The FlipScreen Games Podcast

Assassin's Creed DELAYED Because Star Wars Outlaws Flopped!

Ubisoft has delayed Assassin's Creed Shadows in wake of the disappointing performance of Star Wars Outlaws. Pete & Max discuss what, if anything, the company can do to right the ship.

Credits⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Broadcast on:: 25 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

what's up Internet year two into a very special presentation of the flip screen games podcast where we are talking about the news that Assassin's Creed shadows has been delayed by several months to February February 14th from its originally planned November 15th release date and it seems like it might be you know the sign of some some troubled times over to be soft. Yes I think I think we mean this was potentially happened because there was supposed to be like a big press preview that was coming out or was meant to happen that was cancelled or postponed. I think they also pulled their entire TGS shoving for like it's an Ubisoft just completely pulled everything. I think they are a bit worried about putting it out right now considering we just had Star Wars outdoors maybe sort of like you know whimper out and there was some issues at launch and I think people are sort of taken to it too hard and we can see here they said during the there's like an investor briefing they said that it had you know didn't hit like they wanted it to they you know the profits didn't quite get where they wanted it to to hit and yeah I think they're probably like what we can't do we can't have this again we need to do something about it. Yeah right like they specifically cited weak performance from Star Wars outlaws and then like a lower than expected profit for the quarter as being the reasons that they decided to delay it. So I mean very transparent from them about about you know how they feel about it which is I think a positive thing you know I think Ubisoft is a very easy target especially these days but I do want to applaud them for being transparent about what's going on and that they they're trying to you know write the ship but yeah I mean I think that this is kind of the latest in a long line of unforced errors from them you know and that was what I thought would be interesting to touch on a little bit here because the you know there's a few more details for the story itself so here's here's what Ubisoft had to say specifically while the game is feature complete the learnings from the Star Wars outlaws release led us to provide additional time to further polish the title. This will enable the biggest entry in the franchise to fully deliver on its ambition notably by fulfilling the promise of our dual protagonist adventure with Noe and Yusuke bringing two very different gameplay styles and they also announced that that Shadows is going to be available on Steam day and date which is something that is a departure from their recent release strategy where rather than having the like kind of standard like season pass model with Ubisoft where it's like it's going to come out here there'll be a season pass then it comes to PC and we get kind of another opportunity it's going to be their day and date and everyone who pre-orders the game will get the first expansion for free. Yeah it seems a little bit like they are like they want people in they want people in. Yeah it feels like they're trying to be aggressive about making it a you know it's a big part of their you know they're their financials for the year. Yes they've definitely learned from their mistakes I think when every when Prince Persia lost Cranker at the start of the year they were reporting oh the game didn't do all that well despite being received very well. The game was really great. Large part of that could have been down to it not being on Steam on PC so people maybe chose to play it either not play at all or wait for it to come Steam or didn't play at all or that you were waiting for a sale as often happens as well. I think that's got to be it right like that that was a huge motivating factor that like I think they probably realized the game would have been a lot more successful if it was there at launch and it was able to have a bigger number of people playing and talking about it. Yes maybe they maybe this decision comes because Prince not saying Prince of Persia is the whole reason for it. Prince of Persia came out on Steam I don't know a couple of months ago now two months ago at this point maybe they might have seen a big enough increase in that they were like oh shit okay this work the Star Wars Outlaws is now also announced for PC so you know so they've been like a six month thing or a seven month thing whatever the case would be it's it's happening much sooner than that and now Assassin's Creed is launching day and date so it seems like yeah they recognizing that Steam is the place to be which I hope they do decide to lean less on the Ubisoft launcher because it's a frustrating piece of software to use. I think they need to just move on from it if it's something that you want to maintain you know just for like your hardest hardcore audience and that's one thing but like trying to force people to go on your proprietary launcher just feels like such an old fashioned thing at this point you know we did a whole episode about that on the Steam Deck podcast and how it's just like it's clear that your game performs worse