they’d be incompetent at their jobs… well, even more incompetent.

This statement doesn’t give us anything new, but it sure helps to fuel our speculations.

@Yagami Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect show that you can have a meaningful linear story with that structure.

It's quite a common story structure for Western RPGs, not just Ubisoft games.

I would be pretty happy if Sony purchased Ubisoft, they're far better at nurturing the type of games that Ubisoft makes and they would finally put an end to the fluctuating quality of games. Although these days, most of the games are pretty mediocre.

Plus it would be nice if there were fewer microtransactions and overall less greed embedded in these games

@Yagami "They just need to stop jerking themselves off, lower their scopes and focus on quality over quantity. I´ll take an AC Odyssey any day, if it´s a third or even a fifth of the size, just super polished and with loads more thought and effort put into the remaining content."

Yeah, I can agree with that for sure.

I've been playing AC Mirage this last week - currently on sale on PSN - and I have to say I'm having a good time with it. It's refreshingly reasonable in its scope, and the story has me interested.

The PoP game from earlier this year was also a cracking metroidvania that everyone should check out. I really enjoyed that.

Ubisoft needs to get back to its basics. Good games at reasonable budgets.

As for SW: Outlaws, I think the problem there is that Disney has run that franchise into the ground and the subset of SW fans who are into games are the people most likely to have a negative view of SW overall now. If I were Ubisoft I'd lean into Outlaws' links to the original SW trilogy in my marketing going forward, which might rekindle some interest.

Ubisoft is the very definition of the words "stale" and "milking".
They've made some good games over the years, like AC Odyssey, Far Cy 2 and 3, and the Prince of Persia sands of time trilogy from the 2000's...
But they grow and evolve very very slowly, they milk the same formulas over and over to such extremes that sequels arrive being worse than the originals. They add a few ideas but stick too tightly to the same basic structure of the previous games, or bloat them needlessly . AC Valhalla and Far Cry 4, 5 and 6 are the best examples of "going down the hill".
And innovation is even rarer...
Star Wars Outlaws was a good idea in theory, but poorly implemented.
I'm curious to see what AC Shadows will bring, but I'm willing to bet it's the same basic AC open world formula at it's core, with a few new ideas sprinkled on top, all set in a new area... and that's about it. They have some time to improve it, but a few months is not a lot... and they won't be able to extend it, they can NOT afford to go head to head with Ghost of Yotei....
And if AC Shadows flops, that's about it... they can kiss their arse goodbye then and there.

@Buckster666 if tencent buy them id guess more 40% all office staff gone a lot studios gone and even ones left would be chopped in half

@ThomasHL I don´t really agree. KotoR and ME both have good story lines, but the plot relevant happenings on the individual planets are minimal at best.

@StrickenBiged The Star Wars branding is the single most redeeming feature of Outlaws. Do you really think anyone would bat an eye at that game, if it didn´t have "Star Wars" attached to it?

@Yagami yet the overall story works. And that's because they fit the linear story structure around the choose 5 mission structure. You get continual updates to the story that trigger after certain numbers of missions of complete.

Another game with the same "choose 5" mission structure that is also considered an all time great is Fallout: New Vegas, which they hide even more cleverly. Each story path will require you to do 3/5 big story events, they tell you to do them in a linear order, differing depending on choices, but this isn't actually necessary - you can still do each region mission in the order you want.

EDIT: Another example of a classic RPG using this structure: Alpha Protocol. Most Obsidian and Bioware games use this structure in some way, in some cases more obscured than others.

@ThomasHL It works, but not in service of a single big narrative. Those five missions all have a small tie to the main plot, but apart from that they are independent and don´t affect each other. You don´t get story result C because you did A before B. It´s always result D, regardless of the order. From a technical perspective, the game trades a more connected, deeper story (imagine 5 events building on each other) for the player freedom of choice (5 events happening seperately but tying a single point)

As an example, FONV has you track down the guy who shot you and then has you join a faction for the ending. That´s the entirety of the main plot. Everything inbetween is basically optional.

I think this design is okay if you have a larger focus on character interaction and interaction (like most of the Obsidian games do), because they main plot is really just sort of a guiding thread to the actual content.

There are obviously other beneficial factors to consider, like increased replay value and such, but if we´re just talking about the main plot, this format just waters it down.

Everybody listing the Ubisoft cock ups have seemingly already forgot Skull and Bones. I’d be surprised if the Singapore Government paid for entirety of the alleged $650-$850 million it cost to make.

They may have crashed into the ground over the last couple of years but let's hope Microsoft doesn't pull out the chequebook and bury them below it like they've done to everything they've bought so far. I don't have much love for Ubisoft these days but anything is better than that company that have no clue what they're doing. I mean they're even having to ask developers where they're going wrong to get games on their platform which says it all really. Even if Tencent take them it's a step up from that hell.

But to be fair Ubisoft have said since the start of this gen that they would be open to offers. And no one has bitten yet it looks like.

@Yagami Probably not, no, but then what does that say about the game if it entirely lives or dies based on the licence?

This is what happens when you spend years ignoring your fanbase and continually release broken, buggy messes. Last week, a major patch went out for Outlaws that was supposed to fix the major issues. I played for about 40 minutes on Saturday, and in that short time saw all this:
A stormtrooper stuck in a speeder bike on top of a tree.
Was walking in front of crates stacked about 10 feet high and got knocked over by another stormtrooper on a speeder bike that flew over the crates and landed on my head.
Used my grapple hook to climb a cliff, Kay just floated arms down motionless up the cliff with the rope attached to her head. Then fell to the ground when she reached the top.
Found a cave entrance in an Imperial area, where I stayed for over 10 minutes with a pile of dead stormtrooopers I killed a few feet away. Every 25 seconds or so, a stormtrooper would say "There's a dead trooper here! Search the area!" over and over. They never found me even though I was 5 feet away hiding behind a crate, until I got so bored sitting there I went out and blasted them all.
AAAA gaming in 2024.

I'll buy mirage and shadows on steam. I'd support you, ubisoft, if you let me.

@StrickenBiged I guess that depends on your perspective and how much you value said license. I would consider the game a failure, if all it offered was superficial fanservice

Anything involving tencent is bad news. The problem is they release broken games and expect full price for it and then take 6-12 months to fix it,; so stopped buying ubisoft games at launch ; also the fact games are £70 -£100 especially with season pass/gold edition and on top of that their games are riddled with microtransactions , nearly as bad as activision