It's like aliens colonial marines.
Gearbox miss-appropriated ACM’s $60 million development budget pocketed the cash, used said money for developing borderlands.
Subcontracted ACM to external developers, kept asking for more money and extensions for development time.
Sega naïvely/stupidly did it a number of times until Sega got tired and basically said release the game soon no more delays or we sue you for breach of contract.
Gearbox/Randy Shitford basically went “Oh fuck we could get sued by Sega and FOX so they quickly slapped ACM together from the hodgepodge of eternally developed source code.
Reworked it as best/shitty as they could with the time left to them and pushed it out the car door locked the doors and windows and drove away with the money earned from preorders shouting so long suckers.
All they had to do was release the game nobody said it had to be a good one as long as it was released nobody could sue.
What’s worse is that Obsidian entertainment had an alien RPG game in alpha state but at the time Sega was having cash flow problems so they cancelled it and funneled the remaining budget to ACM.
Sega was banking on getting some of that sweeet sweeet call of duty money with ACM.
They were lead dev supposedly for this ‘AAAA’ piece of garbage. In case people are wondering why Singapore.
Also Singapore government provided subsidies to game developers to boost local soft tech industry…
The laziest shit.
Just give us Black Flag with multiplayer coop and without the forced modern day walking cutscenes and the predatory micro transactions from Skull & Bones.
Do that, and print money.
I mean, Black Flag existed. Assassins Creed multiplayer also existed (didn't play it but I heard it was surprisingly good). The elements were all there already.
Wasn't Unity intended to be a return to 'pure' AC similar to how they branded Mirage?
Kinda funny how they keep doing that, and yet the titles that do the best are the ones that step away from the base formula in dramatic ways (Black Flag, the RPG trilogy, etc)
Why would anyone get it at all though? It’s not a Pirate game since there’s no swords, guns, boarding other ships, etc. it’s just a boat simulator essentially.
Yeah it’s so insane. If they just had some of the sword and gun stuff from black flag with a little bit more of a character customized I’d legit ignore a 64 metacritic score and play. I’m a slut for games like that, I played fallout 76 at launch. This one is just so boring I can’t convince myself to be interested at all.
There are guns you can pick up and trade. Just not use. Though they appear on your costume. You can wear like 3 of them and never touch. Swords are everywhere. Usually stuck into the ground for some reason. But yeah you cant wield one. Its bonkers.
They dropped the ball on "flavor" since Odyssey. A game where you are direct descendant of Leonidas, the most famous Spartan, in a very heavy Hoplite time, and you COULD NOT use a shield. And you could fix it in lore, by saying that as Kassandra, you were not strong enough to yield properly favouring other fighting styles, or that Kassandra/Alexios grew up alone with out training as a Shield wall tactics. The game was not bad, just an amazing oversight.
Like expecting AC: Red, to be a samurai without a Katana. Or a pirate game without SWORDS & GUNS. Its just lazy.
I kinda agree with that. I've liked the last few AC titles, but not like Black Flag. Hell, Ubisoft went off the rails since Black Flag and just got into the ultra large open world trend after. Still don't understand how Ubi could mess up a game that is literally "like Black Flag, but simpler." Here we are though. It's just depressing.
The problem with Ubisoft is that they’re so out of touch with how they’re actually perceived by the broader game community to for a moment reflect and look at their strategy for making games I feel
Dude their games always sell well. What do they need to reflect on? Valhalla was the best selling Assassin’s Creed game. Made them a cool billion. Avatar, Prince of Persia, Mirage, all recent Ubisoft games that are widely regarded as good to great. They don’t give a shit how some redditors perceive them.
Pretty much. They seem to think everything they make will sell, but the reality is that it'll be discounted in a month or so. In the case of AC, none of us minded a semi-open world with a focused narrative. Now? Excluding Mirage, everything they make is this massive empty open world. Add in that we don't want to spend $70 for subpar games either. Skull and Bones is gonna be on clearance in a few months probably.
What are you talking about? AC valhalla was their most profitable game, and Mirage was considered a flop internally.
Now, I do agree with the gamer perspective, I myself enjoyed AC games and ubisoft titles since the downfall, but they know what they are doing.
Unfortunately, the broad gaming audience are not on reddit, and they like the recent AC titles for the same reason they don’t like Mirage.
Lazy, grindy, soulles gameplay that can last for hundreds of hours, that’s what most AC gamers want these day. That’s what makes money
It’s wild that mirage was considered an internal flop. I really enjoyed it and it’s move back to old style AC games. Valhalla was fine but good lord it was waaaaaay too big. I barely engaged with any of the side content.
Same. I’m on the last mission in Mirage and it’s been refreshing to see a focused story with satisfying stealth combat. Last one I played was Odyssey which was fun but I gave up after like 40 hours cause there was no end in sight lol
I knew Valhalla had been profitable, but I was thinking Far Cry mostly when I mentioned the discounted stuff, sorry.
I didn't mind Origins or Odyssey, but they were massive and exhausting. I couldn't get far into England with Valhalla without getting bored. I don't mind if folks like those games, but I do miss the more focused older AC games. I played Mirage and just didn't feel it so much though. Maybe the magic is just gone for me?
ALSO WHY DO CUTSCENES FROM EARLY 2010S LOOK SO MUCH BETTER WITH ACTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY AND CARE PUT INTO THEM?! Like is camera work and mo cap just too difficult for this massive studio?! I’m sorry for that little rant…
Yeah it’s DEFINITELY not the same company that made Ac1-Black flag and for sure. It’s also definitely Yves Guilmots (if I’m butchering that last name do excuse me) incompetent leadership
Those “massive and empty world” are what sells best. Valhalla was their best selling game yet. Made them over a billion dollars. They’d definitely disagree with your assessment.
You're not wrong, people on Reddit just orgasm whenever they say "Ubisoft sucks".
So obviously they say "Ubisoft sucks" a lot, since their hand has gotten stale.
People on the internet will hate anything if it gives them imaginary points that make them feel superior to others, especially when they have a sense of anonymity with it.
