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When did "Ubisoft game" become an insult?

When they found the gameplay formula that works well for average gamer and destroyed their creative freedom by enforcing the use of this formula in every game.

I really like Ubisoft, but some games (especially Far Cry 4) look like they were procedurally generated. You see the same exact ruleset not only throughout certain games, but also in between different franchises. It's not bad per se, but it makes me sad thinking what they might achieve if they take actual risks instead of printing what's safe and tested.
 
I don't think it means the game is bad, so much as its following a particular formula.

But if you've had enough of the formula then it gets pretty close to bad.
 
The last Ubisoft game got a 90+ Metacritic is Far Cry 3 ( 2012 )
Five years ago...

So if they don't do games with 90+ on metacritic, they are shit. Okay.

Child of Light is easily 90+, as well as Black Flag and many other Ubi games (for me, but I'm one of those strange fellas that don't need every reviewer to give me approval to like a game)

PS: Rayman Legends though...........
 
I don't think it means the game is bad, so much as its following a particular formula.

But if you've had enough of the formula then it gets pretty close to bad.

Yeah...they rely too heavily and frequently on an obvious formula to structure their game.

It was good the first time, maybe the second ... but when they do it each year you get tired of it.

A shame because of the rest of the work that goes into the games are often great.
 
I haven't played an open world Ubisoft game since Assasins Creed III. I did briefly play a friend's copy of the Division and it was okay...cool concepts that would be cool to revisit in the future.


That said Rainbow Six siege is an absolutely incredible game. Ive played that a good bit.
 
Yeah...they rely too heavily and frequently on an obvious formula to structure their game.

It was good the first time, maybe the second ... but when they do it each year you get tired of it.

A shame because of the rest of the work that goes into the games are often great.

I agree, not that the games are shit, but they do get boring if they use the same structure. I think WatchDogs 2 was a step in the right direction, without the use of towers.
 
When they decided they basically wanted to keep making ACII for eternity.

It also doesn't mean a game described as such is utter garbage, it just means there is a very high probability that you're not gonna be playing anything you haven't seen before.
You might be playing quality, just not revolutionary quality.
 
I stopped after ac3. Bought syndicate for like $7 when it went on sale just to see the pro update and haven't touched it. You can see the influence on hzd and in my opinion it hurts the game.
 
PS: Rayman Legends though...........
No, I don't think Ubisoft is shit, but we know that only 2 kinds of game on online discussion: great or shit.
PS: 90+ could be >90 or >=90
 
They're repetitive, filed with Free-to-play-like satisfaction , lots of fluff and microtransaction, and extremely focus tested/dudebro.

That said, WD2 was solid, felt like a passion project to me imo.
 
I used to love almost all open world games until Ubisoft jumped in with their constant cut and paste meter-building collectathon trash.

Hi! Can you name a dozen shitty Ubisoft games?

Really interested in your input.

Every Far Cry from 3 on, every Assassin's Creed game, Watch Dogs (haven't played 2). I think that's about a dozen.
 
Around the time they started re-using the exact same open world structure across pretty much their entire lineup of IPs. There is no respite if you like certain Ubisoft IPs but don't like Ubisoft brand open world gameplay.
 
I used to love almost all open world games until Ubisoft jumped in with their constant cut and paste meter-building collectathon trash.



Every Far Cry from 3 on, every Assassin's Creed game, Watch Dogs (haven't played 2). I think that's about a dozen.

Are they universally shit? I loved Far Cry 3 and 4 (didn't like Primal, still not bad), AC games are at the very least good (AC Unity) to amazing (e.g. Black Flag), Watch_Dogs 1 and 2 are very fun games that you can tackle in different ways, I personally liked the story of both WD games.

To each his own.
 
I think its been that way ever since Ubisoft was a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubisoft_games

I remeber when they gave away a copy of XIII for the PC with the Sun news paper. Looked great, but wow what a crap game. They even cheaped on that, it was advertised as a full game, turned out to be a 3 level demo of dont watse your time.

Weirdly the Wiki entry doesnt show all thier Dreamcast games. Though Evolution 2 (not shown) is one of the most expensive games on the Dreamcast (PAL version) either due to the Dreamcasts demise or how terrible it apparently was. Only 5000 copies were produced (or sold, I dont know which) and were exclusive to I believe GAME.

I am also of the opinion that Ubisofts reputation of producing crap is well deserved.
 
Nice to know hat any game lower than 90 is bad
I don't think so, but a 70/80 AAA game would got tons of "shit, garbage ,shame" comments on Internet like Watch Dogs, and Ubi keep publishing such kind of game
What I post is to answer the question instead of dismiss Ubisoft
 
Play farcry 2 3 4 and primal.
After that play breath of the wild.

I don't really think this is a fair comparison. 2 was different than the others, and considering how popular 3 was, sticking to that same game design while adding/improving things for the sequels was probably the best route for them to take. They don't need to reinvent the wheel each time they release a sequel (it's taken 20+ years for SEGA to figure that out with Sonic lol).

You could make the same comparison for any formulaic series of games, like the Souls series for example, if you're comparing them to one of the highest reviewed games of all time.
 
When their games got super popular and design elements crept into other developer's games.