on a key market if you don't have it on Steam day and day and it just is like it's not worth whatever you think the trade off is for that right. Yeah like is that is it best we spoke with us before like about Epic Games as well is it better to have to give 30% of your sales or to keep that 30% of less sales. Right exactly and I think you know you and I had an episode about that in the context of like the deals that Epic had been signing going away and that was the thing that was the incentive that was the argument I'd always make is like it is worth it if it paid for the development of your game but otherwise no it's not right there's no reason to do that and I did think you brought up Star Wars Outlaws and kind of their current efforts to you know I guess apply a tourniquet and save this game right and write the ship and I thought this was interesting as well about how transparent they are being about how much it's been a disappointment they said that there were quote softer than expected sales for Star Wars Outlaws and they said that they have development teams that are quote fully currently fully mobilized to swiftly implement a series of updates to polish and improve player experience in order to engage a large audience during the holiday season to position Outlaws as a strong long term performer. I will say the reason they're being so transparent is because they're saying this to investors that they need a reason so I don't know if it's transparency for like words on sake hey yeah we get it this is like oh we know we're not doing very well here's our strategy for like don't don't sell here's what you're gonna do your money is fine you know it's it's yeah I think I think particularly with that explanation that like very much I think rings hollow because you know based on you know based on what the critiques that I've read of Outlaws that pushed me away from the game it had a lot less to do with like moment to moment gameplay or any of those things not to say that those things were good because it sounds like they're by a large pretty mediocre but a lot of people were just talking about how the story was underdeveloped and that there's not a good strong emotional core and that you know there's like you know the that droid character that's like prominently featured on the art and is like was sold as like her best friend is like a character that doesn't have that much dialogue and things like that and it's like those are things that an updater is just not gonna fix you know yeah yeah did you not play this then no I was very excited about it but once it dropped and I heard so much conversation about how there was just nothing to the story I just I decided against it yeah I think it's one of those ones like you know you just get a feeling you just get a feeling about a game and like every time you spoke about it every time that I saw a trailer for it that was just that in the back of my head of like this isn't this isn't gonna hit this isn't gonna be whereas when I you know that I thought I might have been just a Star Wars thing but then when I saw like Joseph I've run like mm yeah mm give me some of that mm fill me up cow but now with this I never got any of that I always have like a niggling feeling and I think I'm still okay yeah and I mean you know I think I think my thought on it right because like Steve and I were very excited about it right and like I did I did think it showed well but it was very much me going into with this expectation of like you know I think that like if this game is similar to what I got out of Guardians of the Galaxy from Crystal Dynamics a couple years ago that that would be great right if this is like a game that's like yeah it's like a seven seven and a half but if you like the IP the characters are good it's a fun story like that was what I was expecting to get out of it right and the fact that it's like well no it it has a bad story and and weak underdeveloped gameplay it's like well then what what is there here beyond the fact that it's Star Wars and yeah I'm not a Star Wars fan like that I like Star Wars right if you're watching on YouTube you can probably see a droid behind me over here I got a BD unit up there by my basketball I said I've got a BD one over there too right do you want yeah so it's like you know I like Star Wars but I'm not gonna sit through something mediocre just because it's Star Wars like that doesn't mean anything to me in fact I probably hold it to a higher regard because it's like well if you're gonna do something in an IP it needs to or not harder I'm judging it more harshly is what I mean to say yeah because it's like yeah well like if you're gonna tell a Star Wars story like that means something it's supposed to feel a certain way it's supposed to you know elicit a certain feeling and it's like if you can't even nail down there being a strong cast of characters then what are we doing here you know so with that in mind I wanted to pose a question to you do you think that Ubisoft is in real trouble right now or is this something that you know can be a wake up call for them right and that they can look at this this last year this last couple years of games and and make an adjustment right and approach development in a in a different way because I think you know something I just to give you a little context dear listener I took a look at this whole console generation right and I itemized like the big major