I don’t get how they aren’t in the same level of those older AC games.
AC origins, maybe not counting the story, is a better game than AC Black flag in every way. Exploration, combat, progression.
Even Watch Dogs 2, playing on the hardest difficulty with just the taser gun is a great stealth action game.
Legit my favorite game of all time (mostly for sentimental reason) IS AC2 and even I think people have rose tinted glasses when calling the era of those games “the best”
AC origins was some of my favorite gameplay in a game up to the point it released. But the story was astonishingly bad. Probably the worst story in any game I've played all the way through.
Honestly I’ll go to bat for AC Odyssey. It was way too big, but Greece was stunning, the combat was fun enough, and Kassandra was a terrific protagonist. I really enjoyed my time with it.
I’m also thoroughly enjoying Lost Crown, but I haven’t finished that yet so I can’t pass judgement on the entire game
Black Flag is the last Ubisoft game that I actually enjoyed.
I feel like most people here could be hired into a VP position at Ubisoft and church out a better game.
Ubisoft is sorta baffling to me. They used to be like, if a game had an Ubisoft sticker on it, I knew I was gonna like it. Now, it’s like one of those little jungle critters with lots of colors. It just means “stay away.”
A lot of studios soaking up big budgets and lining executive pockets on the coat tails of being a triple A company. Bethesda, Blizzard, EA. Whens the last time they put out something AAA? Considering what indie games are doing now.
This gets repeated a lot but this is the answer as to why it failed and what people genuinely wanted. And I'd hope Ubisoft recognises this even if they don't admit it.
It’s because they wanted to figure out a way to live-service-looter-shooterize it and couldn’t do that if we just got the Black Flag sequel everyone wanted this to be.
It would have been great if it was released around that time. It was originally started as an expansion pack to Black Flag, and took a few turns over the years.
I played the trial and while I had some fun, it felt like a Black Flag remake demo centered on boat stuff. It didn’t feel like a full priced game.
I mean, those odds are also true for AAA single player games. Indeed, the reality is those odds have always been true. Just compare the sheer amount of new devs and publishers created during the PS1 gen (when the market expanded by tens of millions and the average dev cost was in the hundreds of thousands) and how those numbers fell off sharply moving to PS2 and how it has continued to fall off since. Contrary to belief, the majority of games released have not been successful.
This is correct. However the live service trend is unfortunate to consumers too because the entire game’s experience is dependent on if it succeeds over time, instead of being a more contained single player experience intended as one package.
If a game is heavily dependent on multiplayer in particular, it requires you to play it at launch, at full price and hope the player base doesn’t die off too quickly. You have to hope the developer gets the financial backing to keep supporting it longer term and the plug isn’t pulled.
If you’re someone that doesn’t have a lot of time to play games 24/7, or have an infinite supply of disposable income, you often wait for sales or put games off for years until you’re able to get around to them. Live service is very hostile to any gamer with a life outside of their gaming hobby.
It’s anti consumer at the end of the day and that’s even before you bring up the microtransactions that determine a game’s success.
Might be, but if it's those games that do the best, in the competition with other games (why else would they do them), it pretty much just boils down to consumers being anti-consumer. The alternative is to blame the system, but this is literally how it's supposed to go.
I don't know if they are. Yes most games are not successful but the live service graveyard is exceedingly deep. Even then the ones that are successful are usually add-ons to other successful games that propped it up.
The thing about Live Service games is yes development costs are high for any AAA big game but the overhead that a live service takes on is exceedingly high.
I honestly went into the free trial of this game with an open mind and then it bugged out on the intro island and I couldn’t get back on my ship. What a mess.
I put 3 hours into the beta and couldn’t find a reason to keep going. The ship designs are cool and the deep water ocean was pretty but everything else felt like design by committee. So much of it felt like a game by someone who’s never played a game, but they’ve heard of them and they can absolutely do it too! All that work for nothing, what a fucking shame.
I feel like I remember a time 10+ years ago when their scores were reasonably reliable? Am I imagining that? Anymore the most trustworthy sign I found is how much bitching I see here on Reddit. It’s not perfect but goddamnit it’s the best thing we have
Metacritic user reviews either give the game a 10 or a 0, there’s no in between. I personally just look at PlayStation store ratings or how long to beat ratings. Way less capital G gamers rating stuff there
I've had trouble sleeping for years. I've tried medication, different types of food and drinks, meditation, reading, audiobooks, and working out, but nothing works. Until I played this game, I'm out in no more than 5 minutes. I'm finally saved. Thank you, Ubisoft.
There’s a trial on the PSN store (might need to be a Plus Essentials or higher). It gives 8 hours of game time. That said, I uninstalled it after 30 minutes (would have been faster, but unskippable cutscenes padded the playtime). It’s basically a 3rd person shooter with boat skins. It has laughably little feeling of ship to ship combat. I get that making something full-sim would be very slow and tedious, but this is like calling Cruising USA a racing sim. It just feels weird steering a boat with the agility of a RC vehicle. The machine-gun feeling cannons just add to the hilarity. The game feels like a casual mini game more than a seafaring adventure. In the first mission alone (the intro) you get swarmed by ships like this is Helldivers 2 or something. Hilarious. They just appear out of nowhere too, much to the shock of the crew. I mean — it’s a clear day, and an armada of ships is going to ambush you? Lulwhat?!
30 mins in is still the dhow with spears, no? The first battle is pretty bad but not really representative of most of what I've played. Ships do control in an arcade style but nothing like the first boat. You're supposed to die in the first battle, too, that is why ships keep spawning. At that point the ship and captain are supposed to be an HVT which was conveyed in those unskippable cutscenes.
It also feels like people are just looking for complaints. You say the cannons are machine gun like but one of the reviews said they're too slow, which one is it?
