After spending five years in development, Ubisoft’s Project U (internally codenamed Pathfinder) has reportedly returned to the drawing board. Project U was announced in September 2022 and billed as a “new kind of session-based cooperative shooter”.
The only news heard about the game since its announcement two years ago is that it returned to the drawing board in Spring 2024, suggesting all was not well with the progress of the game while in development.
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According to Insider-Gaming’s exclusive report, the reason Ubisoft is pulling the game back to the drawing board is because its replayability was questionable—a fundamental issue that plagued the game from the start. The story of the game revolves around the invasion of Earth by machines whose intent is to mechanize all life forms.
The game was designed to be a PvE where ten teams made up of four players each would battle progressively difficult enemies as they move through the map’s zones. Some zones could have thousands of enemy AI robots at any given time.
Astute players will eventually make it to the final zone in the middle of the map where they would have to defeat the boss. The decision to pull the game back to the drawing board came regardless of the fact that the game received positive feedback from players.
Sources familiar with the matter said replayability was a constant problem for the developers who had to rework the game several times leading to bloating of the budget.
The developers tried to improve the replayability by adding more variations to the map and adding new bosses to change the repetitive nature. Notwithstanding all their efforts playtests in February 2024 suggested that the issue persisted.
Around March 2024, Ubisoft Annecy announced that Project U would cease development and the outsourcing studios moved to different projects. The decision was followed by the exodus of the two game directors Damien Kieken and Mathieu Granjon.
Kieken moved to DICE this month while Granjon was drafted to Assassin’s Creed. The good news is that Ubisoft stopped short of canceling the game and believes PvE games still have the potential to be successful, referencing the viral launch of Helldivers 2.
Project U is going back to the drawing board with a new producer and a smaller team to brainstorm new ideas. However, Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming said, “Current and past project developers tell me it’s difficult to see how the game would succeed”.
