Zephyrnet Logo

Every Ubisoft Game in Development

Date:

Ubisoft is a massive company. According to its own data, the video game publishing giant owns over 45 development studios and employs over 20,000 people — significantly more than competitors such as EA — though Ubisoft is reportedly dealing with an exodus of talent.

Despite its ongoing struggles, Ubisoft is continuing to focus on producing new entries in its stable of established franchises — Assassin’s Creed, Tom Clancy, and Far Cry, to name a few — while intermittently experimenting with new franchises like Immortals Fenyx Rising and Riders Republic. It’s a one-two punch that makes Ubisoft and its development decisions interesting to follow, even if those experiments don’t always pan out.

To give you a better idea of the company’s current production pipeline, we’ve created this list of every Ubisoft game we know to be in development for consoles and PC. (Rumored projects and mobile games are not included.) Click through the gallery below or continue scrolling for our rundown of all 16 announced games in development at Ubisoft, as of February 2022.

Every Ubisoft Game in Development

In an October 2021 earnings call (via VGC), Ubisoft
CEO Yves Guillemot said Infinity will be “a huge game but with lots of elements that already exist in [past Assassin’s Creed] games.” He added it will not be free-to-play.

The project is said to be years away from release. To bridge the gap between Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Infinity, Ubisoft has reportedly turned one of Valhalla’s upcoming expansions into a standalone game set in Baghdad. Bloomberg says the game is “smaller in scope” than the last few Assassin’s Creed games, with a revived focus on stealth gameplay. It’s expected to be released in 2022 or 2023.

Assassin’s Creed VR

Another new game in the expansive world of Assassin’s Creed is in development exclusively for Oculus VR.

Red Storm Entertainment, the studio behind previous Ubisoft VR games Werewolf Within and Star Trek Bridge Crew, is leading development with support from Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Mumbai, and Reflections.

Ubisoft has yet to reveal much about its Assassin’s Creed VR game, only saying it’s being created “from the ground up specifically for the Oculus platform” and will incorporate “elements from the franchise that fans know and love.”

Beyond Good and Evil 2

Where to begin? How about fourteen years ago, in 2008, when Ubisoft first announced a follow-up to Beyond Good and Evil. Ubisoft would mention the project intermittently between then and 2017 when Beyond Good and Evil 2 was officially revealed.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 is an ambitious (perhaps overly so), interplanetary action-adventure RPG. It’s intended to be a “massive, seamless online environment” that can be experienced solo or cooperatively.

Story-wise, Beyond Good and Evil 2 will be a prequel, though Ubisoft is billing it as a “spiritual successor” to the 2003 original. It’s set on the System 3 solar system, home to human and hybrid clones. Here’s a more detailed story synopsis from Ubisoft: “While corporations fight over resources and power, the clones weave together the rich and diverse spiritual and cultural heritages of Old Earth, a past and planet they never knew. In this new era of piracy, you will rise from a lowly pirate to a legendary one, adventuring alongside colorful characters to forge your own path across the stars.” Returning characters include original protagonist Jade, pig-hybrid Pey’j, and rhino-hybrid Mammagos.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 Concept Art

Development was initially led by the original game’s creator, Michel Ancel, before he retired in 2020 to open a wildlife sanctuary. Ancel had been under investigation at Ubisoft shortly before his departure due to allegations of toxic behavior. Speaking with GamesIndustry, he claimed there was no link between the investigation and his departure. A new creative lead has not been publicly announced.

Shortly after news of Ancel’s departure broke, Ubisoft put out a statement saying the director hadn’t been “directly involved in BG&E2 for some time.” It also announced its intention to show gameplay in 2021, though that never materialized.

A Bloomberg report published in February 2022 claimed Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in pre-production, five years after it was officially revealed. The last official development update came during a 2021 earnings call when Ubisoft was asked about a potential release year. CFO Frederick Duguet responded, ”We’ve progressed well with Beyond Good & Evil 2, but it’s too early to tell you at this stage.”

In our E3 2017 write-up, IGN’s Jon Ryan wrote,”I can’t recall how many times during my meeting with the development team of Beyond Good & Evil 2 I thought to myself, ‘This is impossible.’” Perhaps it was, JR. Perhaps it was.

