There's something to be said about possessing a singular devotion towards one end in life. An unshakable and unbendable vow to commit your crafts to the mastery of one end, repeating it's intricacies over and over in a routine of ultimate refinement. Just as much as there is to be said about the cowardly inverse, reverting to the safe and comfortable in the knowledge that doing anything actually risky and committing to testing the boundaries of your skills is so far beyond you that you never achieve anything. An obsession can often be more destructive than productive and when we move to the higher echelons of artistic development, such as within the increasingly commercial field of game creation, obsession- along with fear- might as well be identified as 'The Mind Killer'.
I speak, of course, about the one company who has not only refused to innovate once within the modern generation, but who have reached a point of turtle-like regression wherein they refuse to open up their thoughts to the rest of the world. (Unless paid an exorbitant fee to do so.) Ubisoft are sad jokes of the development world for the size and comparative lack of ingenuity running behind the scenes. Many are the let downs of the studio in their pursuit to establish literally anything other than their limp Assassin's Creed franchise, now so much of a heartless institution that it's mindless fans buy it year after year out of instinct rather than in pursuit of an actual new and well constructed experience. They've settled for complacency and Ubisoft, a company terrified of trying something new, is happy to feed off their reticence for challenging 'newness'.
As we sit here today Ubisoft is in the midst of juggling six actively developing Assassin's Creed games at the same time. Two consoles games, at least one mobile game and three we don't know anything about just yet- all in development at the same time; meanwhile it's other franchises languish. Because yeah- there are a ton of other game franchises stuck in limbo for the mistake of having Ubisoft as a caretaker. Ghost Recon has the bare basics of a new game bouncing around the deadened studio head offices, begging for a greenlight that left that sector of the building years ago. Prince of Persia had a remake on the horizon that ran into the basic amount of public scepticism and now has been banished to the shadow realm. Splinter Cell had a remake announced an entire console generation back which hasn't offered so much as a trailer look since that reveal. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is AWOL. Skull and Bones only hasn't been cancelled because it was funded by the Singaporean government and Ubisoft literally can't abandon it. And Immortals... yeah, that franchise is pretty much buried too.
I never played Immortals- okay, actually I did play it... but only for about twenty minutes during the one and only time I played Google Stadia, just to confirm that my local internet infrastructure absolutely was not up to the task of game streaming. (I still think it hasn't been improved. It's hard to believe I technically live in London sometimes...) But from what I hear the game was actually somewhat well received for being something new from Ubisoft. Stylised and open world in a 'Breath of the Wild' sort of way., the game touched on a couple of mythologies and promised to explore even more as the franchise received enough positive feedback for the studio to size up it's potential as an 'evergreen franchise'. It's a little cringe that Ubisoft can't accept one win without declaring that as their next mega-franchise, but at least this was going to change up the slate a little- right?
Nope. Turns out Ubisoft killed off the planned sequel to Immortals, perhaps forever, because it took away time they could have been spending dedicated to the only thing that matters; making more lame Assassin's Creed content. It's like an addiction at this point. Self destructive and belittling, a disease that eats away at the studio we once knew and turns them into something hateful, that we can't even stand to look at anymore. You want to do what's best for them, to find that spark of hope you used to love about them but you can't. They've lost themselves completely to the malaise and the broken-up jigsaw that remains in nothing but a stranger to you. At this point those who fail to see the problem and cheer on the wanton excess as though the glory days are still rolling are simply enablers feasting on the bloated corpse.
I used to like Assassin's Creed back in the day. I used to like Ubisoft too. I thought they were a fine, average level developer with a couple of cool franchises under their belt. But Splinter Cell only exists to be wheeled into their much more easy-to-monetise Ghost Recon games now. (God, Sam looks painfully old now. I hate seeing my man so decrepit.) What I don't like is boredom, and that seems to be Ubisoft personified in the modern age. What fun is there telling the exact same stories over and over, moving the needle forth one millimetre every entry? Yves Guillemot, with his filthy lying habit, once claimed that Assassin's Creed was a solidly written franchise totally in control of it's own narrative and destiny, I would laugh to see him try and ratify that sentiment with six games blowing off at the same moment.
Because let me fast forward into the future a little and tell you how this all goes down. People are going to burn out on Assassin's Creed. I know, shocker! Remember when it was said that Marvel movies were going to burn general audiences out on Superhero flicks with their ceaseless frequency? That was scoffed at, for some reason, but just take a look at where we sit today. A 220 Million dollar series starring some of the biggest stars in the world was met with a ghost-yard for an audience because literally no one cares. I was an active fan of Assassin's Creed so I guess the effect of this just hit me a little bit early but the general audience will get there too! When they look at all the identically laid out open worlds they've been navigating, facing the same three mission types for the past thirty hours, wondering if this is all gaming has become. It's not all that bad, and the second they play anything that still has a heart- they'll be gone in a heartbeat.
I see this as an admission of desperation on Ubisoft's part. Proof that they have absolutely nothing sustainable apart from their one golden boy and are sadly clinging to it praying the franchise remains evergreen forever. They ruined Watch_Dogs with the abominable 'Legion', they screwed over Ghost Recon by forcing it to be a live service level-gated hellhole and then fed it to the dogs by making it an NFT guinea pig, they sucked all the potential fun and excitement out of the premise for Skull and Bones, god knows what they've done to Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia has gone the way of so-so-looking side scroller, Sam Fisher is suffering from a hernia, Tom Clancy is doing backflips in his grave and the team couldn't even sell a Rabbids game with Mario attached to the box! Now it's time for Ubisoft to learn that even Evergreen trees die after you pluck every leaf at the same time.
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