releases from Ubisoft and with with very very rare exception games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla which was a game that sold very well and and also had a pretty you know not an insane critical reception but a solid one it's got an 8 on 8 80 on Metacritic right so that's a good game by by that metric most of their big releases have performed underperformed either commercially or critically or both and there are a few examples here of games that had middling or or outright bad reviews this generation watchdog legions um Far Cry 6 writers Republic Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction Skull and Bones Avatar Frontiers of Pandora and Assassin's Creed Mirage are all games that like are in that neighborhood of like 75 or lower right and then games that were like more critically successful but that Ubisoft themselves said underperformed mortals phoenix rising Prince of Persia Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope and like you talked about Lost Crown earlier it was a game that got a lot of good reception but they talked about how it didn't make as much money as they hoped and that was the exact same thing with Mario + Rabbids they said they released it during a quarter where there was too much going on and it got lost in the shuffle and it failed to mean expectations and a mortals phoenix rising was a game that like reviewed okay and sold okay and they thought it could be a game that started off a new franchise and it doesn't really seem like that's something that they're gonna continue on that's left I think I think we hear partially often and we've been hearing for the last five years too much of specifically from Ubisoft Ubisoft Ubisoft AI Ubisoft Ubisoft you know failed me expectations didn't the expectation of blah blah and I think it speaks to Ubisoft has you know budgets that are too big to be released as year to be franchises like they're they are big they're a big tripper developer like I get that they do a lot of releases but when you look at this last year and you've got skull and bones um Star Wars outlaws was I have a star this year was that last year I don't remember if that was earlier this year if it was at the end of last year but I would say it's within this fiscal year so if you want to lump that in that's fine yeah I think right and then and then Assassin's Creed has been delayed uh it was December it was December last year so we're very close I think it's just they've not had you know they're only probably like this is a great game this is a well reviewed game was Prince of Persia lost current I didn't sell very well so I think they need to evaluate what the hell they're doing because their stock is is taking a hit at the moment it's really not doing very well um they you know that I think they're gonna burn their bridges with their their core audience with their um their investors uh and also just with like the people who you know they I don't want to be like dismissive of Ubisoft for people that like their games but like it is like um it's like the popcorn movie of games almost like where it's like you know what you're getting you you get it because it's comfortable you get it because it's it's you know you know you know you know you know you know you can't be confused you can't be surprised uh you can't be disappointed because it's just like I'd get I spend 70 pounds wherever it is and I get a big long game that can take me forever and it's you know the people maybe don't buy games the way that we do engage with games as much as we do because they don't have the budget for it or they'd rather you know um play a few game a few games a year instead of like loads of games a year um and I think they need to evaluate I think they need to evaluate what they're gonna do to to not eliminate that audience sorry my dose is rebogged and also not just you know alienate everyone really and it does feel like that's the case yeah because I mean I think I think for me the the thing I always come back to right when people take shots at Ubisoft is that I think that there have been periods of time where the games or the style of games that they were making right regardless of how you feel about them there was quality to them right like I think even if that type of game is not to your taste I think I think most people that don't have an axe to grind can admit that there are a handful of Assassin's Creed games that in a vacuum are good games and that you know that Far Cry 3 was one of the best games the year it came out right people love Far Cry 4 um it's not like Ubisoft I think uh has ever been incapable of turning in things that were quality but I do think that there was like this argument of like you know um maybe they're not being like as much depth as you want in some of the games or that there was this tendency for them to just like kind of turn in a mediocre creative effort in terms of like just cashing in on the same ideas even if the quality is there and I think that you know to your example of like a big like popcorn budget movie right is like yeah I think that's all well and good when you're talking about uh you know the the like okay to stick with that metaphor Jaws is a blockbuster popcorn movie right um the Empire Strikes Back is a blockbuster popcorn movie but they're also good yes and I think that you know I would maintain that things like Far Cry 3 right things like the Ezio trilogy of Assassin's