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Ubisoft is donating $564,000 to help rebuild Notre-Dame
Following the fire that devastated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris this week, Ubisoft has pledged €500,000 ($564,000) to help restore the iconic church. The studio, which faithfully recreated Notre-Dame in Assassin's Creed Unity, is also offering that game for free until April 25th on PC to honor the landmark. "We want to give everyone the chance to experience the majesty and beauty of Notre-Dame the best way we know how," Ubisoft, which is headquartered in France and has studios in Paris, said.
There won't be an 'Assassin's Creed' game this year
Time-traveling parkour people, take it easy this year. Ubisoft will not release a new Assassin's Creed game in 2016, breaking the franchise's annual launch schedule for the first time since 2009. Ubisoft says it's listened to fan feedback since the release of Assassin's Creed Unity, a game that was plagued by technical glitches when it launched in 2014. Sales of last year's installment, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, were slower than expected, Ubisoft noted in its quarterly financial report released today.
Even Sony thinks that day one game patches are getting out of hand
Being forced to wait for several hours for a day one update to download takes the shine off buying a new game. What began as a way for developers to make some last-minute fixes has now enabled them to ship half-finished products and fix them long after purchase. It's become such a problem that even Sony's Jim Ryan agrees that the trend of massive, time-consuming patches has gotten out of hand, and is pledging that the company will "tighten up" its practices in the future.
Ubisoft apologizes for 'Assassin's Creed' bugs with free add-ons and games
Ubisoft may not have a way to turn back time and release Assassin's Creed Unity without a slew of glitches, but it's at least trying to make amends to jilted gamers. The studio has announced that it's giving every Unity owner a free copy of the upcoming Dead Kings add-on that they'd have previously had to buy. That's not a radical concept in itself (Driveclub's developer is doing the same), but Ubi is going one step further by giving Season Pass holders their choice of free game, such as Far Cry 4 or Watch Dogs. And for that matter, it's scrapping sales of the Season Pass altogether. Existing subscribers will still get extra content, but latecomers will have to buy extras one at a time. The company is clearly aware that it did something wrong -- let's just hope that it learns its lesson and takes its time polishing future games. [Image credit: King_Anesti, Steam Community]
Why are so many video games broken at launch?
Allow me to begin with my very best Andy Rooney impersonation: When I was growing up, there was no such thing as a "day one patch." I went to Video Station on Saturday with my parents -- if I was lucky -- and came home with a single rented game for the weekend. James Pond or Bubsy the Bobcat or Blast Corps or whatever. Maybe I'd have to blow out the cart, or erase the last renter's save file before playing whatever game I rented. Let's imagine a similar scenario today: You go to a Redbox kiosk or GameFly mails you a disc for your Modern GameBox™. Upon inserting said disc, your GameBox turns on and begins installing the game. The wait begins. It's now several percentage points in and ready to start running. You hit the button. "An update is required to play this game." This is when you take a moment to swear under your breath. This is "the future"? Now imagine your next step is finding out that multiplayer is broken, or that the game won't load, or that it barely runs. You've got our current situation.
Playdate: We're livestreaming 'Assassin's Creed Unity' on Xbox One! (update: game over!)
Who doesn't like climbing gorgeous buildings in historic time periods and then leaping from said buildings? Suckers, that's who. Oh, and maybe people who've yet to experience an Assassin's Creed game, now in its seventh iteration with this year's model: Assassin's Creed Unity. Beyond the now usual changes (a new locale, a new main character), ACU adds co-op gameplay, a dedicated stealth button and it's built with current-gen in mind -- ACU is only playable on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, while Assassin's Creed Rogue was created specifically for last-gen game consoles. The game's gotten some rocky reviews thus far, but we're longtime series fans and want to show you Paris through the eyes of an assassin. Join us below for a day in the life of Assassin's Creed Unity main character Arno Dorian, and bring your sharpest assassin blade just in case.
'Assassin's Creed Unity': The Joystiq Review
It was the best of Assassin's Creed, it was the worst of Assassin's Creed. So it goes with Assassin's Creed Unity, the newest game in Ubisoft's alternate-history series, where sci-fi tech allows you to relive the secret war between Assassins and Templars. Unity succeeds where it needs to, but it falls short of the metaphorical, fall-breaking haybale almost everywhere else, landing with a sickening thud on hard pavement. Unity is capable of inspiring loving adoration while simultaneously bringing you to boiling hatred. It aims high, fails more often than it triumphs, and is in dire need of a technical re-tweaking. At the same time, whenever the pieces align, it feels like coming home. Click here for more
Ubisoft pulls 'Far Cry 4' from Steam, then puts it back (update)
What happened not too long ago with Electronic Arts and its Origin platform appears to be happening with Ubisoft too. As Kotaku has noticed, Ubisoft's trio of tentpole releases for this fall -- Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry 4 and The Crew -- are no longer available on Valve's game store, seemingly disappearing overnight. Curiously, older entries in each respective franchise are still available (and reasonably priced) on Gabe Newell's one-stop PC-gaming shop. Even weirder yet? VG247 has spotted that ACU and FC4 are now listed on Origin. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense especially considering Ubisoft has its own digital storefront. We've pinged the outfit's PR team for details about what's up and will update this post should we hear back. Update: As many in the comments have pointed out, all three games are in fact available on Steam once again. What was behind their removal? For now at least, Ubisoft isn't saying.
Stroll through modern Paris as the voice of Gollum narrates its bloody past
Should you want to take a virtual stroll through Paris before neck-stabbing your way around the City of Love in Assassin's Creed: Unity, the game's publisher Ubisoft has you covered. With the Project Widow web app, you can explore La Ville-Lumière in a Google Street-View-esque fashion, picking up tidbits of trivia and watching game-themed rap videos (seriously) along the way. The disembodied voice of mo-cap master Andy Serkis cropping up, however, is the real treat. As noted by Joystiq, his in-character accounts of the Bastille and Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom from the view of a French Revolutionary are pretty great stuff. Maybe, just maybe, if the voice of Gollum had taught my world history class I wouldn't need a video game to help me catch up on Louis the XVI's excesses.
'Assassin's Creed: Unity' gets redesigned open world, ships October 28th
Earlier today at Microsoft's Xbox One E3 event, we got a glimpse of four-player co-op in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Unity. But the developer's giving the new title a proper unveiling at its own show, with an extended trailer showing in-game footage and a release date: October 28th. Alex Amancio, Creative Director for the title, said that his team "redesigned the building blocks of Assassin's Creed" for Unity to let players "carve [their] own unique path through the game." Gameplay for Unity focuses on assassin Arno Dorian and looks to feature more of the same stealth and murder mechanic we've seen in previous installments of the franchise. This time, though, all that cloak and dagger carnage takes place during the French Revolution.
Assassin's Creed: Unity brings a French flair to stealth action on PC, PS4 and Xbox One
We hope you're making good progress on Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, because there's already a sequel on the way. Ubisoft has unveiled Assassin's Creed: Unity, a follow-up that takes the stealthy game series to Paris during the French Revolution. Clearly, you can expect guillotines to play an important role. You'll get a tiny hint of the experience in the teaser video below. However, it's worth noting that the trailer only shows Unity coming to PCs, the PS4 and the Xbox One -- there's no mention of the Wii U or previous-generation systems. We've reached out to Ubisoft to check on platform support, but there's a good chance that the developer is focusing all its attention on higher-end hardware this time around.
