Ubisoft says more games from flagship brands like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon are on their way with even better quality than what the publisher has demonstrated in new releases like "Assassin's Creed Shadows, Anno 117: Pax Romana and the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora expansion."
Each of these games managed to achieve "above 80 Metacritic scores," Ubisoft boasts in the earnings report posted on its website May 20, but the company looks forward to an even higher-caliber, "significantly bigger content pipeline" through 2029.
This maxed-out calendar was made possible by "discontinuing 7 projects and delaying 6 others to maximize long-term value" earlier this year, says Ubisoft, recalling when it laid waste to the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake and other anticipated games. At the time, CEO and founder Yves Guillemot emphasized that the AAA game industry was becoming "persistently more selective and competitive with rising development costs and greater challenges in creating brands."
That was the prologue to what Ubisoft describes as "a return to higher quality standards" in its earnings report. Guillemot now says the company is eager to show players it's "capable of consistently delivering high-quality experiences" in a "sustained release cadence" empowered by those game delays, as well as studio closures that helped Ubisoft staff numbers tumble by 1,200 employees since last year.
Looking to "boost teams’ creativity and efficiency" and "enhance player experience," Ubisoft repeats its excitement about generative AI and shares that it's "accelerating investments" on its in-game Teammates companions. Meanwhile, Ubisoft developers are apparently "making tangible progress organically on AI applications."
It's vague, but it's a commitment: Ubisoft keeps going all-in on generative AI, and it says it's got better games in the pipe. It's probably reasonable to expect, then, an increased presence of AI tech in Ubisoft's next three years of releases, quality pending.
