It is that time again when companies publish their financial report for third-quarter sales for the 2024 fiscal year. This time, the attention has moved to Ubisoft. Besides just dishing out numbers, the Q&A session usually presents genuine excitement as investors are eager to know the company’s plans going forward.
Ubisoft confirmed that Assassin’s Creed Codenamed Red will be released within the fiscal year 2025 (running from April 2024 to March 2025). The company also confirmed that the highly anticipated Star Wars Outlaws will be released by the end of this year.
“Moving forward, we’re gearing up for a very promising line-up for fiscal year 2025,” said co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot, “including the upcoming release of Star Wars Outlaws in 2024, which should be a major milestone in the video game industry, especially given the undeniable appeal of this legendary franchise that will be coming for the first time to the Open World territory, as well as Assassin’s Creed Codename Red, set in the long-awaited feudal Japan universe.”
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“We look forward to revealing the full extent of the creative capabilities of Ubisoft’s teams, who are working hard to make these games a success that will live up to gamers’ expectations.”
Codename Red was first announced in September 2022. At that time, Ubisoft also shared the roadmap of its Assassin’s Creed franchise. Red was one of the planned six entries in the franchise. Spearheading the development of Red is Ubisoft Quebec, the same studio that made Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
According to Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed franchise has sold over 200 million copies since its launch in 2007. Also, the developer and publisher said Red will begin “period three” in the Assassin’s Creed series.
Ubisoft will scale back investment in VR
During the Q&A session of Ubisoft’s Q3 report for fiscal year 2024, one caller asked if the company plans to make software for emerging VR platforms like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3. Responding to that question, Guillemot said the company was cautious about investing heavily in VR. Guillemot disclosed that Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR had “disappointing” sales that failed to meet their expectations.
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“We have been a bit disappointed by what we were able to achieve on VR with Assassin’s Creed,” Guillemot said. “It did okay, and it continues to sell, but we thought it would sell more, so we are not increasing our investment in VR at the moment, because it needs to take off.”
“We have been very impressed by what Apple came up with, and we think it’s fantastic hardware, but we continue to look at this VR business as something that we have to look at but not invest too much in, until it grows enough.”
Released in November 2023 on Meta Quest, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR allows gamers to play as one of the three famous assassins in the series namely Connor, Cassandra, and Ezio. Players perform numerous tasks and parkour moves through the first-person perspective.
This is not the first time that Ubisoft has failed to find success in the VR space. Back in 2022, the studio and developer canceled Splinter Cell VR which was supposed to be exclusive to Quest. The game was being developed at its Red Storm studio.
Ubisoft defends the $70 price tag slammed on Skull and Bones
Although Skull and Bones has live service elements, Ubisoft still has a $70 price tag hanging around the game. Some people consider this too much. One caller pointed this out during the Q&A session.
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The caller asked why Ubisoft was determined to charge $70 for the game which may limit the size of its player base. The caller suggested that a free-to-play model may be more suited for the game’s live service mechanics and give the game a chance to build a reasonable community. In response, Guillemot said the game is worth the full price because of its scale.
“You will see that Skull and Bones is a fully-fledged game,” Guillemot said. “It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run.”
An open beta for Skull and Bones was launched on February 8 and will run until February 11. The open beta supports cross-play and cross-progression. Interestingly, participants can carry their progress into the full game.
