Wow.
I figured that the delay of AC: Shadows was for the regular fare of issues (polish, etc) but now I wonder how much they're going to change about the core experience.
My prediction: they're going to alter the narrative of the game to focus much more on the Japanese character, to the point where she's essentially the main character.
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Regarding the talk of Ubisoft of the past from my perspective: I have always first and foremost been a fan of their Assassin's Creed franchise. I loved how they made those games with authentic-feeling settings, and protagonists that were likeable and felt appropriate to the setting. Ezio, Connor, Kenway - all great and interesting (with Ezio and Kenway being absolutely fantastic). The games were of reasonable size and length. They were a joy to play through, being a completionist felt optional, and there were tons of memorable moments for the characters. They also focused the gameplay on stealth and murdering people.
After that I felt the franchise began to fall off. The main characters started feeling generic. The settings began to feel less authentic - even when they added an actual virtual encyclopedia to a game to give kids history lessons. They made one feel obligated to do every last side quest, hunt down every trinket, etc. Too heavy an emphasis was placed on fighting three or four enemies at once rather than the stealthy action of the past.
And this feeling about the design of their games spread to most of their other projects. Every Ubisoft game I played onward seemed to be cast from the same mold. I still enjoyed some, like the recent Star Wars game, but that Ubisoft stamp was ever present, no matter how enjoyable the game was. And I feel that is what hurt them the most. Customers began seeing their upcoming games being advertised and figured that the experience would be almost exactly like the last three or four UBI games they played so they just tuned out.
So in closing, I think the things they need to do to right their ship are:
1. Get back to making shorter, tighter experiences with their open world games while placing an emphasis on making truly interesting main characters. One single main character too - no more forcing the player to choose between two characters
2. Give each game unique designs. Stop making every game have that "UBI feel". Every game should feel unique and not like it's built from a template
Thank you for reading my long-ass diary entry.