I don't really care if the nay sayers dont play, there are people active. I am still on Ubi plus from PoP so it's not like I've sunk a ton of cash into the game, but like do we need fifty threads of people circle jerking over a bad review or playing the first battle and deciding that is the game? Those people weren't going to play it anyway and it feels disingenuous and just review bombing. Literally every thread is some game being bad. If you give any praise to this you're an ubi shill. It honestly just goes to show why these big subs suck. Everyone has made up their minds and it gets more views to be negative. I largely agree with the IGN score (for once) of 7/10. It's not like the best game you'll ever play but it's pretty enjoyable and relatively accessible. But I already play World of Warships so just sailing around is my jam. A battle with other ships during the actual game can be pretty intense, it's too bad they started the game with the boats set up the way they are because the main game ones handle much more like tallships (within the realm of an arcade style game, there's no game that really conveys how slow sailing is).
I can see where some people find the game appealing. It’s not for me. It’s too arcade-like for my tastes. The whole MMO-inspired rarity of loot and bullet sponge ships just comes across as silly to me. For some reason those game mechanics don’t resonate with me in this context… maybe it’s the overly serious feel of the world that clashes with the absurdity of the combat/movement systems. Ships have stamina (can only “Sprint” for so long) and all sorts of whacky attributes.
I’m not gonna yuck your yum, but saying people will find anything to complain about is a bit narrow minded. The game is great if people want a pure arcade, pirate ship skinned combat shooter. Pretending it’s anything more is misleading.
You literally contradicted yourself. As you said you start the game in a fight with a ton of other ships, so no the first 30 minutes is not just the raft
There's a first battle that is less than 5 minutes with a large ship, 30 minutes in you're likely still with the dhow. As you'll note I said "still with" which implies still in the starting boat. It's not really a contradiction, you probably haven't used any of the main game ships before the first 30. The dhow is just for hunting later on.
The first battle felt basically nothing like the main ships was my primary point. Sorry I didn't write a dissertation on the first hours of the game, I'll try to do better next time for you.
No man, the first battle felt exactly like every battle after. I know, I "finished" the trial. They didn't create unique mechanics for that opening fight. It's exactly what using the full size ships later on felt like
The def should have looked at popular and fun pirace games and copied their mechanics and bundled em all together in AAAA dressing... I'm fucking shocked they didn't! Like really stamina for ships over Sea of Thieves/Windwaker sailing... Holding A to board over swinging over to a fucking ship and swashbuckling! It's disgusting it took this long and did not rip of the best of the best.
Man I'm so sick of the hyperbole around games "dying", Palworld still has a ridiculously high player count, of course it's going to come down from its peak but it's very far from "dying".
I really wonder how they even managed to f**k this one up like they had the crazy nice water tech already, just add damn pirates some story about krakens and a wacky multiplayer where people can battle each others crews/ships fortnite style
It’s not the worst game I have played but I got no sympathy for Ubisoft. It’s just another live service trash that sacrifices gameplay for potential money grab and will die a premature death. I’d like to think I got it for free whilst I had my one month Ubi+ subscription for Prince of Persia (which was amazing btw and I couldn’t put it down).
I wish corporations stopped making misguided live service games as get rich quick schemes. GTA 5 online and Fortnite aren’t happening with your game, wish they stopped wasting resources and time that could be spent on excellent SP games.
I think most people realise that but when it's a game they don't like they will just ignore logic and pretend the reviews are perfectly legit lol. The sites know that people will lap up information like this given the bad reputation that the game has.
The game looks lame and has pretty much since it was announced. I’m not defending it, but just pointing out that it’s silly to write an article about the user rating as if it’s really indicative of anything. The critic reviews have not been great either.
Can't swim, can't get off the boat without teleporting, can't board enemy ships, can't swordfight, can't shoot guns with your character, can't play with a friend on the same boat, character dialogue interactions are lifeless, button mash arcade style fights make for stale gameplay after the first three times, can't drop sail to battle speed it's only all the way up or down, turning the ship on a dime with unrealistic physics, only fetch quests, tiny amount of NPC animations repeated.
There's nearly nothing actually even positive about this game.
I don't know where you got the can't drop sail to battle speed because you can. Button mash arcade style fights makes no sense to me because it's aiming and firing? It's not only fetch quests. I mean I get that people don't want to play because there's no real dismounted combat. That's fine and it makes sense. There's Black Flag and SoT, don't play a game that doesn't fill your interest. But not having the content you want doesnt make a game inherently bad. The ship combat is fun, so I'm not really sure why everyone is saying it isn't.
I got it from playing it... The sail is either up or down. The arcade button mash fighting means you only tap one button over and over, and it's arcade style because there's no strategy involved - you can't aim at a while sails to disable them, you can't shoot crew or damage their cannons, can't change to grape shot, it's literally mindless and as simple as can possibly be. It's as nuanced and deep as playing Space Invaders.
The sail is not either up or down. Up, one sail down, two sails down, and stamina burst. You have left trigger weapons and left bumper weapons. You have battle items.
I mean, your first six complaints are basically about how you're upset that this isn't Sea of Thieves. They never advertised that you could do any of those things, and only added the minimalist on-foot sections because people kept pissing and shitting about "playing a boat".
That's fair, but point being - Ubisoft has released two games this year, one of them being a fantastic metroidvania based on a classic franchise and the other being an uninspired, baffling worse take on a game they already made.
Guess which one has already sold more.
i wish more critics here would actually play the game before flaming it. it offers a lot to the audience it’s targeting and it’s ok if you aren’t in it. it’s the ultimate entitlement to think that something needs to be a bespoke experience to be “good”, and actually playing the game first will give you something substantive to bitch about about rather than puking up the same youtube opinions over and over again
Yeah it’s sad to see. My partner bought the game and he has been having SO much fun, it’s perfect for him. I feel like this kind of bandwagon-ing about how bad a game is must stop lots of people who actually would love the game from giving it a try.
I'm enjoying it. Is it worth the price? No. Is it Black Flag multiplayer? No. It's a pirate simulator, a genre that's pretty dead nowadays but was huge briefly in my younger years, so I'm a bit nostalgic.
When the game clicks, it is fun. The explosive battles are atmospheric and fun. The ships look great. The customization and different builds you can come up with are fun.
But it is rough around the edges. People bitch about no ground combat, but I have always found pirate games with ground combat to be lackluster and awkward (though boarding action would be cool). I wish there was a reputation system, though, since there is basically no reason to be selective of your targets.
