Grave Gamer News & Views — ubisoft montreal

(Originally posted on When Nerds Attack.)

Before fiery forums and contemptuous comment sections damned No Man’s Sky as the poster boy for Overhyped Disappointment, that distinction belonged to Watch Dogs. With showstopping E3 demonstrations years before its actual release and a marketing campaign that inflated the game’s reputation into the next-gen second coming, Ubisoft’s open-world title had expectations stacked to the moon.

But Watch Dogs wasn’t the crowbar to GTA’s knee it was gassed up to be. And it certainly wasn’t the next-generation tour de force of 2014 that displayed the sheer computational power of our eighth generation consoles. It was a bog standard open-world crime game, compounded by a weak story centered on one of gaming’s worst leading men. The one concept that separated it from its peers – the ability to hack parts of the environment to your advantage – felt more like a shallow distraction than a tantamount feature. Shit, Watch Dogs isn’t even the best open-world game with “Dogs” in its title. Despite huge out-of-the-gate sales, Watch Dogs became the cornerstone of Gamestop’s $9.99 bins.

That’s why Watch Dogs 2 is such a huge surprise. Ubisoft has made a herculean effort of addressing the original game’s biggest problems. We’ve ditched the dreary reinterpretation of Chicago for a lively, sometimes uncannily accurate recreation of San Francisco. Aiden’s half-baked revenge quest has been traded up for a lighter toned but more resonant tale of rebellion against a voyeuristic big brother. We’re given a cast of characters that matter, headed up by a charming, cocksure protagonist who’s instantly likable. Watch Dogs 2 is a vast improvement over its predecessor. It’s the biggest turnaround in quality an Ubisoft sequel has managed since Assassin’s Creed II.

Concocted using the formula that made Far Cry 3 the mainstream hit that it was, Ubisoft, seemingly out of modern exotic locales to dump us in, has transported us back in time all the way to 10,000 B.C. where survival is the only rule and you’re a mammoth’s foot away from having both that rule and your fucking back broken.

Primal isn’t so much a sequel to 2014′s Far Cry 4 as it is a spin-off. Nearly...

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Launches October 23rd

UPDATED: Official Debut Trailer and Pre-Alpha Gameplay videos added. Okay, it’s looking rather sick. Redemption for the shit-show that was Unity? Time’ll tell, guv.

Victorian London truly is the next setting for the now long-running Ubisoft blockbuster.

You’ll control the siblings Frye, a brother-sister duo bonded by blood and bloodshed. Navigating the largest open-world in an AC game yet – but, really, they say that every year – players can switch freely between Jacob and Evie to wipe the streets of London clean of Templar influence.

The twins won’t be alone, though, since they’ll make historical bros out of real life figures like writer Charlie Dickens and famed biologist Chuck Darwin (he’d let me call him Chuck if he were alive, trust me).

Syndicate releases worldwide on PS4 and Xbox this October, a PC port follows behind later in the Fall. Voice your opinions, friends. Excited? Dreadfully bored with the series?

Ubisoft “Had No Choice” But to Delay Watch Dogs

One of the most anticipated and hyped up titles in recent memory gained itself a spot of infamy when publisher Ubisoft and the game’s Montreal based development team decided to miss Watch Dogs’ November 2013 release date, instead delaying it a whole six months.

Tony Key, Ubi’s marketing executive, says it was a bitch of a decision to make, and the blow-back was almost immediate. “On the day we announced that, I think our stock dropped 40 percent or some ridiculous number,” Key admitted to the [a]list daily.

The company wasn’t comfortable with the product last November and, despite it being an untested IP, Ubisoft has funneled a huge amount of time, resources, and money into the project, all in the attempt to have Watch Dogs make a name for itself early in the new console cycle.

“We’re a long-term company, with a long-term vision, and Watch Dogs for us is a long-term play,” said Key. “We had no choice. We knew it was the right thing to do, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

Watch Dogs’ delay assured that the game would not ride the waves caused by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One’s media eye-snatching releases, but Key says the move inadvertently led to even more industry wide attention than Ubisoft planned for; preorders, Key says, are up.

Though Watch Dogs has become one of the many poster children for the next-gen wave, the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and the Wii U (eventually) will all see Aiden Pierce’s tale of Wi-Fi revenge. Watch Dogs releases May 27th, 2014.

Here’s hopin’ the push was worth it. Delays, after all, have given us gold such as the original Batman: Arkham Asylum. On the flipside, delays have also cursed us with games like Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever. Perhaps game development can be likened to cooking burgers – you want to heat the paddy until it’s evenly cooked through, but you have to be really mindful that you don’t leave the meat sitting on the grill for ten fucking years. Game devs, take heart.

Ubisoft Shows Off Black Flag’s DLC Campaign: Freedom Cry

Shipwrecked, abandoned, and unarmed, you assume the role of Adewale, a former slave that found unbound freedom as a pirate. Having served under Captain Edward Kenway as his first mate, Adewale received more than a crash course in piracy – he’s also an adept assassin.

Picking up fifteen years after the events of Black Flag, Adewale is stuck in the French controlled colony of Saint-Domingue where he’s forced to gather resources, persuade locals to join his crew, and, ultimately, jack his own ship. But his past catches up with him and soon enough Adewale begins fighting for the colony’s oppressed, hoping to share the freedom he took for himself in adolescence.

Freedom Cry will be a part of Assassin’s Creed IV’s newly announced Season Pass ($19.99), which’ll include a bevy of multiplayer content, and will be made available as soon as the game releases on Oct. 29th. Adewale’s nine-mission campaign doesn’t have a locked in date but the Season Pass’ full lineup of content is expected out between launch and March of next year.

Check out the Freedom Cry Trailer right hereabouts.