The past couple of months have been pretty tough for Ubisoft, following the studio’s recent ‘restructuring’, which saw the cancellation of titles like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and the delay of several others. Despite this, the studio has come forward to announce some key titles in the pipeline, including two Far Cry games and multiple Assassin’s Creed projects.
This reveal comes via an interview with Variety and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, where he spoke on the company’s future plans, which see the publisher splitting its efforts across five “creative houses”, one being its subsidiary with Tencent known as Vantage Studios.
When asked about what this means for some of its biggest IPs, such as Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, Guillemot stated that the company has a “solid pipeline underway” across Vantage Studios. “Under the Assassin’s Creed brand, several titles are in development, spanning both single-player and multiplayer experiences, with the ambition to further grow a community that exceeded 30 million players last year,” he explained, “On Far Cry, anticipation is high, and we currently have two very promising projects in development.”
Previous reports had already signalled the existence of two upcoming Far Cry titles, but Guillemot’s latest statement has all but confirmed it. While no official confirmation was provided on the specific titles, the first title was previously outlined by Insider Gaming as the franchise’s next mainline entry, known internally as Project Blackbird, and would allegedly feature a “non-linear story” centred around rescuing the protagonist’s kidnapped family. The game would also reportedly task players with completing the campaign in a set time frame – 72 in-game hours, which equates to 24 hours in real-time.
The other Far Cry title was also previously reported by Insider Gaming to be a standalone multiplayer-only live-service shooter known as Project Maverick. While not much has been uncovered about the title, it was pitched as being set in the Alaskan wilderness, and would apparently play out like an extraction-based shooter “with mechanics such as permadeath, a backpack system, contracts, and more.”
As for Assassin’s Creed, we already know of two projects currently in the works: Assassin’s Creed: Codename Hexe, the next mainline entry in the franchise, which is set to be something entirely different from its recent action RPG affair, and the delayed Assassin’s Creed Black Flag remake. These two titles look to be single-player experiences, so it remains to be seen what the multiplayer projects Guillemot mentioned will be, although many fans would agree that making multiplayer spin-offs out of franchises known for their immersive single-player experiences, like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, would be completely missing the point.
With Guillemot’s latest statement, the future of two of Ubisoft’s key franchises are simultaneuously bright and grim, as on one hand, it’s heartening to know that the studio hasn’t given up on its flagships even after all the drama of its recent restructuring, but on the other, some of the upcoming titles are either multiplayer experiences or adopt the dreaded live-service format, meaning that despite the apparent downward spiral the studio is seeing right now, its still hasn’t learnt its lessons from past failures like 2024’s Skull and Bones, so its a few steps forward, and potentially many steps back.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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