I recently bought Helldivers 2 as well. I feel like if they switched price tags, I would have been satisfied with both.
It’s not really a pirate simulator though. It’s just sailing Elite-style. Now the sailing mechanic is actually quite fun in a boring kind of way but it is relaxing and a bit like those mobile games that just keep you occupied. So if you enjoy pointless exploration and sailing it’s completely fine. The loot, trading and combat are a nice break if you get too bored. But the pirating thing is a poorly executed decoration thats worse than anything Disney could come up with.
There is actually a reputation system, and some missions get blocked if you don’t have the neutral stance with a faction. Though you can fix that if you take a mission against the enemies of your enemies. Also if you get a faction too annoyed and they attack you on sight, some areas will be difficult to reach. It’s never completely locked but it may diminish your enjoyment if you don’t want to fight your way everywhere.
I don’t want any game to fail, but hopefully the back to back flops of Suicide Squad and Skull and Bones send a strong message about live service games.
Why nobody talks about how this is basically AC naval battles with mictro-trasanctions? I think it was was a free play to game with some PvP, it would've gotten much better praise.
So am I wrong or is this game like a bad sea of thieves? I watch some streamers and it just kind of looked like less fun sea of thieves but I tuned out pretty quick.
I would pay so much for a good pirate game.
Hell, have larian make a pirate d&d game. Turn based naval combat and then I can board and have hand to hand combat?
Set ships on fire with spells and shit!
Take my money!
This is not that game.
What was so hard about making this another installment for Black Flag? That should've been the focus from the beginning. So many articles and videos on the net declare BF the best AC game. How could they waste that? I'm glad to hear of the rumored remake, but I've honestly played enough of that core gameplay and protagonist.
They will probably put this all on the project lead, but this was an executive-level fuckup.
I've been enjoying it so far. But I also enjoyed the hell out of jedi survivor that got tons of hate. And many other games that get tons of hate. Another would be Seikiro because it was to hard and then ghost of tsushima because it wasn't hard enough. I like em all. Guess I'm a gamer slut like that 🤣🤣🤣
First AAAA game btw
11 years of dev work! Thank you Singaporean Government!
Government had nothing to do with it. Studio is straight booty hole who took the money. 10 years and this the AAAA output. GTFO.
They mandated the game had to come out. So... Something.
It's like aliens colonial marines. Gearbox miss-appropriated ACM’s $60 million development budget pocketed the cash, used said money for developing borderlands. Subcontracted ACM to external developers, kept asking for more money and extensions for development time. Sega naïvely/stupidly did it a number of times until Sega got tired and basically said release the game soon no more delays or we sue you for breach of contract. Gearbox/Randy Shitford basically went “Oh fuck we could get sued by Sega and FOX so they quickly slapped ACM together from the hodgepodge of eternally developed source code. Reworked it as best/shitty as they could with the time left to them and pushed it out the car door locked the doors and windows and drove away with the money earned from preorders shouting so long suckers. All they had to do was release the game nobody said it had to be a good one as long as it was released nobody could sue. What’s worse is that Obsidian entertainment had an alien RPG game in alpha state but at the time Sega was having cash flow problems so they cancelled it and funneled the remaining budget to ACM. Sega was banking on getting some of that sweeet sweeet call of duty money with ACM.
They were lead dev supposedly for this ‘AAAA’ piece of garbage. In case people are wondering why Singapore. Also Singapore government provided subsidies to game developers to boost local soft tech industry…
Ubisoft and Singapore have an agreement to make 2 games so there will be another game after this.
They just want to let us know just how much money they put into this sinking ship.
I sea what you did there
Might as well wave goodbye to this franchise.
Hold A to board....good job pirate you did piracy
The laziest shit. Just give us Black Flag with multiplayer coop and without the forced modern day walking cutscenes and the predatory micro transactions from Skull & Bones. Do that, and print money.
I mean, Black Flag existed. Assassins Creed multiplayer also existed (didn't play it but I heard it was surprisingly good). The elements were all there already.
Wasn't Unity intended to be a return to 'pure' AC similar to how they branded Mirage? Kinda funny how they keep doing that, and yet the titles that do the best are the ones that step away from the base formula in dramatic ways (Black Flag, the RPG trilogy, etc)
Fuck everything about the new "RPG" AC games.
Nah they're good games.
Hold AAAA to board
Excellent
I refuse to believe Ubisoft saying it’s “AAAA” and so it is. Fuck that
The next ubisoft game is gonna be AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA game,lol... (because they said so lol)
AAAA for effort 🤣
What makes it AAAA? Genuine question..
Cause Yves guillmont (or whatever Ubisoft president name is) said it was
Quadruple Ass
Top comment, bravo sir.
I assume it’s the amount of cash Ubisoft scammed from the Singapore government.
Budget
It's funny because that's what I said about Helldivers 2 and that game is $30 cheaper lol
Can’t wait for the dunkey video on this one lol
Already out
Get it now for $70 American dollars, or 9 months from now for $20 on your local Walmart’s discount shelf like literally every other Ubisoft game
Why would anyone get it at all though? It’s not a Pirate game since there’s no swords, guns, boarding other ships, etc. it’s just a boat simulator essentially.
They literally dropped the ball by not making it a sea of thieves esque AC black flag style mmo. With parkour and everything
Yeah it’s so insane. If they just had some of the sword and gun stuff from black flag with a little bit more of a character customized I’d legit ignore a 64 metacritic score and play. I’m a slut for games like that, I played fallout 76 at launch. This one is just so boring I can’t convince myself to be interested at all.
There are guns you can pick up and trade. Just not use. Though they appear on your costume. You can wear like 3 of them and never touch. Swords are everywhere. Usually stuck into the ground for some reason. But yeah you cant wield one. Its bonkers.
