Ubisoft Announces Release Dates for Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry Titles

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Ubisoft Announces Release Dates for Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry Titles

Ubisoft had its digital presentation Sunday, where the company gave details on upcoming titles in franchises such as Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.

Not mentioned in the presentation were the numerous allegations of sexual harassment and subsequent departures of multiple Ubisoft employees. Prior to the event, the company tweeted a quick message saying that since the event was pre-recorded, they would not be able to address these events.

Without claiming to know how much work it would take to put at least a brief message at the beginning of the presentation, that explanation still isn’t sufficient. Many have since accused the company of not wanting its entire audience to know about the reckoning it’s facing by not including any statement in its official stream.

Whatever the reason, the number of good, hard-working employees at Ubisoft likely far outnumbers the still unacceptably high (i.e. larger than zero) number of harassers and abusers at the company. Both have put work into the titles shown during the presentation, muddying the waters on whether it’s ethical to support its work. That will be up for you to decide, but we should all at least be informed of the full story and what Ubisoft is doing to provide justice for its survivors and prevent any future cases from happening.

With that soapbox stepped down from, here are the games:

Watch Dogs: Legion

Developer: Ubisoft Toronto
Release date: Oct. 29 (current-gen), holiday 2020 (next-gen)
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Stadia, PC

Watch Dogs: Legion is the third entry in the hacker-centric Watch Dogs series, opening up with a short film by director Alberto Mielgo, whose previous works such as Love, Death & Robots and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse are immediately apparent. But just ignore the monologue about standing up against those who attack immigrants, protestors, journalists and street artists. It’s definitely not political at all.

The actual game footage gives a more detailed look into how players will recruit various denizens of future London to join DedSec, a militia group of hackers. The diversity on display seems significant, with the ability to recruit from a wide range of races, ages and professions. The trailer shows how different characters, such as a police officer, drone exert, hitman or even a stereotypical British drunkard varies tactics in completing objectives.

Hyper Scape

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release date: TBA, PC open beta available now, console open betas later
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

With a premise that seems literally copied from Ready Player One, Hyper Scape takes place within a virtual reality wherein real-life rewards and threats face its players. The game features a multiplayer battle royale where the environment can be altered by people voting via Twitch. If that sounds interesting to you, you can check the game out for yourself right now by playing its free open beta on PC.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release date: Nov. 17 (current-gen), holiday 2020 (next-gen)
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Stadia, PC

The latest entry in arguably Ubisoft’s flagship franchise, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has you play as the Viking chieftain Avor, who can be male or female, travel from their original settlement in Norway into pagan England.

The trailer and subsequent gameplay sequences show raiding, stealth, animal hunting and massive assaults, with other diversions such as drinking minigames. If it’s anything like the last couple Assassin’s Creeds, Valhalla is going to be absolutely massive. Check out our hands-on preview of the game to get our full impressions on it.

Far Cry 6

Developer: Ubisoft Toronto
Release date: Feb. 18, 2021
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Stadia, PC

What was supposed to be Ubisoft’s “one more thing” surprise to close out the show ended up being leaked a few days prior, but we got our first look at the game’s reveal trailer during the show. Following a lengthy intro sequence crediting plenty of big names in film, it opens with Breaking Bad Giancarlo Esposito’s character, the dictator Anton Castillo, giving his son Diego (played by Coco actor Anthony Gonzalez) a hard lesson in the ways of war. It’s suitably intense and unbelievably high-fidelity, and offers a chance to more accurately represent latinx people, although some have their doubts.

The show also announced some mobile games, with the fighting game Brawlhalla coming to iOS and Android and a new game, Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad coming to the same platforms sometime “soon,” according to Ubisoft.

Another Ubisoft Forward event will air sometime later in 2020, which is significant since the company tends to only have one big conference per year, usually at E3. We’ll let you know when its announcements inevitably leak ahead of time.

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