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Ubisoft confirms there will be no Assassin's Creed in 2016

zkorejo

zkorejo

Member
I guess rumors were true then. This is really a good decision. I am glad they are doing this. If any videogame franchise needs a break its this one. I honestly am sick of AC but somehow I always end up buying the new one based on positive reviews or impressions.

I am honestly regretting my decision for getting Syndicate. I have no idea why people were praising this game so much. I guess it was for just not having as many glitches as Unity and being in a playable state, because I honestly am not having any fun with this one. I think I enjoyed Unity far more. Story is almost non-existent and whatever there is, its predictable as hell
I am sure there will be this big fight between the twins. Jacob is cool as a character but Evie's missions is the real interesting part of the game, I wish game focused more on the POE stuff
. I am in sequence 7 and I dont feel like I have done anything worthwile. Its like a long string of side-missions given by forgettable characters.

AC really need some major changes and I am hoping this break will help them do that.
 
WouldYouKindly

WouldYouKindly

Banned
Shock_Wave said:
giphy.gif
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My exact reaction will have time to catch up now this news is welcomed
 
I

injurai

Banned
Crossing Eden said:
If they made Unity using the AC4 version of the AnvilNext engine, (as in, not rebuilt it mostly from the ground up), it wouldn't have been anywhere near as buggy as it was. the point is they've done total revamps for the series multiple times. If the rumored setting is true, it requires yet another revamp, even more so than before.
Click to expand...

They didn't rebuild the engine from the ground up. The bugs weren't on the engineering side, or on their enterprise pipeline. It was on the game's scripting, which could have been hammered out had they not been pressed to release in the window. With a grander scope and a commitment to stay on an annual release schedule they had less time to debug.

I would hardly call anything that has been done before a total revamp. Those were marketing slogans, the fact remains that the core of the games have been very similar. With only incremental steps forward. Hell, the largest revamp to the series was AC4 which doesn't fit into "revamp" category that you're talking about.
 
C

CarbonFire

Member
Mindlog said:
Child of Light 2

Please make a From Dust 2 Ubi. Please.
Click to expand...

God I would love another From Dust, but I don't think the first one sold well enough thanks to general Ubisoft fuckery when it launched (performance issues and one of the first uplay-required titles).

And please Ubisoft, make a good Watch Dogs 2. Give us a new protagonist and a new engine (AC's AnvilNext is probably sufficient).
 
S

sometimes i game

Member
Such a good move and very respectable. Earning points with me for doing this, since they don't have to. They could keep pumping them out until it's dead and move on.

Take note, other yearly shovelware. You don't have to be fucking annualized and it's ok to pause.
 
V

VolticArchangel

Member
Has Ubi thought about a mega compilation of all the 10/11 mainline games (or in 2 volumes) to fill their yearly slot? Maybe too cumbersome as, technically only the X1 and PC, out of currentgen platforms, can play them all as of now?
 
H

Heartfyre

Member
Considering they have the film (and maybe that rumoured Assassin's Creed Collection?), this is the right decision. I'm sort of glad they chose this year to do it rather than last year; at least Unity wasn't the last Assassin's Creed game released for an extended period.

I wonder how the financials will look after the next fiscal without it.
 
N

NotMyPsn

Banned
Amazing. I really hope that every company making yearly releases takes a break, in every industry, and try to make a real impact in their releases.
Tired of yearly games with incremental upgrades.
I don't buy them, but there are less resources for new and better things with this rhythm of releases.
 
R

RealityCheque

Banned
2 years would be fine as well.

Start from absolute scratch and jettison the metric tonne of baggage that the series has collected over the years.
 
D

Dreavus

Member
Is it too much to hope for that competitive multiplayer will make a return in some form? I believe the reason they stopped is because their multiplayer engine hadn't made significant strides since brotherhood (and it was starting to show), and there wasn't the resources to rebuild it like they did for Unity's SP engine. I have no idea how popular it was with the player base, but perhaps with the extra development time it can make a comeback.

I still jump on to Black flag's from time to time. Goddamn it's so good.

Crossing Eden said:
Every AC game already gets 3 years of dev time. This team wasn't sitting around doing nothing while UbiQuebec handled Syndicate. And let's not do the thing we do in every AC thread where people pretend that they've made absolutely no attempts to revamp this series,
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Yeah, there are multiple teams at work here. It's not like a new entry releases and a nebulous "Ubisoft dev team" gets right back to work starting on the next game's development. This stuff is put in place years in advance.

So in that sense, with even more time they can hopefully make some even bigger strides. But people acting like it's this big sigh of relief for the AC development team are kind of off base IMO.
 
