Another great game Ubisoft has been postponed. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will not arrive in time for the release of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water in December and will be launched no earlier than March 2023. Yesterday the CEO Yves Guillemot he also communicated to the staff that some projects have been canceled and that the publisher will only have to reduce expenses “to the essential“while looking for his next hit.
“We have also decided to stop developing some games so that our talents can focus on other projects that have a higher priority.“Guillemot wrote in an email sent to the entire company and viewed by Kotaku.
“In the current economic environment, careful and strategic management of our investments is now more essential than ever. We must therefore be able to strongly limit our expenses to the essential, questioning some of our habits and reflexes, and reinventing ourselves together to gain in terms of costs, agility and efficiency.“.
Guillemot reiterated that, despite these problems, the company is still aiming to exceed $ 400 million in operating profits this year.
In addition to Avatar, Ubisoft announced during the first quarter earnings report that another “Unannounced minor premium game“, originally scheduled for this fiscal year, has been postponed. It is possible that this is Project Rift, a DLC of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla turned into a standalone game. Bloomberg reported that the game aimed to fill gaps in the calendar of upcoming releases of Ubisoft.
As for the canceled projects, Guillemot confirmed during yesterday’s conference that at least two of them are Splinter Cell VR and Ghost Recon Frontline. The latter is a battle royale-influenced multiplayer shooter that was much criticized at the time of the announcement last year, as it was considered a “rip-off” of Call of Duty: Warzone.
For the rest of 2021, Ubisoft has pinned its hopes on a new strategy game, Mario + Rabbids, and Skull and Bones. But while the latter cost as much as any big hit game, many remain skeptical that it will be the success the company needs. According to one developer, the game has very little to offer beyond what was already shown when it resurfaced in a showcase this month. Despite the numerous survival simulation mechanics for gathering resources, it has been stated that every single part of the game lacks depth.
In the conference Guillemot attributed the postponement of Avatar to wider production issues related to Covid and the desire to make the game the start of a new series.
Assassin’s Creed has remained one of the company’s few strengths, and in addition to the live-service Assassin’s Creed Infinity project, Ubisoft is still planning another Assassin’s Creed open-world game called Project Red. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports that Red would actually be part of Infinity, rather than a separate game. According to two sources familiar with its development, the game will be set in Asia. VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb previously reported that the game may be set in Japan, and sources have said that this setting, as well as having long been in demand by fans, has long been discussed internally.
Meanwhile, several employees told Kotaku that Ubisoft studios are facing layoffs, fewer hires, and various budget blocks. This new wave of austerity comes as many large tech companies prepare for a potential recession. Ubisoft’s problems, however, go further: ambitious projects like Beyond Good and Evil 2 are still entirely absent, and senior developers of some major franchises have left the company.
Ubisoft’s next showcase Forward will air on September 10th.
Source: Kotaku.
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