Hindsight is a powerful thing, especially in the video game world. Development studios can use it to great effect when looking back at games and wondering what could have been or what should have been better, and it seems like Ubisoft is one of those studios that want to make some big changes in future games. It has been confirmed that Ubisoft plans on making a drastic change to how it develops future games, making the decision that not every game needs to be a story-driven, 100-hour epic like many of the Assassin’s Creed games have been.
In an interview with IGN (which you can read in full here), Ubisoft’s VP of editorial, Fawzi Mesmar, tried to explain what the company’s ethos is when it comes to developing games, and what changes will be made in the future. The idea that one game should be doing everything is ludicrous, not only will it fall short on so many ideas and concepts, but the time and money that these games take to develop is staggering. Mesmar explained that in the past, Ubisoft has focused on trying to please every fan, but from this day on, the studio will be aiming to develop games that are more focused on certain fans, however, these could be games that “might not appeal to everybody.”
This new Ubisoft plan will focus on “depth of experience” over the breadth of content. Now, if you were to ask us what we think this means, we would hazard a guess that future games will have a lot less map than previous titles, which suits us perfectly fine. Ubisoft is a huge studio, so the chances of you experiencing one of its many titles are quite high, and if you are one of those users, then you will be well aware that the company has become synonymous with the enormous. What we mean by this is that Ubisoft’s games are usually laden with various collectibles, treasures, and a plethora of other items that are sprawled across a map of gigantic proportion – this can often lead to a lot of wasted time in searching every inch of a certain map, an awful lot of time indeed.
One of the biggest series from the Ubisoft catalog is the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which is as guilty as sin when it comes to oversized and overcomplicated maps. Aside from Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry though, Ubisoft does have a rather impressive list of smaller games such as Riders Republic and Immortals Fenyx Rising which are fine examples of this new company ethos that hopes to be implemented.
In terms of the strategy being fully adopted, the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Mirage will be the guinea pig for the new Ubisoft plans. Mesmar confirmed in the recent interview that this game – and its sister-games Assassin’s Creed: Red and Hexe – will be an example of what the strategy will be hoping to achieve. Mesmar has said that “Mirage is for the people who want to go back to the roots of the series,” while other projects will cater to other fans, including those who are looking for a “big RPG” experience.