J

jelly

Member
I curious to see if it actually changes anything. If they are just tweaking stuff for an extra year, not great is it. Mild cure for burnout but nothing substantially improved, removed or added would suck. Can they come up with something fresh with an extra year?
 
J

jschreier

Member
CopperPuppy said:
Right you were, sir.

Have you heard any rumblings of a collection releasing on current generation consoles?

There was that rumor based on a domain name, and this press release does carefully say there will be no new game this year...
Click to expand...
I have not, no. I know as much as you guys do about a potential collection.
 
B

bigdaddygamebot

Member
Good. On a corporate level they deserved two black eyes for the fucking mess that Unity was.

Where the sales on AC Syndicate bad enough to actually make them rethink their strategy?
 
Raven117

Raven117

Member
The series just hit fatigue is all. Most iterations were not bad games by any means.

AC: Great concept, but needed to work on execution
AC2: Nailed it.
ACBrotherhood: Okay, I like it..but this feels like an expansion
ACReveleations: Umm, another expansion?
ACIII: Some major issues with story and how it ran (Though I actually liked the story and Connor)
ACIV: Effing great
ACUnity: Effing terrible
ACSyndicate: A return to form more like AC2. Actually a pretty good story and main characters
 
R

rauelius

Member
I'd like to see a shared Universe game with Ubisoft at some point, maybe starting with this years FarCry Primal with the foundations of Pre-History, then with more connections in Watch_Dogs_2, then another connecting between them in AssCreed 2017. Then in 2018/2019 have characters and/or incidents pop up or reference in Watch_Dogs_3, FarCry: 5 and AssCreed 2019 solidifying their Universes together.

While I'd like to rope in Rayman and other franchises, but AssCreed, Watch_Dogs, and FarCry seem to make the most sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWSWjN6n_UQ
 
C

CopperPuppy

Member
Saw this quote pop up in the OP of one of the other active Ubisoft threads on GAF:

"We are now in a position to take the decision not to release a new Assassin's Creed game in 2016-17, in order to give the brand a new dimension, while still presenting very solid targets for the fiscal year. These targets reflect the measures we have been putting in place over the past few years to transform our business model. Our portfolio of powerful franchises is solid and balanced and our global audience is growing steadily. At the same time, the digital segment is playing an increasingly important role and we are making a strong comeback in multiplayer. We now create experiences that accompany players throughout the year so we can enhance their long-term engagement. Each of these positive factors testifies to the change in Ubisoft's profile and has a favorable impact on our financial performance."
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This phrasing is slightly different than simply saying that there will be no new Assassin's Creed in 2016. Is the bolded trying to indicate that there may be no new release in 2017 either?

I suppose this may just mean fiscal year 2016-17, which I think ends in March of 2017.
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
injurai said:
They didn't rebuild the engine from the ground up. The bugs weren't on the engineering side, or on their enterprise pipeline. It was on the game's scripting, which could have been hammered out had they not been pressed to release in the window. With a grander scope and a commitment to stay on an annual release schedule they had less time to debug.

I would hardly call anything that has been done before a total revamp. Those were marketing slogans, the fact remains that the core of the games have been very similar. With only incremental steps forward. Hell, the largest revamp to the series was AC4 which doesn't fit into "revamp" category that you're talking about.
Click to expand...
Would you not call something like UC4 a revamp of mechanics? Ofc a game sequel, at it's core, will in some way resemble what came before, you'd be hard-pressed to find game series that don't do this, (especially the more successful ones), in the case of AC however they've multiple times made quite heavy adjustments to the core like any long standing franchise. BF had the same core gameplay as AC4, yet they did something very new with it in terms of the setting and overall pacing while streamlining some other aspects, like fast travel. In terms of revamping Unity's core was very drastically different in nearly every way despite still being an AC game. In terms of development it seems like the game has a similar pipeline to Unity, (tons of prototyping, iteration and rethinking core aspects), without the yearly release schedule.
 
I

injurai

Banned
Crossing Eden said:
Would you not call something like UC4 a revamp of mechanics? Ofc a game sequel, at it's core, will in some way resemble what came before, you'd be hard-pressed to find game series that don't do this, (especially the more successful ones), in the case of AC however they've multiple times made quite heavy adjustments to the core like any long standing franchise. BF had the same core gameplay as AC4, yet they did something very new with it in terms of the setting and overall pacing while streamlining some other aspects, like fast travel. In terms of revamping Unity's core was very drastically different in nearly every way despite still being an AC game.
Click to expand...

