Ubisoft Sellout - Bankruptcy Speedrun Any% Thread

[Father Karras]

I got ac1 on steam but it runs like shit on my old pc, and the only other ones I don't have atm is the ezio trilogy (dads on ps4). I have some nostalgia for the series but the last one I tried was origins.

Once I get a new pc I'm playing those (and Pince of Persia which I got on gog). I'm honestly intrigued by mirage, but I have no fucking clue what infinity is other than another live service. (God I cant wait till that fad dies)

 

[Spit bucket]

The whole " make every game series we own a minding numbing, grindfest, microstransaction filled 100 hrs long rpg " mindset ruined them. The feel in their games in general now is just ass. I picked up AC origins on game pass because I at least wanted to try the rpg ac before I wrote them off entirely. I played for 2 hours and dropped it. AC 1 and the Ezio trilogy were simple but the game feel was smooth. The Kenway saga was more flashy but still kept the same groove. Even unity tried to revamp the whole stealth thing in general but now it's " eh, your a warrior but if you grind for hours on end then you can unlock skill to play make believe asssassin."

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

The whole " make every game series we own a minding numbing, grindfest, microstransaction filled 100 hrs long rpg " mindset ruined them. The feel in their games in general now is just ass. I picked up AC origins on game pass because I at least wanted to try the rpg ac before I wrote them off entirely. I played for 2 hours and dropped it. AC 1 and the Ezio trilogy were simple but the game feel was smooth. The Kenway saga was more flashy but still kept the same groove. Even unity tried to revamp the whole stealth thing in general but now it's " eh, your a warrior but if you grind for hours on end then you can unlock skill to play make believe asssassin."

A lot of blame for this goes to corporate decisions, prioritizing engagement duration over engagement quality, etc, but I don't think enough blame gets levied on developer homogenization. Not the individual developers themselves, but you can't just treat them like factory line pieces.

What companies like ubisoft do is just give a studio projects without much consideration to their skillset, merge studios and exchange staff between them based on efficiency metrics and not game archetypes. What this leads to is homogenous teams with people who have done some RPG work, some Open World work, some FPS work, etc. To an exec or a middle manager, this sounds great - You have all the talent spaces in your team, so you can make anything, right? But what ends up happening is all their preferences, prejudices, and design parameters leak into the project. Given enough time and design work, you'll inevitably end up with a homogenous blob of a game, where the RPG guys solved progression with gear loot, the open world guys tied that in with their solution to world design of a massive world of thousands of things to explore filled with loot, and the FPS guys made sure the combat was understandable for the COD crowd by adding aim assist, lockon, the standard weapon archtypes, etc.

Homogenization of developers is inevitable without strong creative leads at the helm to slap it down and force everyone down one design line. A Kojima, or a Miyazaki (Elden Ring) can make it happen. Most studios have capable leads, but exec oversight and over involvement in the design phase can prevent them from establishing that ironclad design goal when the exec hears the open world and RPG guys talking about thousands of hours of procedural content.

 

[NoonmanR]

I never really liked ubisoft so it's whatever to me. Even stuff like Rayman was just kinda an okay launch title for the Vita, or a decent enough game to have on the Nintendo 64, but i wouldn't choose it if i had better options. I just have a seriously hard time imagining any company sitting there with a straight face announcing another SIX games in the same franchise are coming. Asscreed was already suffering from franchise fatigue when they were just doing console and handheld releases.

Tell me, are they still trying to make Watch Dogs a thing? Does anyone even remotely believe beyond good and evil 2 is going to happen at this point, and do you care now that the rayman creator is long gone?

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Tell me, are they still trying to make Watch Dogs a thing?

they put the franchise on ice and is unlikely to come back for a while.

 

[ZMOT]

Homogenization of developers is inevitable without strong creative leads at the helm to slap it down and force everyone down one design line. A Kojima, or a Miyazaki (Elden Ring) can make it happen. Most studios have capable leads, but exec oversight and over involvement in the design phase can prevent them from establishing that ironclad design goal when the exec hears the open world and RPG guys talking about thousands of hours of procedural content.

the problem is for every kojima or miyazaki you get a ken levine, peter molyneux, chris roberts, lord british etc.

execs don't like rockstar devs because while they have a vision, that vision might be different, not mainstream, too expensive and in general too risky. and in return getting rid of that focal point is difficult and will have a major effect on the game, which then usually ends up like cp2077.

much easier to go by metrics and committee, producing games like a factory; however they can't even do that anymore. ironically that I say this in the ubisoft thread, since they are the biggest examples of that.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

much easier to go by metrics and committee, producing games like a factory; however they can't even do that anymore.

Agree with everything you said except, to a degree, this. They're still exceptionally good at factory lining games. The problem is, the factory line is making the same game, and I've still got the last one. Despite some best efforts by companies, games aren't a consumable resource. If you play one game from the new generation of assassins creed, you've basically played them all. So people are less interested in them. The newer ones are arguably as good as the first one, monetization bullshit on occasion aside, but that knife cuts both ways, old shits just as good as new ones.