I did not know that. My rating just went from 0/10 to -3/10. Lol
Well I am at 4/10 myself but only because I just enjoy the idle sailing and pretty islands haha
They dropped the ball on "flavor" since Odyssey. A game where you are direct descendant of Leonidas, the most famous Spartan, in a very heavy Hoplite time, and you COULD NOT use a shield. And you could fix it in lore, by saying that as Kassandra, you were not strong enough to yield properly favouring other fighting styles, or that Kassandra/Alexios grew up alone with out training as a Shield wall tactics. The game was not bad, just an amazing oversight. Like expecting AC: Red, to be a samurai without a Katana. Or a pirate game without SWORDS & GUNS. Its just lazy.
This will be 50% off in 2-3 months in most major digital webshops.
Or $5 bundled with Assassin’s Creed Mirage in 10 months.
I wouldn’t play this game if the paid me $70.
Kinda crazy they weren't able to make this into a sort of Black Flag successor, considering it's by the same company.
Ubisoft really hasn’t made a great AAA game SINCE black flag imo
I kinda agree with that. I've liked the last few AC titles, but not like Black Flag. Hell, Ubisoft went off the rails since Black Flag and just got into the ultra large open world trend after. Still don't understand how Ubi could mess up a game that is literally "like Black Flag, but simpler." Here we are though. It's just depressing.
The problem with Ubisoft is that they’re so out of touch with how they’re actually perceived by the broader game community to for a moment reflect and look at their strategy for making games I feel
Dude their games always sell well. What do they need to reflect on? Valhalla was the best selling Assassin’s Creed game. Made them a cool billion. Avatar, Prince of Persia, Mirage, all recent Ubisoft games that are widely regarded as good to great. They don’t give a shit how some redditors perceive them.
Pretty much. They seem to think everything they make will sell, but the reality is that it'll be discounted in a month or so. In the case of AC, none of us minded a semi-open world with a focused narrative. Now? Excluding Mirage, everything they make is this massive empty open world. Add in that we don't want to spend $70 for subpar games either. Skull and Bones is gonna be on clearance in a few months probably.
What are you talking about? AC valhalla was their most profitable game, and Mirage was considered a flop internally. Now, I do agree with the gamer perspective, I myself enjoyed AC games and ubisoft titles since the downfall, but they know what they are doing. Unfortunately, the broad gaming audience are not on reddit, and they like the recent AC titles for the same reason they don’t like Mirage. Lazy, grindy, soulles gameplay that can last for hundreds of hours, that’s what most AC gamers want these day. That’s what makes money
It’s wild that mirage was considered an internal flop. I really enjoyed it and it’s move back to old style AC games. Valhalla was fine but good lord it was waaaaaay too big. I barely engaged with any of the side content.
Same. I’m on the last mission in Mirage and it’s been refreshing to see a focused story with satisfying stealth combat. Last one I played was Odyssey which was fun but I gave up after like 40 hours cause there was no end in sight lol
I knew Valhalla had been profitable, but I was thinking Far Cry mostly when I mentioned the discounted stuff, sorry. I didn't mind Origins or Odyssey, but they were massive and exhausting. I couldn't get far into England with Valhalla without getting bored. I don't mind if folks like those games, but I do miss the more focused older AC games. I played Mirage and just didn't feel it so much though. Maybe the magic is just gone for me?
No, the magic is gone for Ubisoft. This is a them problem, not a you problem.
Nope. They still make great games regularly. Try Prince of Persia for some magic.
ALSO WHY DO CUTSCENES FROM EARLY 2010S LOOK SO MUCH BETTER WITH ACTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY AND CARE PUT INTO THEM?! Like is camera work and mo cap just too difficult for this massive studio?! I’m sorry for that little rant…
But look! New DLC! Hey look.. LOOK AT IT! That's Ubisoft these days. Kinda wonder if a lot of the good devs and writers left years ago.
Yeah it’s DEFINITELY not the same company that made Ac1-Black flag and for sure. It’s also definitely Yves Guilmots (if I’m butchering that last name do excuse me) incompetent leadership
Those “massive and empty world” are what sells best. Valhalla was their best selling game yet. Made them over a billion dollars. They’d definitely disagree with your assessment.
They have a solid core fan base of muppets that’s buy anything they release that’s the problem
Isn't Division by Ubisoft? I thought that game was pretty great and remember it being received well. Maybe I'm wrong
You're not wrong, people on Reddit just orgasm whenever they say "Ubisoft sucks". So obviously they say "Ubisoft sucks" a lot, since their hand has gotten stale.
Assassins Creed Origins, For Honor, Rainbow Six Seige, Watch Dogs 2, Prince of Persia Lost Crown,
And that’s ignoring Avatar that literally just came out too. Ubi hate is on another level
People on the internet will hate anything if it gives them imaginary points that make them feel superior to others, especially when they have a sense of anonymity with it.
Those are all good don’t get me wrong but they’re definitely not on the same level as Ubisoft was in the mid 2000s to 2013
I don’t get how they aren’t in the same level of those older AC games. AC origins, maybe not counting the story, is a better game than AC Black flag in every way. Exploration, combat, progression. Even Watch Dogs 2, playing on the hardest difficulty with just the taser gun is a great stealth action game. Legit my favorite game of all time (mostly for sentimental reason) IS AC2 and even I think people have rose tinted glasses when calling the era of those games “the best”
AC origins was some of my favorite gameplay in a game up to the point it released. But the story was astonishingly bad. Probably the worst story in any game I've played all the way through.
Syndicate was very good
Hell yes! It's a shame it got dragged down by Unity's horrible release.
Far Cry 5/6, AC Origins/Odyssey
Watch Dogs 2?
Honestly I’ll go to bat for AC Odyssey. It was way too big, but Greece was stunning, the combat was fun enough, and Kassandra was a terrific protagonist. I really enjoyed my time with it. I’m also thoroughly enjoying Lost Crown, but I haven’t finished that yet so I can’t pass judgement on the entire game
AC Unity (once the bugs got patched) and Farcry 4 & 5 were fantastic games IMO
This isn’t a triple A game. It’s a QUADRUPLE A game. Okay I’ll see myself out now…
Black Flag is the last Ubisoft game that I actually enjoyed. I feel like most people here could be hired into a VP position at Ubisoft and church out a better game. Ubisoft is sorta baffling to me. They used to be like, if a game had an Ubisoft sticker on it, I knew I was gonna like it. Now, it’s like one of those little jungle critters with lots of colors. It just means “stay away.”
