Video game industry experts had wondered for a long time about how long it would be before games saw a price increase. At the start of the current generation of consoles, we saw multiple publishers begin to take this to heart and increase the standard price of their biggest games to $70. Companies like Sony, EA, and Activision have all been a part of this, and now it appears that Ubisoft is joining the club.
Ubisoft has now confirmed that its future AAA games will cost $70 on current-gen consoles, and the first game to receive this price hike will be Skull & Bones which launches this November. The news comes from an Axios interview with Yves Guillemot, the CEO of Ubisoft.
“Some of the games will come at the same price as the competition. The big AAA games will come at $70,” said Guillemot.
It’s quite possible that the increase in prices is helping video game publishers with the increasing costs of game development. However, this is always frustrating news for gamers. The silver lining is that this may only apply to games that Ubisoft considers AAA. For example, the recently announced Assassin’s Creed Mirage is priced at $50 on both current-gen and last-gen consoles.
There has been a lot of news for Ubisoft fans over the last few days. The recent Ubisoft Forward showcase had a lot to reveal about the future of the Assassin’s Creed series. The previously mentioned Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest entry in the series and it will let players experience the origin story of Basim Ibn Ishaq from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The game takes place in 9th century Baghdad and is due to be released in Spring next year.
Ubisoft didn’t stop there either. The company announced Assassin’s Creed: Codename Red, which looks to be doing what fans have been asking for years: take the series to feudal Japan. The game is being developed by Ubisoft Quebec, which previously worked on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and it will also signify the start of what Ubisoft calls “Period Three” for the series. The game will be focused on current-gen hardware and Ubisoft’s Marc-Alexis Cote explains that it will feature “a more dynamic world, a world that evolves around you and we want everything that you have on yourself to evolve as you walk through this environment.”
Ubisoft also announced Assassin’s Creed: Codename Hexe. Judging by the short teaser trailer, it appears that Hexe will involve darker and more supernatural themes. Cote says that “Hexe is a bit further out, but will live concurrently to Red eventually.”
There are now plenty of Ubisoft games to anticipate on the horizon, although we will have to wait to see which ones are given a higher price point.
