If, dear reader, you were in charge of the currently-on-fire Ubisoft, what potential projects would you presume would be the ‘stronger’ bets to green-light in the hopes of turning things around for the company?
Allowing the team who delivered Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, arguably the studio’s only good game in recent years, to deliver a follow-up outing? Perhaps letting them go back to their roots and take another stab at a Rayman game? Or maybe, instead of delivering on any fan wishes, crossing-over one of your multiplayer games with another company’s, the latter of which has been on its last legs for a good while now?
Well, if you’re the real-life leadership of the flailing developer, you’re apparently placing your bets – against all common sense – on that last option, as amidst reports of their Montpellier branch’s closing, Ubisoft has just announced that For Honor will soon shake-hands with the world of Activision’s Destiny 2.
The news that the team behind the Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil series was no more was first broken on the morning of October 22nd courtesy of French video game YouTuber Gautoz.
Relaying information first provided to him by insider sources via his video game news channel ORIGAMI, Gautoz reported that “over the last few days at Ubisoft Montpellier, they’ve been moving boxes from one floor to the next, and it’s all very symbolic of the unannounced news that the Prince of Persia: Lost Crown had been completely dissolved.”
[Time Stamp: 23:31]
Per his sources, in response to the internal announcement of the team’s shuttering, the developer attempted to “the most optimistic members of the core team repeatedly proposed a one-off project, then battled to get the green light for two [Lost Crown] DLCs, hoping to change the bosses’ minds.”
Sadly, between Ubisoft looking “for help with other projects whose potential sales curve resemble that of a blockbuster” and the studio’s apparent (and admittedly insane) belief that “If we let you make another [Lost Crown], it will cannibalize the long-term sales of this one,” the Montpellier office ultimately met its end.
And it was in the wake of this exceptionally unfortunate newsbreak that Ubisoft,
But just when things looked bleakest for anyone ever hoping to see a playable return for Rayman, Ubisoft swooped in later that same day to announce that… their one-on-one historical combat game For Honor would soon be crossing-over with Bungie’s Destiny 2.
As of writing, Ubisoft has yet to publicly detail what this collaboration will exactly entail, though this will likely change when Ubisoft formerly announces the event tomorrow, October 23rd, via a planned, 12PM EST Twitch stream, after which the event will go live on October 24th and last a total of three-weeks before finally coming to a close on November 14th.
However, given that it will have nothing to do with either a new Rayman or Prince of Persia title – or even confirmation as to what the closure of the Beyond Good & Evil 2 dev team means for the long-anticipated sequel – it’s likely that the collaboration’s offerings will do little to ease fans’ disappointment towards the studio’s continued mismanagement.
And at a time when their reputation is in the toilet and almost no one is on their side, one wonders if Ubisoft can truly weather yet another blow to their public image, or if this will only accelerate their potential plans to partner with Tencent and go private.
Only (the sands of) time will tell.