Continuing their trend of opening up with a musical number, Ubi were at least possessed of a modicum of class this year. Featuring a symphony orchestra playing through a series of samples from the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Not gonna’ lie, as much as I’ve cooled to the franchise over the years, it was one hell of a nostalgia trip. Ezio’s family man, Ezio’s family…but we all know what you’re really here for, so let’s dig into the games.
Set in a post Brexit London (yeah, seriously) the next Watch_Dogs is the most cliched British romp you could ever imagine. Accompanied by an AI called Bagley (hmm) this time around players are tasked with building an underground army that you can jump between apparently at any time. This includes old granny hackers, for real. Supposedly, every single NPC in the game will be recruitable, and playable. The city is now patrolled by hyper armed mercenaries and drones operated by a group called Albion. Very fancy. It’s very, very silly, but not gonna’ lie, it looks like a lot of fun, and damned pretty. Realism has gone right out of the window though, you can turn invisible now. But let’s all wait for the inevitable downgrade before getting too excited.
From the people behind the series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, there’s a TV series coming about making video-games. In the series, the titular Mythic Quest is the biggest MMORPG ever made, and the events of the show will follow the studio as they prepare to release their latest, and largest, expansion. Not sure what to make of this, to be honest. Sunny is a very funny and intelligent show, but dayum is it dark. If this is even close…I’m intrigued.
Yet more operators are coming in the new season, Operation Phantom Sight. First up is Warden, a Defender, and the first non-military recruit. He’s basically your Dad. No, seriously, he’s your Dad. That’s pretty much it. The second is Nokk, an Attacker who can muffle the sound of her own footsteps. There are also some changes coming to the Kafe Dostoyevsky map as well as a ‘reversed’ friendly fire system, which will reflect damage back on anyone who shoots their teammates too often. Now, most of this has been known for a while, but it’s right on our doorstep, so now is a great time to jump back in.
Grab your friends, because the cast of Adventure Time are coming to play. Added to the roster of the free to play game, we actually have Lady Rainicorn this time! Aww yeah, now things are getting real. Better yet, they’re already there and ready to go.
On the heels of its recent Beta, the next Ghost Recon was at E3 in full force. Showing us a little more background about the now rogue Cole D. Walker, played by John Bernthal of The Punisher fame. But I’ve been calling this from the beginning, I think we’re going to find out he’s actually deep cover or something. Probably wrong, but we’ll see. He took to the stage with a dog, uhm, yeah. Breakpoint will focus more on survival behind enemy lines, rather than intense action, but expect plenty of the latter, too. They also unveiled a companion community program called Delta Company, intended to generate publicity for the game, by promoting the players via things like cosplay, streaming and the like.
There’s a new, timed, event heading to For Honor called Shadows of the Hitikori. Focusing on an event from the Samurai faction’s past, it feels kind of like their version of the single-players main antagonist, but with a more supernatural edge. Which is nice actually, because very little has been covered about the schism that lead to the world being split the way it is. Hopefully this will, finally bring some actual lore to the game’s lore. Available new, it includes a new game mode called Soul Rush. Sounds rather intriguing, I must say.
A new entry in the R6 series, this looks to be somewhat like the Outbreak event from Siege, but expanded out into a full game. Offering 3 player co-op, it wants to be as much of a powerhouse as it’s older brother, but with more of a focused approach to its world. Little else is known at this time, but Beta registrations are now being taken.
Not gonna’ lie, I absolutely loved The Division 2. It improved over the first game in every conceivable way, so more content is something I’m not going to turn down. It’s being made free to play between June 13th and 16th in preparation for its coming update. Episode 1 will bring new, main game missions, as well as expanding the map into the region surrounding Washington DC. This includes a trip to the zoo, so you can pet the tigers. With bullets. Later in the year, Episode 2 adds in the Pentagon, which is now overrun by Black Tusk. Yes, the Pentagon. Black Tusk are ready to start revealing all of America’s darkest secrets so, uhm, how do I decide to work with them, anyway? Finally, Episode 3 digs into the idea of, rather than repairing the world for Humankind, actually throwing it back to what it was like beforehand. A dash of anarchy, anyone?
Like everyone else in the universe, Ubi are now going to offer a subscription service. Offering over 100 games, it will run you $14.99 per month, but if you sign up ahead of time, you can get free access at launch. Not a bad deal that. It seems to include pretty much everything on UPlay, as well as including early access to upcoming games. It’s going to be available for Stadia next year, but seems like it will also be just a regular thing. In game progress will be saved if you cancel your subscription too, so you can drop in and out when you want. I’m not overly impressed with the price point personally, but it’s not prohibitively unreasonable either.
A somewhat stylised, PVP sports game, there’s a demo available on UPlay right now. It’s a bit like a caricatured version of the James Caan classic Rollerball. And I’m okay with that. I don’t really think this is going to be my kind of game, but it does sure look fun. There are surprisingly few games with rollerskates, so it’s something different in that respect.
Bob Ross the game, Uhm, yeah, not sure what else to say. The world is drawn like a watercolour painting, with obvious brushstrokes in the flora. Beyond that, all we know is that it’s “like Assassin’s Creed with myths”. One to keep an eye if you like games to be more like art, but beyond that, we’ll have to wait a while before we hear any more.
This was an okay showing on Ubi’s part. It would have been nice to see something genuinely new from them, but more of the same is also not such a bad thing. Whatever you may think about their games, it’s hard to deny that they do what they do extremely well. The subscription service is probably the only real standout, but there’s still enough here to sink your teeth into.
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