Ubisoft is going all-in on Assassin’s Creed, and that sucks. We’ve known for a while that there are already four AC games in development, but we recently also learned that there are four more in the prototyping stage. Ubisoft has 2,000 people working on Assassin’s Creed games, and they’re intending to increase that number by 40 percent to “"fuel its ambitious expansion”, by pulling developers from other projects, despite a loss of existing developers due to office closures, layoffs, “tight controls on recruitment”, and, allegedly, a toxic work environment.

It’s a clear attempt by the company to capitalise on its most well-known IP, turning it into the main focus, possibly at the expense of its other, fairly popular properties.. The thing is, Assassin’s Creed isn’t good anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time. Players are getting sick of being smacked in the face by microtransactions and badly-executed open worlds, but Ubisoft is hard-headedly continuing down the path it’s set for itself. Despite backlash, it’s still on its NFT bullshit and is delving deeper into AI.

Related: Ubisoft, Nobody Is Asking For NFT Figurines

Players have major gripes with Assassin’s Creed, but Ubisoft seems intent on bull-headedly rushing through their business plan to maximise profit instead of providing what players actually want. It’s’re using AI to write dialogue for NPCs in games, despite said open worlds and NPCs already lacking depth. I’ve written about how this is a bad move and their games need more personal touch and more in-depth writing, not less, but Ubisoft is just going further down the rabbit hole. It’s the same with microtransactions - players are pissed that the games are filled with padding, requiring more boring level grinding that could be circumvented with additional purchases. It’s a classic case of creating a problem just to offer a solution, and players see right through it.

The assassin strikes an enemy with an axe in the forest in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

With these existing, persistent issues, and no sign of Ubisoft changing its aggressive sales tactics (why is there always an NPC somewhere that tries to sell me magical, overpowered gear for extra real life money?), Assassin’s Creed has lost a lot of goodwill with its players. The games no longer stick to the series’ original, more compelling theme and gameplay of being an Assassin. Instead of the sneaking around and stealth killing that so many of us fell in love with, you’re commanding armies and outright raiding settlements. At this point, the story is so overly complicated and confusing that I simply have no idea what’s going on outside the Animus, and I don’t care to find out.

Ubisoft doesn’t know (or care about) this yet, but Assassin’s Creed is the problem. The series that the brand is best known for is also notoriously spiralling in the quality of its storytelling, its gameplay, and its overall appeal because the corporate bigwigs are trying to squeeze blood out of a stone - namely, more money out of an already expensive game. Putting everything that makes a game good on the line in order to make a profit is a surefire way of losing your audience, and no number of games it pushes out is going to change that. I’m hoping Mirage will be the start of Ubisoft scaling back its ambition and making games that are actually enjoyable again, since it’s being billed as the return to the series’ roots, but I don’t have my hopes up. No matter how much fans love a series, a corporation will always prioritise profit.

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