Creed right or like even something later like Black Flag right like there are games from them that have a high quality and a you know uh at least a middling level of aspiration for something greater than what's come before and just the three games that came out uh 10 years ago more exactly and and that's exactly my point is that I think when you look at these uh these recent efforts right a lot of them are just like well what if we cashed in on this same game that was groundbreaking and successful 10 years ago and we made a bigger more bloated version of it or we made a smaller tighter version of it with less heart and less character and less you know um novelty at the very least right because it's like yeah like in theory an Assassin's Creed game that gets back to its roots and everything is like interesting on paper but like are we just burnt out on that at this point right it's like we've had how many of these games over the last you know 15 years or whatever right where it's like is is enough enough and I think that there are some franchises like Assassin's Creed that like maybe that is the case and we just need to like let it go for a little while and reboot it and try to breathe new life into it in the same way that they did with like origins right and they got a new whole new trilogy of games out of that that were all critically well received and sold pretty well and great um but yeah it's like we're back to a point where it's like well one just came out last year and now there's yet another one coming out and it's like you know it's I I we need more innovation and more like you know trying to I think experiment and try new things at the very least but I mean if you're not going to do that if you are just going to be like well we're going to make Far Cry but it's but it's Avatar it's like yeah okay but like that game can't just be a seven it's got to be an eight right it's got it's got to at least hit a certain bar of quality to make people want to buy into that more you know simplistic formula that you talked about because I think that you know I've made the argument and I'll make the argument again when that formula is done well it hits and people like it not everybody but a lot of people you brought up earlier or not earlier on this episode on uh the main show this week where we were talking about the PlayStation um event uh Ghost of Tsushima and Spiderman and like these are games that follow that formula but guess what they're good and the arc's good and there's a good cast of characters and they have interesting side quests and your mileage may vary on if you want to do 100% of those things but the core you know 20-38 hour experience that most people have with those games are extremely well received and beloved and there's no reason that um you know that formula in Ubisoft's hands should turn out games that are unremarkable right and it's like a $70 game that's a seven when there are like three or four other games that came out this year maybe some of which even in the same genre that are an eight or a nine you know and it's like about $70 at the very minimum where as it can go up to over a hundred you know that they Ubisoft are famous for over complicating and having loads of you know loads of loads of loads of support for this stuff that costs a lot of money you know it's this season passes and cosmetics and yeah and all that stuff and I think all of those things are just another thing that kind of like you know um puts people off right and it's like I'm sure that there are probably a lot of gamers that might enjoy Assassin's Creed Origins or Valhalla or you know um the one that's in Greece that I can't think of Odyssey um but have just never taken the plunge because they have a bad taste in their mouth for you know Assassin's Creed or Ubisoft's tendencies or whatever right and it's like I think that to your point yeah I think they really need to have a reckoning of like where their budget's going what are they prioritizing and like you know um more content right is is not always the answer or like a tighter shorter game right like should also probably be cheaper or should you know really really try to take creative swings right and end up with something like you know um like valiant hearts from them right which was like an interesting creative indie game and it's like you know obviously that's not going to make the money that's something like Assassin's Creed will but you know um being willing to take creative risks with your IP is like what's going to lead to you getting exciting new games that people really want to come and spend time with like Prince of Persia right like that was a unique way to re-envision and bring back a franchise that you know has a lot of love and has a lot of name recognition yeah but they didn't do it by cashing in and making a boring Assassin's Creed clone they made a cool dynamic new idea yeah I would like them to do more because you know uh Mario + Rabbids was one of my favorite sort of use of games before Prince of Persia came out because it was like driven by someone who had an idea and a vision to want to create something not a we have to make another game in this franchise to be profitable it was like uh there's obviously the element of being profitable but it's also like we had an idea we believe in this we want to create something um and you can feel it you can feel it in the way they talk about the game feel