E3 2021: Ubisoft

Alright time to kick this E3 shindig off. I know there was 2 days of pre-show but who honestly gives a shit. Certainly not the publishers because the preshow announcements were a massive wash out. Sure it had Elden Ring, the tactical Metal Slug looks neat, and it was hilarious watching Geoff Keighly suck Kojima’s dick on stage once again, but other than that it was goddamn pointless.

No, we’re kicking this off with the first of the actual conferences. And we’re starting things off with Ubisoft. Before we get to that though, let me give you a quick rundown of how I’m tackling these presentations. Normally I would go through each reveal and give my thoughts on them as well as some release information. But because I have a lot of conferences to get through, I don’t even think I'll be able to cover them all, I’m instead just going you a quick summary of what I thought and go through some of the main highlights.

This is going to be a bit more casual than usual. And honestly, I think this will work out better since I don’t always have something to say about a given game. At least doing it this way I’ll be cutting out a lot of the fat. Which is what most of these conferences should do, but we’ll see how well they do as we go along.

So how was the Ubisoft event? It was bad. It was shockingly bad. Actually, scratch that “shockingly”, because I honestly expected this to go this way. Ubisoft doesn’t exactly have a strong history when it comes to these conferences, even their best showings are mediocre at best, so my expectations for this was lower than the shelves in the 7 dwarf’s house. But even then, they somehow found a way to disappoint me.

And it really wasn’t the games they showcased that was the problem. Full disclosure, I didn’t really care for most of what was shown off here. The only game I’m remotely interested in is the second Mario + Rabbids game, which would have been a nice surprise if it hadn’t been leaked mere hours before the event. Oh Mario + Rabbids, never change.

But here’s the thing, even if I don’t like most of the games showcased, that doesn’t make them bad. Riders Republic looks like an interesting take on the extreme sports genre and while it wasn’t a game necessarily, Rocksmith+ looks like a good music tool for those looking to learn guitar. Might recommend that last one to my cousin actually.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, there were some head scratchers here. The new Rainbow Six game couldn’t be any more of a shark jump if it tried, and why they thought movie and TV trailers belonged in a gaming conference s a riddle not even Edward Nigma could solve. But no, most of what they showed off wasn’t bad, it’s just that there wasn’t enough content to justify the running time.

This event felt like 30 minutes of content stretched out over an hour. They spent 15 minutes on the new Rainbow Six game alone. I get they want to hype up each new game, but they were stretching themselves thin here. The whole event felt bloated and padded out to the point that I was physically yawning at it. This thing bored the crap out of me.

It also doesn’t help that there wasn’t much in the way of new announcements. Half of it was either updates to titles announced last year or updates to titles that have already been released. Where is the new shit? Well it’s certainly not at Ubisoft if this event is any indication.

Hell, the biggest thing to come out of the Far Cry 6 trailer was the rerelease of Blood Dragon with the games season pass. And can I just ask why they haven’t made a new Blood Dragon game already? Everyone loved Blood Dragon, even people who hate Far Cry loved Blood Dragon. And yet, instead of capitalizing on this with a sequel, you continue the series on the same boring trajectory and relegate Blood Dragon to the Trials series. Ubisoft, I ask this with all sincerity, do you have a single clue what you're doing?

I don’t think this event would be nearly as bad if there were some decent surprises but there weren’t that many to be found. Granted Mario + Rabbids was leaked beforehand and, if it hadn’t, it would have been a pleasant surprise. Other than that, nothing. Most of it was entirely suspected. Unless you were surprised at Just Dance 2022.

And can I just ask why Just Dance is even still a thing. I get it’s a fun dance game that a lot of people enjoyed on the Wii, but that was 12 years ago. Back then pop music was at least tolerable, nowadays not so much. At least broaden your horizons with some new genres or something.

Ah, but despite the event's short comings, Ubisoft had one final ace up their sleeve. And that was a game, based on fucking Avatar. You remember Avatar right. That James Cameron movie that came out 12 years ago, made a billion dollars and then everyone collectively forgot about. This is your big show ender Ubisoft? A game based on a decade old movie we all agree is shit. Way to strike while the iron is frozen.

Look if you haven’t gathered by now, this show was a wash. A couple of decent games were shown off, but this could have been half as long and contained the same amount of substance. I’d say you let me down Ubisoft but that would imply I believed in you to begin with. Not exactly the strongest opening, but at least we know it can only go up from here. I hope.