Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is doubling down with the publisher’s planned target audiences for future game releases in the coming years. Ubisoft is one of many AAA game publishers that has had a tough time in finding successful launches for a number of its franchises in recent years. Rumors of a potential buyout by Epic Games surfaced in October 2024 and have since remained unspoken. From a one-time stance on NFTs to lower-than-expected sales revenue for last summer’s Star Wars Outlaws launch, the company has seen its share of fiscal challenges in the last couple of years. Meanwhile, publicity for Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been ramping up ahead of its March 20 release.
It was during a recent Q&A regarding the publisher’s Q3 financial report that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot shared the strategy for upcoming games. He was asked what the development pipeline looks like moving forward to which the answer given was fairly straightforward, essentially open-world style games and live service (aka game as a service) titles.
Per Yves Guillemot (via VGC):
“We have been investing significantly for a big pipeline of products for the coming years along our two verticals, [these] being open-world action adventure as well as ‘Game as a Service’-native experiences,” Guillemot said. “And that’s what we want to deliver year after year.”
Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise has overall delivered well for the publisher in terms of sales revenue its Rainbow Six Siege has filled the live-service sector. However, it recently shut down servers for its 2014 online racing game The Crew which has led to legal action from gamers left with a dead game. This would suggest that Ubisoft is still learning which live service games it can reap profits from. Guillemot also said that Anno 117: Pax Roma, The Division Resurgence for mobile, and more Rainbox Six news are on the way.
Discussion (3 replies)
Join Discussion →Is statement an issue? I mean I don't want them to stop making open world games. I just want them to make better open world games.
The statement, not by any means, the issue is what Ubisoft is going to do moving forward. It's been a rough patch for a while now, to the point of a rumored selloff.
It's already too late for ubislop, even if they had grown a brain (ie fired Yves Guillemot) and did the right thing, it will be 3-4 years at minimum before any return on investment can be realized. Ubisoft doesn't have that much, I give them 2 years tops. The best we can hope for is that their IPs will go to a good place, and not some investment firm like embracer who will continue to sit on them like ubisoft, or worse start making mobile games with them.