Ubisoft Will Not Abandon Open-World Games, Says CEO

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It would appear that Ubisoft is sticking to their iconic open-world formula. 

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Over the past few years the French game maker has seen both critical and commercial success for its expansive open-world titles with 60-hour long stories, which isn’t going to change any time soon following recent comments from their CEO.

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In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated that his company has no intentions of returning to shorter games with smaller worlds like Assassin’s Creed Unity’s Revolutionary Paris. In recent years, Guillemot’s company has produced games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with main stories that last over 60-hours, which is a huge difference compared to Unity’s 15-hour long one. 

To Guillemot, his company would like to develop games that have bigger worlds like Odyssey’s but smaller adventures like Unity’s.

“Our goal is to make sure you can have a Unity within an Odyssey,” said Guillemot. “If you want to have a story of 15 hours, you can have it, but you can also have other stories. You live in that world and you pursue what you want to pursue. You have an experience, many Unity-like experiences.”  

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He also praised Odyssey’s 60-hour story for providing players with a worthwhile investment and that it was the reason that the open-world Assassin’s Creed title was such a critical and commercial success last year. He stated that, “players got a lot from their investment in the game, a lot more than they got before.” 

Ubisoft pivoting to a live-service model has been proven to benefit the longevity of their games, with planned post-launch content such as story DLC, mictrotransaction boosters such as time savers, and digital currency. It is also an efficient way to cut costs on developing constant sequels in a franchise, which is what has made the model appealing to other companies such as Electronic Arts.

Guillemot’s recent comments are indicative that Ubisoft isn’t interested in looking to the past so much as it is to the future. Where this leaves older Ubisoft franchises such as Splinter Cell, which was well known for its more linear formula is unknown. However, it does explain why we haven’t seen Sam Fisher in his own solo outing since 2013’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist. The character was last seen during the Ghost Recon Wildlands side-mission Operation Watchman. It also adds further context as to why Ubisoft Paris has adopted a similar RPG formula to The Division and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

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What do you think of this news? Are you a fan of Ubisoft’s open world formula? Let us know in the comments below!

 

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Written by FandomWire Staff

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