Ubisoft Forward September 2020 Reaction

So Ubisoft dropped another of their digital events which means it's time for another reaction. I didn't do the first Ubisoft Forward because I didn't plan on covering every digital event that came out but since I decided to cover most of the major gaming events I figured I might as well do this one, much to my chagrin. Ubisoft is a company I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand they've made some great games I really enjoy like Rayman and Prince of Persia, on the other hand they tend to make the same kind of game over and over again these days. Ubisoft's open world games have become so formulaic it's become a genre in and of itself and let's not talk about what they did to the Assassins Creed series.

Then there's the press conferences. Ubisoft has exactly two modes when it comes to press conferences, cringe and boring. So I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of Ubisoft planning more of these kinds of events, especially since they don't have enough games to fill multiple shows for a year. But that doesn't mean they can't have anything good to show off. So let's go through this thing and see what Ubisoft has up it's sleeves.

Before we go forward, ha, I should mention that I'm only covering the main event itself and not the pre or post shows. Why does this thing even have a pre show and a post show anyway? I have the schedule on screen right now and it appears that the pre show is meant for DLC and game updates and the post show is for deep dives. I get keeping the deep dives separate but why not put the pre show stuff in the main event? It's not like it would get in the way or anything. Whatever, let's finally talk about the event itself.

We open with our first announcement, Immortals Fenyx Rising. This was originally announced as Gods and Monsters last year and I thought it had some potential since I'm a big fan of Greek Mythology. It appears to be following in the Breath of the Wild mould and it's looking pretty good so far. That being said the reveal trailer was, bizarre. It had lot's of exciting action but for some reason it went for a jazz song to go with it that didn't really match the epic feeling the game is going for.

I'm glad they actually showed off some new gameplay to go along with the reveal trailer, wish more companies would do that. The game itself looks like typical open-world gaming stuff but the combat does look like fun and I like that you can actually fly in this game. Why is this not in more games? How hard is it to add flying to a game? The only thing that confuses me is the customisation. I get the armour you can equip since that's a feature in every game like this but it looks like you can fully customise Fenyx's appearance too, but only after a certain point. Instead of creating a character at the beginning of the game you change Fenyx into the character you want via a chair the god Hermes has. Why do it like tat. If you have a main character with a specific design then just go with that, if you want us to make our own character the do that but don't do both. Pick a lane and stick with it other than that though the game is looking pretty good. Immortals Fenyx Rising is launching December 3rd on all major platforms.

Then Phil Harris from Google shows up to announce that a demo for Immortals will released exclusively for Google Stadia. Folks I have a question for you, do you give single fuck about Stadia? Cause I sure as hell don't. After that disastrous launch I'm surprised Google hasn't abandoned this thing already, hell with the utter lack of updates for it they practically already have. So what is Ubisoft doing partnering with it? Releasing a demo for Fenyx Rising is a good idea but only if you release it on a platform people will actually play it on. And what does it say when the biggest announcement Stadia has, is a freaking demo of all things. Good luck with that Google.

Ok so I should probably mention something. The way I write these reactions is to have the event running on screen and then typing my reactions to it as it goes on, pausing after announcements so I can write without falling behind. I say that to say this, they're still talking about Immortals. No joke they're talking about the cinematics now. Ubisoft you do realise you've already sold us on the game right? You don't need to show this. Move on. Move on to the next announcement.

Ok now they're moving on with the announcement of The Prince of Persia The Sands of Time Remake. It's great to see Prince of Persia again and in a remake of one of the best games from the sixth console generation. I'm glad to see it come back but it also looks, off. It doesn't look that great for a remake. The character models look weird especially with the faces. It looks pretty bad when compared to other remakes like the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy, Medievil and especially Final Fantasy VII. Now this is apparently alpha footage so the game is still early in development but it still doesn't leave a good first impression. It comes out January 31st so hopefully they can polish it up by then and make it something great. The Prince deserves that much.

And we get more behind the scenes for Prince of Persia. I said earlier that Ubisoft didn't have enough games to fill an event like this but now I have become 100% certain of it. This is blatant padding. Ubisoft if you don't have much to show then just release the trailers online. With how often your games get leaked you might as well do that anyway.

We then get some updates on Hyper Scape which only proves how worthless the pre-show actually is. Goddamnit Ubisoft, stop proving me right! I really don't care about this game. It's a first person Battle Royale game, as if we don't have enough of those, which really aren't my thing. If you like then that's great but I couldn't bring myself to care if I tried. It doesn't help that the trailer they showed was just a bunch of clips from Twitch Streamers, really put in the effort with this one eh Ubisoft.

