Ubisoft Doubles Down On Open-World And Live-Service Games

As a part of Ubisoft’s earnings report, the corporate mentioned what sorts of video games it desires to deal with going forward–and these embrace open-world motion journey titles and games-as-a-service tasks.

Ubisoft government Frederick Duguet said on an earnings call that the corporate has been “investing considerably” in latest occasions on a “huge pipeline” of its two essential product classes. These are the aforementioned open-world motion journey and games-as-a-service genres. “That is what we need to ship 12 months after 12 months,” the manager mentioned.

Ubisoft specializing in huge open-world video games and live-service titles is nothing new for the corporate. Nevertheless, traditionally, Ubisoft had a extra various lineup of video games spanning a number of completely different genres and codecs. And not each live-service undertaking has labored out for Ubisoft, as the corporate launched and shut down video games like XDefiant and Hyper Scape comparatively shortly. The pirate sport Cranium & Bones remains to be up and operating however hasn’t precisely damaged via to change into a success.

Duguet went on to listing off a few of Ubisoft’s upcoming tasks which have been introduced to this point, together with Murderer’s Creed Shadows and extra ongoing updates for Rainbow Six Siege, Anno 117: Pax Romana, and The Division Resurgence. The chief mentioned the corporate will share extra particulars about different upcoming video games round Could, which is when Ubisoft will launch its subsequent earnings report. That is additionally round when many sport firms open the floodgates for gaming information all through the summer season season after numerous exhibits and occasions.

No matter Ubisoft has coming–and the corporate hasn’t mentioned a lot about its future title slate–Duguet mentioned the corporate has a “robust pipeline for the long run years.” It’s anticipated that Ubisoft would communicate on this method. Duguet was responding to a query in regards to the firm’s future outlook, and presenting it in a rosy and sturdy method is regular conduct for an government chatting with analysts.

Concerning Murderer’s Creed Shadows, the sport is coming this March and preorder numbers are monitoring in step with these of Murderer’s Creed Odyssey, Ubisoft mentioned. Odyssey was the second most profitable entry in the complete Murderer’s Creed franchise, in keeping with Ubisoft, although it did not say by what metric.

In different information, Ubisoft is within the midst of a cost-reduction program that has resulted in layoffs and studio closures. CEO Yves Guillemot mentioned these adjustments had been “troublesome however vital.” Moreover, Ubisoft is present process a “formal evaluation course of” for serving to to show its enterprise round, with one potential situation being a deal of some kind with Tencent. Guillemot mentioned of negotiations in regards to the firm’s future, “We’re satisfied there are completely different potential paths to attain this ambition.”