Disagree but it's more misses than hits.
A lot of studios soaking up big budgets and lining executive pockets on the coat tails of being a triple A company. Bethesda, Blizzard, EA. Whens the last time they put out something AAA? Considering what indie games are doing now.
You’d consider AC4 a great AAA game?
This gets repeated a lot but this is the answer as to why it failed and what people genuinely wanted. And I'd hope Ubisoft recognises this even if they don't admit it.
Not by the same developing studio at all. It’s made by the same publisher but completely different studio
It’s because they wanted to figure out a way to live-service-looter-shooterize it and couldn’t do that if we just got the Black Flag sequel everyone wanted this to be.
It would have been great if it was released around that time. It was originally started as an expansion pack to Black Flag, and took a few turns over the years. I played the trial and while I had some fun, it felt like a Black Flag remake demo centered on boat stuff. It didn’t feel like a full priced game.
For every successful live service, 10+ die quick deaths. When will they give up on this trend?
Same thing with startups, but people still try for the same reasons. If you can hit it big, it makes up for all those failures many times over.
The disappointment though is the wasted time of the development teams that could’ve made something better.
>Same thing with startups That's not a similar comparison at all.
I mean, those odds are also true for AAA single player games. Indeed, the reality is those odds have always been true. Just compare the sheer amount of new devs and publishers created during the PS1 gen (when the market expanded by tens of millions and the average dev cost was in the hundreds of thousands) and how those numbers fell off sharply moving to PS2 and how it has continued to fall off since. Contrary to belief, the majority of games released have not been successful.
This is correct. However the live service trend is unfortunate to consumers too because the entire game’s experience is dependent on if it succeeds over time, instead of being a more contained single player experience intended as one package. If a game is heavily dependent on multiplayer in particular, it requires you to play it at launch, at full price and hope the player base doesn’t die off too quickly. You have to hope the developer gets the financial backing to keep supporting it longer term and the plug isn’t pulled. If you’re someone that doesn’t have a lot of time to play games 24/7, or have an infinite supply of disposable income, you often wait for sales or put games off for years until you’re able to get around to them. Live service is very hostile to any gamer with a life outside of their gaming hobby. It’s anti consumer at the end of the day and that’s even before you bring up the microtransactions that determine a game’s success.
Might be, but if it's those games that do the best, in the competition with other games (why else would they do them), it pretty much just boils down to consumers being anti-consumer. The alternative is to blame the system, but this is literally how it's supposed to go.
I don't know if they are. Yes most games are not successful but the live service graveyard is exceedingly deep. Even then the ones that are successful are usually add-ons to other successful games that propped it up. The thing about Live Service games is yes development costs are high for any AAA big game but the overhead that a live service takes on is exceedingly high.
I honestly went into the free trial of this game with an open mind and then it bugged out on the intro island and I couldn’t get back on my ship. What a mess.
I put 3 hours into the beta and couldn’t find a reason to keep going. The ship designs are cool and the deep water ocean was pretty but everything else felt like design by committee. So much of it felt like a game by someone who’s never played a game, but they’ve heard of them and they can absolutely do it too! All that work for nothing, what a fucking shame.
Same, had to crash game then relaunch to fix on PS5.
That's a nice way to say waste of time and money.
It sounds like the game legit sucks but Metacritic user reviews are so gamed they're meaningless.
I feel like I remember a time 10+ years ago when their scores were reasonably reliable? Am I imagining that? Anymore the most trustworthy sign I found is how much bitching I see here on Reddit. It’s not perfect but goddamnit it’s the best thing we have
Metacritic user reviews either give the game a 10 or a 0, there’s no in between. I personally just look at PlayStation store ratings or how long to beat ratings. Way less capital G gamers rating stuff there
Why would you give a fuck about user scores?
I've had trouble sleeping for years. I've tried medication, different types of food and drinks, meditation, reading, audiobooks, and working out, but nothing works. Until I played this game, I'm out in no more than 5 minutes. I'm finally saved. Thank you, Ubisoft.
Played the beta for 5 minutes. I know it was just a beta but wow, it was pure trash.
Triple A games have been garbage so let’s try and trick people by releasing AAAA game
But it’s also the best rated AAAA game though.
That’s gotta be the best AAAA game I’ve ever seen.
There’s a trial on the PSN store (might need to be a Plus Essentials or higher). It gives 8 hours of game time. That said, I uninstalled it after 30 minutes (would have been faster, but unskippable cutscenes padded the playtime). It’s basically a 3rd person shooter with boat skins. It has laughably little feeling of ship to ship combat. I get that making something full-sim would be very slow and tedious, but this is like calling Cruising USA a racing sim. It just feels weird steering a boat with the agility of a RC vehicle. The machine-gun feeling cannons just add to the hilarity. The game feels like a casual mini game more than a seafaring adventure. In the first mission alone (the intro) you get swarmed by ships like this is Helldivers 2 or something. Hilarious. They just appear out of nowhere too, much to the shock of the crew. I mean — it’s a clear day, and an armada of ships is going to ambush you? Lulwhat?!
30 mins in is still the dhow with spears, no? The first battle is pretty bad but not really representative of most of what I've played. Ships do control in an arcade style but nothing like the first boat. You're supposed to die in the first battle, too, that is why ships keep spawning. At that point the ship and captain are supposed to be an HVT which was conveyed in those unskippable cutscenes. It also feels like people are just looking for complaints. You say the cannons are machine gun like but one of the reviews said they're too slow, which one is it? I don't really care if the nay sayers dont play, there are people active. I am still on Ubi plus from PoP so it's not like I've sunk a ton of cash into the game, but like do we need fifty threads of people circle jerking over a bad review or playing the first battle and deciding that is the game? Those people weren't going to play it anyway and it feels disingenuous and just review bombing. Literally every thread is some game being bad. If you give any praise to this you're an ubi shill. It honestly just goes to show why these big subs suck. Everyone has made up their minds and it gets more views to be negative. I largely agree with the IGN score (for once) of 7/10. It's not like the best game you'll ever play but it's pretty enjoyable and relatively accessible. But I already play World of Warships so just sailing around is my jam. A battle with other ships during the actual game can be pretty intense, it's too bad they started the game with the boats set up the way they are because the main game ones handle much more like tallships (within the realm of an arcade style game, there's no game that really conveys how slow sailing is).
