Ubisoft’s forthcoming game year just got really interesting.
As if the delay of The Last of Us Part II didn’t already send gamers reeling, Ubisoft has delayed three of its upcoming titles to a later point in 2020.
Reported by MarketScreener this morning, a recent financial call with Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed that Watch Dogs Legion would not meet its proposed February 2020 release period. Along with that, the upcoming Rainbow Six Quarantine and Gods and Monsters have also been affected.
Said Guillemot during the call, “We have decided to postpone the releases of Gods & Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and Watch Dogs Legion until 2020-21.
“While each of these games already has a strong identity and high potential, we want our teams to have more development time to ensure that their respective innovations are perfectly implemented so as to deliver optimal experiences for players.
“This decision will have a very significant impact on our financial results for this fiscal year and goes against our recent successes in building a more stable development model. However, it is in line with our strategy to maximize the future value of our brands for the long-term benefit of our employees, players, and shareholders. We expect it to have a positive impact on our financial performance as from 2020-21.”
This change leaves the company with only Ghost Recon Breakpoint as their big winter/spring release. Part of that decision might have come from early reviews of that game, noting its many bugs, indicating it might have shipped a little too soon. Guillemot noted that the game “has been strongly rejected by a significant portion of the community.”
And it’s not the only one. The report also notes that Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 has been considered a “commercial failure” by the company. However, it will continue to support it with updates, in the hopes of driving up its community.
2020 will be an interesting year for Ubisoft, based on these delays. We’ll see what the company has planned in the months ahead.
Published: Oct 24, 2019 04:23 pm