AC4 is BF. I already did just call it a revamp. That was one of my main points.
 
V

Venom Fox

Banned
I'm actually excited to see if the just reboot the franchise or expand it further in some way.

Either way I'm excited and hope they create a new BF type game.
 
A

arevin01

Member
Looks like the sales flop of the last has finally made Ubisoft to think over yearly releases. The series has gotten really stale and I think they will finally canned the franchise soon enough.
 
Agent_4Seven

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Crossing Eden said:
Every AC game already gets 3 years of dev time.
Click to expand...
And they are making the same F game every time but with new city, the story and characters. This is not what needs to be done and it is not a complete overhaul about which I am talking about. They need to stop making 2-3 AC games at the same time in each and every studio they have, instead they need to dedicate 2-3 years to make a complete overhaul which this series needs more than any other and more than anything else and that's a fact. Oh, and what they also must do, is to develop from the ground up a completely new engine because they are using the same shitty engine for almost 10 F years now, They can't save this series without a complete overhaul.
 
L

Lord of Castamere

Member
Good. Give me South Park and Watch Doge Too in exchange.

Revaulate your series and make something relevent again. Aim for a 90+ MC, and try to impress more than the baseline.
 
N

Navy Bean

Member
Good news. Btw, which is better - Black Flag or Syndicate? I haven't played one since AC3 and am thinking of checking one out (I already have BF as a free download).
 
I

injurai

Banned
Crossing Eden said:
My apologies, that was a typo, I meant AC3.
Click to expand...

Pretty much every game since Revelations has been a revamp of some degree. I'm hoping with this year off we'll get a revamp on a scale that the series hasn't seen before. Cutting out gimmicks, and improving on the core gameplay mechanics, the level design, quest design. There is a lot they can take inspiration from. Other stealth games, other open world games, other action platformers, hack n slash, puzzle games. I want to see something really new. Because it's felt like a lot of the same fetch quest, stalk quests, chase quests, climb quests.

You've argued that updating the pipelines for these revamps have left things buggy. But it was trying to hit a release window that did that. Having continued to improve their tech all these years. Leaving an extra year for both design and QA. I think they are aiming for a revamp that will renew the series for 10 more years. I think AC can find a new identity.
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Agent_4Seven said:
And they are making the same F game every time but with new city, the story and characters. This is not what needs to be done and it is not a complete overhaul about which I am talking about. They need to stop making 2-3 AC games at the same time in each and every studio they have, instead they need to dedicate 2-3 years to make a complete overhaul which this series needs more than any other and more than anything else and that's a fact. Oh, and what they also must do, is to develop from the ground up a completely new engine because they are using the same shitty engine for almost 10 F years now,
Click to expand...
Good thing the company made a very detailed retrospective video series detailing the changes made both small and large. I'd advise going through that before unironically stating that they literally made the same game every time. It's like saying Nintendo makes the same Zelda game every time.

injurai said:
Pretty much every game since Revelations has been a revamp of some degree. I'm hoping with this year off we'll get a revamp on a scale that the series hasn't seen before. Cutting out gimmicks, and improving on the core gameplay mechanics, the level design, quest design. There is a lot they can take inspiration from. Other stealth games, other open world games, other action platformers, hack n slash, puzzle games. I want to see something really new. Because it's felt like a lot of the same fetch quest, stalk quests, chase quests, climb quests.

You've argued that updating the pipelines for these revamps have left things buggy. But it was trying to hit a release window that did that. Having continued to improve their tech all these years. Leaving an extra year for both design and QA. I think they are aiming for a revamp that will renew the series for 10 more years. I think AC can find a new identity.
Click to expand...
Again Unity already did that, (tailing missions for instance were massively reduced yet also expanded to be more open just like every mission in the game). I do wonder if they're going for a new identity altogether or whether that would be a good idea. It remains to be seen because all we can do atm is speculate on just how big the changes will be.
 
M

Makonero

Member
Raven117 said:
The series just hit fatigue is all. Most iterations were not bad games by any means.

AC: Great concept, but needed to work on execution
AC2: Nailed it.
ACBrotherhood: Okay, I like it..but this feels like an expansion
ACReveleations: Umm, another expansion?
ACIII: Some major issues with story and how it ran (Though I actually liked the story and Connor)
ACIV: Effing great
ACUnity: Effing terrible
ACSyndicate: A return to form more like AC2. Actually a pretty good story and main characters
Click to expand...

You missed Rogue.

I'm still playing through the backlog, one per year at this point. With my current consoles, I can still play Revelations and Rogue.

I'm in no rush for new AssCreeds.
 
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