Frankly, the only reason the factory line worked as well as it did for so long was climbing graphical standards. Once you got to 2014+ or so, the gains started becoming exceptionally marginal, as visuals became more about style over sheer technical excellence. We're well into the point where you have to pull up side by sides to notice the differences in quality. If you simply try to remember the old game to compare to the new one, they're at such a point that your brains filling in details in memory because they were "close enough". The graphical quality crutch is gone now, the only remaining line is content variety, which the factory process already killed.

 

[ZMOT]

Agree with everything you said except, to a degree, this. They're still exceptionally good at factory lining games. The problem is, the factory line is making the same game, and I've still got the last one.

that only works if it's the same game, depending on the series not even then. I'd go as far and say asscreed is the rare exception, maybe cod. everything else? a complete shitshow, and has been for years. just look what happened with division 1 (till they fixed it), division 2 which had the gall to ask 30 bucks for the bugfix patch, ghost recon breakpoint or watch_dogs: legion. and those are the big ones, most people don't even remember stuff like hyper scape or that siege spinoff whatever it's name was. settlers was a complete disaster they have to retool from the ground up.

outside of ubisoft you get shit like the usual bioware game, battlefield getting gangraped by some incompetent swedes, cp2077, saints row and now gotham knights.
tbh I can't even remember the last time a AAA game wasn't crap one way or another. elden ring I guess....

 

[White Devil]

tbh I can't even remember the last time a AAA game wasn't crap one way or another. elden ring I guess....

Jedi : Fallen Order was better than it had any right to be and I'd say it had AAA production values.

 

[Snekposter]

Jedi : Fallen Order was better than it had any right to be and I'd say it had AAA production values.

I have no idea how that game made it through EA's corporate bullshit as intact and enjoyable as it did.

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

Mario Xcom 2 is really good. Ubisoft devs make good shit when it is a game they want to make.

 

[Mega Black]

I have no idea how that game made it through EA's corporate bullshit as intact and enjoyable as it did.

Rumor is the devs straight up lied until the project was too far along to can. They also had a based lead or director who didn't let the code monkies turn Cal into a black xin xer tranny.

 

[Xanax and Wine]

Modern Ubi games are bloated storefronts trying to weasel more money out of your pocket than you already paid for the bloody game. Several people I talked to had a mini-burnout while playing AC Valhalla because is so huge and tedious; none of their stories are interesting and just drip with wokeness. I bet the Mario Xcom is only good because they had Nintendo hovering over their shoulders making sure they don't run amok with their IP.

I'm so sick of AAA titles these days, the last one I was actually pumped for and also truly enjoy was Elden Ring. I hope the other big studios take a long look at what made it a good game and try to follow suit in terms of quality or crash and burn. Let all the talented devs that are wasted on this modern garbage scatter and unite as indie devs who still know how to make a good game, free from idiotic investors and blue-haired harpies who screech about diversity.

 

[Sparky Lurker]

Despair is knocking the door:

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[Pissmaster]

Despair is knocking the door:

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Now if only they'd get rid of mandating Ubisoft Connect for every game of theirs on Steam.


...which they aren't doing. Denuvo, Ubisoft Connect, Steam, and VMProtect. Man, that's four layers of DRM for a game that was already cracked by EMPRESS a year and a half ago.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

...which they aren't doing. Denuvo, Ubisoft Connect, Steam, and VMProtect. Man, that's four layers of DRM for a game that was already cracked by EMPRESS a year and a half ago.

the same one who has a huge ego issue and had a shitfit in one of the .nfo files over cat game

 

[Snekposter]

the same one who has a huge ego issue and had a shitfit in one of the .nfo files over cat game

Welcome to the Scene, where everyone is an egotistical prick.

 

[whatever I feel like]

tencent are true cancer, they worm their way into every company and then use the IPs to push out generic addiction exploiting p2w mobile game tier trash content.

Yeah, wow, its a real shame, old skool Ubisoft would never just remake the same game over and over again.

I'd add Rogue to the mix. Its the French and Indian Wars version of Black Flag, and adds a nice perspective from the Templar side of things, back when Ubisoft had actual writers.

I played this game two months ago and as a stand-alone product it was dog shit. Small world with no landmarks, no actual assassinations, no sense of progression after the first hour or so, etc. Thankfully it was "free" as a bonus feature of the AC3 remaster.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

tencent are true cancer, they worm their way into every company and then use the IPs to push out generic addiction exploiting p2w mobile game tier trash content.

Should be illegal to buy shares of competing companies.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

the same one who has a huge ego issue and had a shitfit in one of the .nfo files over cat game

Welcome to the Scene, where everyone is an egotistical prick.

Does that surprise you? Have you ever encountered a mentally well balanced tranny on the internet that doesn't try to start fights?