Roller Champions

Revealed at E3 2019, Roller Champions is presumably still in development at Ubisoft. However, all does not seem to be well with the free-to-play, roller derby-inspired multiplayer game.

Roller Champions was playable at E3 2019 and seemingly on track for its early 2020 release window. However, it would eventually be pushed to early 2021, which would come and go without a release or a proper delay announcement.

As of early 2022, there’s still no official update on Roller Champions. The official Twitter account hasn’t posted since June 2021, and Ubisoft effectively brushed off a question about its status during an earnings call last October.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline

Ubisoft Bucharest is leading development on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline, a free-to-play, objective-based spin on the battle royale genre.

Frontline’s premier mode is the team-based, 102-player Expedition. Unlike other battle royales, the objective is not to be the last team standing, nor will it be set on an ever-shrinking map. Instead, Expedition is won by claiming intel that leads to a drop zone. There, teams can be extracted from the Drakemoor Island map to claim victory, though enemy teams will have the opportunity to steal the extraction helicopter for themselves.

Three character classes have been revealed so far — Scout, Assault, and Support — each with their
own special ability, gadgets, and skills. A closed test was scheduled to take place a week after Frontline was announced in October, though it was delayed at the last minute and instead held in late January.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Remake

The past decade has been rather unkind to Splinter Cell fans: Dead-end teases, seemingly false leaks, fake-out announcements, and undesired crossovers had left fans pessimistic about the series’ future. That changed in late 2021 when Ubisoft finally announced it had greenlit a new Splinter Cell, a remake of the 2002 original game in development at its Toronto-based studio. It’ll be the series’ first new entry since Toronto’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist in 2013.

The Snowdrop engine remake is “in the very earliest stages of development,” according to Ubisoft. Chris Auty, former level design director on Far Cry 6, serves as the project’s creative director. He said it’s important to the team to preserve the essence of Splinter Cell and the sense of mastery it can beget by “supporting players who observe the situations, make their plan, use their gadgets, and outsmart the enemy creatively to deal with the challenges they are presented with.”

Producer Matt West echoed that sentiment, confirming the remake will remain linear, rather than becoming open world: “Every square inch is part of a choice, or directly offers a choice, or has a direct ramification. That density of gameplay is at the forefront in Splinter Cell, and that’s going to be really, really important for us. The gameplay experience we are targeting is directly tied to what we want players to feel, to capture the essence back when we were all playing the original games.”

As for what will be different this time around (aside from vast visual improvements) West says “some of the design elements [will be updated] to match player comfort and expectations” that have evolved in the 20 years since the original was released.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell VR

Announced alongside the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed VR game, Splinter Cell VR is another Oculus exclusive in development at Red Storm Entertainment. It, too, is being built “from the ground up” for VR and will incorporate “elements from the franchise that fans know and love.”

The project was leaked ahead of its announcement as part of a report detailing Meta’s beefed-up game development strategy.

Tom Clancy’s XDefiant

The last of three free-to-play shooters in development at Ubisoft is Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, a 6v6 arena shooter in which you play as various factions from the Tom Clancy universe, such as Ghost Recon’s Wolves, Splinter Cell’s Echelon, and The Divisions Outcasts and Cleaners.

Ubisoft held a closed test in August, after which it published a blog post saying there’s still “a ways to go before launch.” Most recently, the developer published a blog on how it’s approaching time-to-kill in XDefiant. There’s no official release window for the shooter.

Development is being led by Ubisoft San Francisco. Mark Rubin, who previously worked on Call of Duty for 10 years, is an executive producer on the project, while South Park: The Fractured But Whole director Jason Schroder serves as creative director.

Ubisoft’s Star Wars

Ubisoft and Lucasfilm Games are officially collaborating on a narrative-driven, open-world Star Wars game. The project’s announcement in early 2021 signaled the end of EA’s long-held Star Wars video game exclusivity.

Massive Entertainment is leading development, with The Division 2 lead Julian Gerighty once again at the helm. Massive is also working on the aforementioned Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Both games are being built in the studio’s own Snowdrop engine.

Every Star Wars Game in Development

spot_img

Latest Intelligence

spot_img

Chat with us

Hi there! How can I help you?