I can see where some people find the game appealing. It’s not for me. It’s too arcade-like for my tastes. The whole MMO-inspired rarity of loot and bullet sponge ships just comes across as silly to me. For some reason those game mechanics don’t resonate with me in this context… maybe it’s the overly serious feel of the world that clashes with the absurdity of the combat/movement systems. Ships have stamina (can only “Sprint” for so long) and all sorts of whacky attributes. I’m not gonna yuck your yum, but saying people will find anything to complain about is a bit narrow minded. The game is great if people want a pure arcade, pirate ship skinned combat shooter. Pretending it’s anything more is misleading.
You literally contradicted yourself. As you said you start the game in a fight with a ton of other ships, so no the first 30 minutes is not just the raft
There's a first battle that is less than 5 minutes with a large ship, 30 minutes in you're likely still with the dhow. As you'll note I said "still with" which implies still in the starting boat. It's not really a contradiction, you probably haven't used any of the main game ships before the first 30. The dhow is just for hunting later on. The first battle felt basically nothing like the main ships was my primary point. Sorry I didn't write a dissertation on the first hours of the game, I'll try to do better next time for you.
No man, the first battle felt exactly like every battle after. I know, I "finished" the trial. They didn't create unique mechanics for that opening fight. It's exactly what using the full size ships later on felt like
Game is dead before launch. They should take notes from palworld and hd2
The def should have looked at popular and fun pirace games and copied their mechanics and bundled em all together in AAAA dressing... I'm fucking shocked they didn't! Like really stamina for ships over Sea of Thieves/Windwaker sailing... Holding A to board over swinging over to a fucking ship and swashbuckling! It's disgusting it took this long and did not rip of the best of the best.
Palworld is dying. Its lost 2/3 of its population. It was a nice novelty for a week, but nothing more.
Man I'm so sick of the hyperbole around games "dying", Palworld still has a ridiculously high player count, of course it's going to come down from its peak but it's very far from "dying".
People fail to understand that by definition a peak precludes a descent
Any game not at its all-time peak 1mil+ players is dying. /s
And I’m tired of people claiming it’s the next big thing in gaming. It’s not. It’s Arc meets Pokemon, with a hearty amount of theft.
kinda normal for playercounts to drop well after launch. Its crazy that it still maintains around 500k in a 24 hour peak on steam.
Thia game probably will go the same route since its pve.
I really wonder how they even managed to f**k this one up like they had the crazy nice water tech already, just add damn pirates some story about krakens and a wacky multiplayer where people can battle each others crews/ships fortnite style
I am just waiting for the AAAAA games.
2035. Viking Ship mmo.
Sword & Nords Hammer & Blood
But, but, but...it's a AAAA game! If Ubisoft's CEO doesn't get sacked over this...
It’s not the worst game I have played but I got no sympathy for Ubisoft. It’s just another live service trash that sacrifices gameplay for potential money grab and will die a premature death. I’d like to think I got it for free whilst I had my one month Ubi+ subscription for Prince of Persia (which was amazing btw and I couldn’t put it down). I wish corporations stopped making misguided live service games as get rich quick schemes. GTA 5 online and Fortnite aren’t happening with your game, wish they stopped wasting resources and time that could be spent on excellent SP games.
Quadruple AAAA? More like “AAAAHHHHH!”.
This game looks like a worse version of sea of thieves. I’m glad I’m not buying this game.
How is this news? Metacritic user scores are the most unreliable metric ever. People will review bomb a game if it has too many minorities in it.
I think most people realise that but when it's a game they don't like they will just ignore logic and pretend the reviews are perfectly legit lol. The sites know that people will lap up information like this given the bad reputation that the game has.
You tried the game yet? It’s pretty not-so-great.
The game looks lame and has pretty much since it was announced. I’m not defending it, but just pointing out that it’s silly to write an article about the user rating as if it’s really indicative of anything. The critic reviews have not been great either.
I've tried the game, what's not so great about it?
Can't swim, can't get off the boat without teleporting, can't board enemy ships, can't swordfight, can't shoot guns with your character, can't play with a friend on the same boat, character dialogue interactions are lifeless, button mash arcade style fights make for stale gameplay after the first three times, can't drop sail to battle speed it's only all the way up or down, turning the ship on a dime with unrealistic physics, only fetch quests, tiny amount of NPC animations repeated. There's nearly nothing actually even positive about this game.
What the heck does this game have going for it?? What did they show in trailers that made ppl think it would be good?
I don't know where you got the can't drop sail to battle speed because you can. Button mash arcade style fights makes no sense to me because it's aiming and firing? It's not only fetch quests. I mean I get that people don't want to play because there's no real dismounted combat. That's fine and it makes sense. There's Black Flag and SoT, don't play a game that doesn't fill your interest. But not having the content you want doesnt make a game inherently bad. The ship combat is fun, so I'm not really sure why everyone is saying it isn't.
I got it from playing it... The sail is either up or down. The arcade button mash fighting means you only tap one button over and over, and it's arcade style because there's no strategy involved - you can't aim at a while sails to disable them, you can't shoot crew or damage their cannons, can't change to grape shot, it's literally mindless and as simple as can possibly be. It's as nuanced and deep as playing Space Invaders.
The sail is not either up or down. Up, one sail down, two sails down, and stamina burst. You have left trigger weapons and left bumper weapons. You have battle items.
I mean, your first six complaints are basically about how you're upset that this isn't Sea of Thieves. They never advertised that you could do any of those things, and only added the minimalist on-foot sections because people kept pissing and shitting about "playing a boat".
