Ubisoft has a rather impressive track record when it comes to E3 press conferences so the expectations were rather high from the start. Right from the start, it was clear that the company was here to impress. The result, however, was a briefing that varied from extremely impressive to extremely boring. It certainly had its moments but overall, it lacked a steady pacing and some more reveals.
An extremely strong start
Where the other conferences focused on existing games and showcases of upcoming games with flashy CGI trailers, Ubisoft wanted to do things differently. They made that clear right from the start with their presentation of the upcoming Watch Dogs Legion. Ubisoft doesn’t want to sell promises in the form of epic looking CGI trailers, they want to convince their fans with solid gameplay, a rather bold move compared to the others but I’m pretty sure it left the right impression for a lot of viewers. Now, we won’t discuss all the details here (that’s for the summary) but it certainly was a welcomed change to see the game actually running rather than just another CGI trailer.
And then, they kind of lost it
How much I liked the opening of the show with the Assassin’s Creed symphony and the Watch Dogs Legion reveal, things went South rather quickly after that. Ubisoft decided it was time to bring details on games we already have in our hands like Rainbow Six or shifted focus to already announced games like Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. To kill the pacing entirely there suddenly was a bit too much talking and a bit too much reveals of mobile and Apple TV projects that nobody really cares about, oh and the obligated Just Dance routine also made a return of course. A bit of a shame if you ask me, with a stellar start of your briefing, it’s a bit of a waste to move over to slower announcements. It would have been great to have a fast-paced briefing including great game after great game but that wasn’t really the case right now. The briefing kind of lost it in the middle and it was rather hard to focus during those parts.
UPlay+ might be a step in the wrong direction
If there’s one thing certain, it’s the fact that everybody wants to jump onto the Game Streaming bandwagon, Ubisoft doesn’t form the exception here. The company announced UPlay+ their new service similar to the Xbox Game Pass with access to stellar games, classic, and DLC packs. Now, opinions might vary here but I don’t really like this direction the company is going. They announced a partnership with Google Stadia, releasing UPlay+ on the new Google service for starters. It’s not an unlogical announcement since streaming is clearly a hot item but is this really what we wanted to see from Ubisoft? Instead of giving us truly amazing games, we get another streaming service to stack on top of the pile of available services. Time will tell what the service will deliver when it launches but right now, I’m not impressed nor pleased with this reveal.
Even the big surprise ending couldn’t save it
What Ubisoft always does best is ending with a bang. Stellar new game releases often get revealed at the end of their showcase and this year wasn’t any different. Gods & Monsters is the new game but it simply had too few details to get us excited at this point. Certainly, it looked amazing and the visual style of it is rather innovating but was it enough to save the conference from mediocracy? I’m afraid it wasn’t.
Conclusion:
Ubisoft started their convention extremely strong but then they kind of lost it after that. The reveals and updates that followed weren’t as impressive as we hoped for but we might have been too spoiled in the past? Generally speaking, however, Ubisoft didn’t really deliver what we were hoping for.
