I rarely buy games that are from major studios anymore. More and more, I am seeing their greed become more important than making games that people actually want to play. Square Enix is still so desperate to keep their Avengers live-service game going, even as the player number dwindles down to fuck-all. EA finally decided to abandon Anthem. Activision Blizzard is now a shell of what it once was. I am ONLY getting Mass Effect: Legendary Edition from Bioware because it is hard to fuck up ports of old games, and they have gotten rid of the multiplayer element entirely because Bioware realized that they don’t possess the smarts to be able to make that. I hear they are ditching it with Dragon Age 4 too, but I know that EA is going to try and find some way to fuck it up, so I am not going to care about that game until I see reviews from people I trust.
However, one studio that has REALLY fallen off my list of fucks to give is Ubisoft. This is a studio that got so comfortable with how copy-paste their games are that I genuinely don’t get how people can actually like any of what they make anymore. The Ubisoft sandbox formula is so well known that they actually are more famous for how bland and mediocre their games are than ones that buck the trend. The company doesn’t know how to make games that break away from the formula. So when I heard that they are making a Star Wars game that is an open-world Ubisoft sandbox, I immediately wrote it off as something I will NEVER want to play.
It’s tragic to see this happen to a studio that once made games that I really liked. I still love Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. It’s the best game in the franchise, by a country mile. The ship combat is the best part, but the characters, the world, the whole pirate story is fantastic. If only it didn’t have to be an Assassin’s Creed game, who knows what it could have become. To be fair, I have that thought about another game that I mean to make my own cool idea for in another post. But this franchise got so stale right after that game came out. It was arguably the first franchise that gave Ubisoft the formula for their sandbox that is so stale that they have no way of innovating outside of it anymore. The studio is devoid of creativity. All the games they make have to be like this, no matter what the franchise. The sandbox is stronger than…well, anything else.
But today, Ubisoft has announced that they are going in a new direction with the company. See, they LOVE the live-service model of gaming, because it makes them a shitload of money from microtransactions. The crutch that all major studios lean on because they don’t have the creative energy to make games that would get players excited, or the spine to make a risk with something that may not sell millions of copies. Maybe make a new IP or two that could reinvigorate their studio and get new ideas out there. Or perhaps shake up the sandbox model to the point that they could make a new kind! One that they could then rip off endlessly in their ongoing quest to make mediocre games that sell like gangbusters because streaming gamers want to have a game that is boring and repetitive that they can play for their audience every day. Shorter, more interesting games take away from that.
I don’t even think about buying an Ubisoft game anymore, so now the studio is going to try and get people like me into their shit by not selling it at any price at all? Having it be like a mobile game? Just a giant multiplayer experience with a fuck-ton of microtransactions? Yeah, I’ll pass on that. Leave that shit at the door. I game for story. That’s literally it. The gameplay is a required part of it, and if that sucks, it doesn’t matter how good the story is, but multiplayer Ubisoft sandbox games sound so boring and tiresome that I won’t even pay attention to anything the studio makes anymore. Hey, I know! They can start off this idea with their new Star Wars game! What a great way to show gamers that they are different from EA.
Gaming is becoming this black hole of creative bankruptcy. One that is mired in greed. Everywhere I look, it’s just endless live-service or multiplayer-focused game. Or a studio will find a game that works and keep it going forever as a live service. That’s what Rockstar has done. Because it’s what people want. They can keep GTA online going in perpetuity. Same with Red Dead Redemption online. Make new games? They could do that, but what’s the rush? They can just port GTA V to yet-another console generation and call it good. EA wouldn’t know creativity if it reached up and bit them in the ass. Activision Blizzard can’t sell out fast enough. 2K is now famous for an NBA game with actual slot reels and pachinko machine gambling in their games. Bethesda is so trapped with their outdated in the extreme engine and their desperate attempt to make a live-service game that is still shit to this day that they don’t know how to innovate anymore. Square Enix is basically making a live-service game and trying to cobble together a new Final Fantasy game. Remember when all of these studios used to come out with a ton of games that ranged from bigger projects to smaller ones? Man, I miss those days. Those were good times. Now, it’s make one major live-service game and then only do that, releasing one big project every few years to try and make an impression that you are still a thriving company.
The worst part is that the companies who still have a reputation for quality are falling into the horrible trap of making one big game that fails and then falling apart. CD Projekt Red is a great example. If only they had delayed Cyberpunk 2077 until this year. Released it during the summer, when things are typically quiet. But their greed got the better of them. From Software has their own formula, but because they are willing to be creative within it, they still make games that (while niche) get lots of attention for being very different. The consistency is the punishing difficulty, and even that ranges, depending on which game one is talking about and which boss they are fighting in those games.
Ubisoft, on the other hand, has nothing that they can hold onto. They are just coasting by on the success of previous franchises that they were able to build fan loyalty out of. Fanboys/girls are the absolute worst. These people who, so long as they get a new entry into their favorite franchise, will keep playing it. It is literally the only thing keeping Ubisoft alive. That and the streamers who are looking for something generic to play so they don’t have to think to hard while talking to their audience. I never think to buy a game they make anymore, and I never will. There is nothing they could make that would interest me. I hear they want to make the next Assassin’s Creed game in Japan! I already played that, from a better studio that don’t just follow the Ubisoft sandbox formula so rigidly that I can’t see anything outside of the logo. It’s called Ghost of Tsushima! You should play it. It’s really fun.
A sad end to a studio that, with the amount of money they have, could make all kinds of games. Alas, that would require talent who just doesn’t work for them anymore.
Until next time, a quote,
“A good film can survive a bad score, but a great score cannot survive a bad film.” – Ennio Morricone
Peace out,
Maverick
Lucien Maverick's Den 