We then got a trailer for World Cup. It's some e-sports tournament for Rainbow 6 Siege. I guess that's great for e-sports fans but, outside of fighting games, I don't care much for them. I'm also curious as to how long this will last. Rainbow 6 is a popular game but I don't know if you can build a long running e-sports event centred around it. And why would you get a basketball player like Tony Parker to act as an ambassador for this. Ubisoft I admire your attempt to legitimise e-sports but this is so obvious an attempt it's embarrassing. He doesn't even sound like he wants to be there. I don't know what your doing here Ubisoft but good luck with it regardless, something tells me you'll need it.

Following this we get more updates on Rainbow 6 Siege. Again, thanks for proving that the pre-show was entirely pointless. They did announce something interesting for the game though, Sam Fisher is being added as a playable character. That's great, unless you're a Splinter Cell fan in which case you're probably very pissed off. Seriously Ubisoft, cut the cameo's and just make another Splinter Cell game already. Also probably not the best idea to showcase Sam in an animated trailer, just saying it's not great when the first time we see him in years is as a cartoon. Not much else to say, they are bringing it to next gen consoles so that's nice I guess. If you are a Rainbow Six fan then the new season is out now and I hope you have a good time with it.

Then we got hit with a curveball. To celebrate the ten year anniversary, Ubisoft are rereleasing Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game on modern consoles. Fuck yes! This game was awesome back in the day and I'm so happy to see it come back. Admittedly I'm more interested in seeing how it holds up considering we live in an age where beat-em-ups have made a bit of a comeback. Scott Pilgrim was one of the first games to try and bring the genre back so it'll be interesting to see how it holds up compared to the likes of River City Girls for example. It releases Holiday 2020 and I can't wait for it.

Then we get an update on Watch Dog's Legion. I'm still shocked that Watch Dog's is still a thing considering how the first two games were received with a rather meh reaction but I do respect Ubisoft for trying. So what's the big announcement for this game, is it a new character or gameplay update, nope it's Stormzy. Yeah Stormzy is in the game. That's... something. I mean if you like Stormzy then you'll probably be excited for it but I don't know if people will buy a copy solely because he's in it.

Ok we did get some new gameplay as well but it didn't show us anything we didn't already know. The only thing that stood out to me was the fact that one of the characters you can recruit is a robotic bee keeper that can use said robot bee's to hurt enemies. I love that because it's absolutely goofy but I really wish Ubisoft would pick a direction with this series already. It can't seam to decide if it wants to be a serious game about the dangers of technological surveillance or a goofy game where you play as an old lady infiltrating enemy bases with a machine gun. Watch Dog's legion releases October 29th. Then we get more behind the scenes stuff announcing that Aiden Pearce from the first Watch Dog's game is being added to Legion via the season pass. I guess it's cool to see him come back but the fact that the game isn't even out and they're already announcing DLC for it annoys me.

The show capped off with the announcement of a new game called Riders Republic. Apparently it's a massive multiplayer extreme sports game. It sounds cool since you'll be able to do stunts with a bunch of other players across multiple types of sports. This one has potential but there's one thing that might tank it, it's a cross gen game. Meaning it's releasing on both current gen and next gen consoles meaning it likely will be hampered on next gen consoles because it also needs to run on current gen consoles. Still this is one to keep an eye on if your a fan of extreme sports titles. Riders Republic releases February 25th.

So that was Ubisoft Forward and it was, meh. I'm not going to act lie there wasn't any good stuff here because there was, Fenyx Rising looks great, Scott Pilgrim coming back is a great surprise and Riders Republic shows a lot of potential. The problem is that the event felt padded. Lot's of behind the scenes stuff that didn't add anything, the whole World Cup segment felt like it didn't fit and Prince of Persia looked too rough to showcase at this time. Ubisoft are planning to do more of these in the future and I think that's a mistake, they don't have nearly enough games to fill an event like this.

I get that Ubisoft is trying these kinds of digital events because Nintendo and Sony are doing them and it's going well for them but the difference between Ubisoft and Nintendo is that Nintendo has a console and can fill their events with third party and indie games, ditto for Sony, Ubisoft cannot because it already is a third party company. Ubisoft I implore you, if you plan on doing more of these can you wait until you have something new to show off. We don't need you to give us the tenth update on Watch Dog's legion that just regurgitates the same information we've already been told before. I'd rather you actually just do events focussed on a single game like Sony has decided to do rather than try to cover multiple games at once.

But that's all I have for Ubisoft Forward. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.