People that didn't like them, especially hipster types that hate mainstream things in general, thus turned on it and that became a common, lazy insults for game types they were too cool to play.
 
R6 Lockdown started the slide where they were shoveling stuff out the door. Same issues would show up in sequels to franchises, etc. Then for a while they flipped to Xbox development and ported everything for other platforms like PC and it didn't turn out the best.

They've been trying to climb up out of that well ever since, and have made some significant progress.
 
Ubisoft games are hands down the most generic boring cookie cutter games today.
They call them AAA games.
And all they seem is reskins.
With zero risks.
Play farcry 2 3 4 and primal.
After that play breath of the wild.
...and you'll be shocked when you realize how much Breath of the Wild has in common with Far Cry 2, a game from 9 years ago.

Most of their successful franchises started out as big risks. They generally take more risks than any other big publisher, even within their long-established franchises. Even their "reskins" can be pretty ballsy, like when they turned their modern day shooter into a game about cavemen.

Cause Ubisoft recent AAA games feel like your average focus-group soulless effort
Watch_Dogs 2 has soul for days. I don't know where they found a focus group that told them that they should make a game about minorities and adorable social outcasts, but more studios should consult that focus group.
 
When people form opinions and never revise them.

Factor in Primal, Siege, and Wildlands and Ubisoft has entertained me more than any other developer in the past couple years.
 
No evidence but I think it was based on on the hatred of a few and others just latched on.


Kind of like how McDonald's szechuan sauce is now a must have because of R&M.
 
I view 'Ubisoft game' as more shorthand for the genre they've released loads of games in, the 'open world game with huge amounts of content, towers, multiplayer and rpg elements', than a descriptive meaning 'shit'. At worst, I take it to mean 'churned-out AAA open world game' due to the sheer number of Assassins Creed games released in the last decade, let alone their other francises using a similar template, but even then some are much better than others, and even the poorest aren't exactly bad games.
 
I think it was a bit after Far Cry 3, when people really internalized that they were taking a formula and applying it to multiple genres.

Assassin's Creed 3 had a mixed reception around then too, so that didn't help.
 
The repetitive nature and lack of innovation is what is wrong with gaming, and ubisoft is one of the icons of that.
 
Assembly line game production or fast food AAA games, applied to their open worlds.
Probably became more prevalent around the time of AC3, The Crew etc.

No evidence but I think it was based on on the hatred of a few and others just latched on.


Kind of like how McDonald's szechuan sauce is now a must have because of R&M.

Lol this is actually a thing?
I watched the newest ep the other day.
 
Even Ubisoft realized they were getting a tad too formulaic a while ago, hence the creation of the UbiArt range.

They have been gradually redeeming themselves, I think, but it takes time to reverse a stigma, specially when different areas of a massive company have different reaction times. The AC train was going full steam until very recently.
 
When Watch_Dogs, AC:Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew all came out in the same year and all had the same basic open world structure
 
When Watch_Dogs, AC:Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew all came out in the same year and all had the same basic open world structure

Exactly what I was going to post. It didn't help that outside of FC they were mediocre and had some technical issues
 
OléGunner;233401823 said:
Lol this is actually a thing?
I watched the newest ep the other day.


All over Twitter, even the McDonald's chef twitter account is saying they are going to look up the receipt and potentially bring it back into circulation.

On Topic: I like Ubisoft and put many hours into division and excited to get back into it.
 
An Ubisoft Game coming up on the screen makes me happy. I love all of their games. Many gamers are like lemmings and just pile on once someone airs their issues. It becomes a fun game for them. Spitting shit all over a Dev teams years of hard work.
 
Around the time Ubisoft put together an "editorial team" in Paris to take control of every big budget game.
Even Ubisoft realized they were getting a tad too formulaic a while ago, hence the creation of the UbiArt range.
I am probably mistaken but UbiArt felt like it was born out of partnership with animation schools that Ubisoft Montpellier worked with rather than some corporate pivot. edit. Also when Grow Home came out it was revealed that Ubisoft rules state if a game budget is very small it doesn't require approval from Ubisoft's editorial team in Paris.
 
I think around the time that they made a racing game with the exact same open world structure as literally every single other game they make. It just comes across as creatively bankrupt.
 
After they released their 20th paint by numbers game that was pretty much the exact same as the previous 19. Probably around 2012.
 
Just after the Assassin's Creed 2 sequels came out.

When it became apparent to a lot of us that Ubisoft had

zero

sense of what it means to balance impressive technologies and game worlds with gameplay that's worth SHIT.

Ubisoft doesn't understand that a balance is even supposed to be there. It's as though gameplay were an afterthought in most of their open world games for years and years. Far Cry, feeling like the exception, now feels just as safe and unchanging as other AAA Ubisoft franchises.

...and you'll be shocked when you realize how much Breath of the Wild has in common with Far Cry 2, a game from 9 years ago.
As someone who's played Far Cry 2, and has now played Breath of the Wild, I still find that comparison about as reductive and inaccurate as I did six months ago, back when the only people using it were people who were convinced that BoTW was to be no more than a middling, derivative genre mish-mash.
 
They generally cater to the lowest common denominator IMO. Also once they've created a gameplay concept, they reskin it to hell and milk it to death.

It seems like lately they've been learning their lesson though.
 
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