Ubisoft is making changes to ensure its games feel more distinct

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Writing for us last year, Rick Lane declared that Not every Ubisoft game needs to be a Ubisoft game. Like many players he was underwhelmed by Ghost Recon Breakpoint in particular, saying that, "Ubisoft basically released the same game again, only with additional systems scavenged from other projects and awkwardly stapled to Breakpoint’s head. These included the conversation system from Assassin’s Creed, and the loot system from The Division."

The similarities between every Ubisoft open-world game were blamed for disappointing sales of Breakpoint and The Division 2, two of Ubisoft's more significant 2019 releases. According to an exclusive published by VGC, the company's editorial team are being revamped in an effort to differentiate Ubisoft's future games.

The editorial team are a group of designers and producers based in Paris whose advice has been blamed for pushing Ubisoft's big-budget games toward their samey focus on open worlds with maps full of icons, online features, and according to VGC, "insisted that its narratives had a thematic basis in the real world, but avoided taking a political stance."

A reorganization and expansion of the editorial team is Ubisoft's proposed solution, with each of its vice president being assigned just one franchise to oversee and being given more autonomy to go their own way. 

VGC adds that one in-development Ubisoft Montreal game has been canceled as part of this process, and several other games are being "reworked" to make sure each one feels unique.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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