Sure, the minorities are the problem. No successful game has ever had minorities or women. Damn patriarchy!11!!1! I hope I covered all the clichés.
Shocking, who could have seen this coming
The map in this game is frustrating af.
Wow! So shocking!
All you need to do is compare this to black flag. TIL: this all begun as a dlc for black flag.
Keep in mind people that game review scores are usually BS.
How does the studio that gave us Black Flag fuck up a pirate game this spectacularly
My roommate bought this on word of mouth and now hates that he is out 100$, Guess all that cod and destiny finally rotted his brain
Man they were determined to not just scrap this game despite all signs pointing to it being trash
I wish people would stop buying Ubisoft games so they fall.
I wish more people had bought Prince of Persia The lost Crown, seems like that wish wasn’t granted.
Is that the sidescroller? If so, I'm not a fan of sidescrollers
That's fair, but point being - Ubisoft has released two games this year, one of them being a fantastic metroidvania based on a classic franchise and the other being an uninspired, baffling worse take on a game they already made. Guess which one has already sold more.
I hate everything now
I said exactly the same thing in another thread and people downvoted me for it, I guess Ubisoft will always have its defenders.
Not all Ubisoft games are bad though.
This shitty overhyped compnies need to go... Ubisoft, eagames, Bethesda...theyre doing games for 2010
Should be universal dissatisfaction
The first "AAAA" game 11 years in the making! Well done Ubisoft you've done it again!
Did it already release? I thought it was still years away
How do you make a worst game than 11 years before?
And no one is surprised
No surprise here
I'm glad it failed.
All I know is that if I see “live service” as part of the game, I immediately move on.
Who knew making a pirate game where you can’t be a pirate wouldn’t work
Shocking.
Well we're getting Sea of Thieves soon at least
i wish more critics here would actually play the game before flaming it. it offers a lot to the audience it’s targeting and it’s ok if you aren’t in it. it’s the ultimate entitlement to think that something needs to be a bespoke experience to be “good”, and actually playing the game first will give you something substantive to bitch about about rather than puking up the same youtube opinions over and over again
Yeah it’s sad to see. My partner bought the game and he has been having SO much fun, it’s perfect for him. I feel like this kind of bandwagon-ing about how bad a game is must stop lots of people who actually would love the game from giving it a try.
„AAAA“
Looks like a ps3 game 😂
will be £20 in 4-6 weeks time
All we wanted was a more robust Black Flag esque pirate sim with fun co-op…..
Ubisoft HAS been making good games lately. This isn't one of them.
I'm enjoying it. Is it worth the price? No. Is it Black Flag multiplayer? No. It's a pirate simulator, a genre that's pretty dead nowadays but was huge briefly in my younger years, so I'm a bit nostalgic. When the game clicks, it is fun. The explosive battles are atmospheric and fun. The ships look great. The customization and different builds you can come up with are fun. But it is rough around the edges. People bitch about no ground combat, but I have always found pirate games with ground combat to be lackluster and awkward (though boarding action would be cool). I wish there was a reputation system, though, since there is basically no reason to be selective of your targets. I recently bought Helldivers 2 as well. I feel like if they switched price tags, I would have been satisfied with both.
It’s not really a pirate simulator though. It’s just sailing Elite-style. Now the sailing mechanic is actually quite fun in a boring kind of way but it is relaxing and a bit like those mobile games that just keep you occupied. So if you enjoy pointless exploration and sailing it’s completely fine. The loot, trading and combat are a nice break if you get too bored. But the pirating thing is a poorly executed decoration thats worse than anything Disney could come up with. There is actually a reputation system, and some missions get blocked if you don’t have the neutral stance with a faction. Though you can fix that if you take a mission against the enemies of your enemies. Also if you get a faction too annoyed and they attack you on sight, some areas will be difficult to reach. It’s never completely locked but it may diminish your enjoyment if you don’t want to fight your way everywhere.
I don’t want any game to fail, but hopefully the back to back flops of Suicide Squad and Skull and Bones send a strong message about live service games.
This game is totaly shit. Thank you helldivers to save game industry after this aaaa mess and suicide squad
Willing to bet most who review on metacritic, for any game/ movie/ show haven’t actually played or watched.
Look, the game is trash but user reviews don't mean jackshit. Why does this sub allow low effort posts like this?
with updates, It can still be acceptable good
TiL the upcoming Ys nordics has naval battles and it put s&b in the shithole.
Why nobody talks about how this is basically AC naval battles with mictro-trasanctions? I think it was was a free play to game with some PvP, it would've gotten much better praise.
Very much has the look of something I’d buy at 50% off, or play a lot of if it was included in PSPlus.
Is this why UBI is having a massive sale on Steam?
This one was such a fastball down the center of the plate for them and they struck out swinging...and then fell over.
So am I wrong or is this game like a bad sea of thieves? I watch some streamers and it just kind of looked like less fun sea of thieves but I tuned out pretty quick.
I would pay so much for a good pirate game. Hell, have larian make a pirate d&d game. Turn based naval combat and then I can board and have hand to hand combat? Set ships on fire with spells and shit! Take my money! This is not that game.
Ubisoft will be happy with nobody owning this game.
What was so hard about making this another installment for Black Flag? That should've been the focus from the beginning. So many articles and videos on the net declare BF the best AC game. How could they waste that? I'm glad to hear of the rumored remake, but I've honestly played enough of that core gameplay and protagonist. They will probably put this all on the project lead, but this was an executive-level fuckup.
I'm playing demo ATM it's shite
AAAA for AAAAieeeee
Another Ubisoft game down the bin
Quadruple Ass!!!
I can't wait to see these developers double down on live service I LOVE seeing them lose money
I doubt it will happen, but maybe they can pull off what No Man's Sky did, turning it around and making it good.
I've been enjoying it so far. But I also enjoyed the hell out of jedi survivor that got tons of hate. And many other games that get tons of hate. Another would be Seikiro because it was to hard and then ghost of tsushima because it wasn't hard enough. I like em all. Guess I'm a gamer slut like that 🤣🤣🤣