it in the way the game is that it's not just by committee made for exactly profit you know yeah and and that's where I think you know they've they've kind of found themselves in this really I think you know um undesirable position right of like they're making stuff that I think the the goal right is to make something that is mass market and that is mass appeal but it's so bland in its execution that it ends up appealing to nobody and like you know a game uh can't just be a bland and offensive seven you know like that's not enough and when it's worse than that then it's like I mean come on guys you know like they've turned in you know now four years worth of of pretty unremarkable efforts and you know I don't mean to uh say that there wasn't effort put into those games I'm sure there are people there trying to make a great game but whether it's you know um issues with budgets or timeline or trying to juggle too many projects and not being able to you know dedicate more resources to giving a game more time to incubate or a better you know um like having a better like foundation before you move forward on an idea you know it's it's like I think something like Immortals Phoenix Rising is a great example of like okay well like why didn't that game get a sequel why didn't you get another at bat to see if this could become something rather than taking a swing on something original and then immediately backing off of it when it wasn't a massive hit whereas like you're so happy to go back to the well of the Assassin's Creed's and the Far Cry's even if they're mediocre and they're damaging a brand that used to be strong they used to mean something right like Assassin's Creed used to be one of the biggest brands in video games and now it feels like this kind of like lumbering dinosaur that has outlived its it's you know cultural cache yeah they sort of become you know uh when something like that that comes around it's like oh this is really interesting this is really unique and then eventually you see it become like okay it's another one of those like yeah we get it all right grandad another Assassin's Creed yeah great okay it's it's sort of like when you don't do something interesting with it or or when it becomes like it has to get bigger to to keep making money or you know it gets becomes bloated and it's now just a bloated you know it looks like what it used to look like but it's not quite you know where something like Zelda's better able to do interesting things exactly yeah and like that is I think Ubisoft's like biggest failure is like not properly managing their IP right and like the whole like we're gonna sell you Assassin's Creed every year until you stop buying them it's like that's not a smart way to do business you know it's like you need to maintain the value of an IP so that when it comes out it feels like an event and it feels like this thing you want to be a part of and that it's a big sacred moment and that's never going to happen when there was another Assassin's Creed that I didn't play and forgot existed 12 months ago yeah so we'll see I mean who knows I think I would love to see them write the ship because I do think that when they turn in good efforts like there are plenty of Ubisoft games that I've enjoyed but I mean by and large I don't you know I think that their efforts have gotten less and less inspired and I wouldn't be surprised if there comes a point in the in the near future where they end up you know having another entity like aggressively trying to acquire them again right and that they are going to just become a piece in somebody else's portfolio yeah we had this back at this last year and we were thinking about like are Ubisoft going to get bought by by Xbox or something like that and you know I was of the opinion that no but like the more they keep releasing games the more it's like at some point they're going to have to do something because they're you know stock keeps going down yeah so they can't just keep spending the same amount of money to make games that nobody is particularly interested in in playing or talking about yeah because I mean hey as we know the guy from Far Cry says you know madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results he says that in Far Cry 3 that's what Ubisoft is the very clever point I was making there well that's what we're leaving here for today let us know what you guys think were you looking forward to Assassin's Creed shadows how do you feel about Ubisoft's efforts over the last couple years and if you're somebody who has enjoyed their games in the past how do you see them riding the ship moving forward and if you're somebody who their games have never spoken to you do you think that that's something that can be fixed at this point or is it just are they too broken thank you guys for joining us here in a very special presentation of the list Green Games podcast remember go check out this week's show proper where we talked about the PlayStation Presents event and the release of or the reveal I should say of a new sequel to Ghost of Tsushima I am so excited about that if you want to go hear that conversation make sure you check it out check out our sister shows the Nintendo noise podcast and the Steam Deck podcast however you choose to get involved or show your support thank you for joining us on another special episode of this show I've been Pete he's been Max we'll see you next week bye [Music]