The previous Ubisoft Forward event, held just over a week ago, brought players plenty of good stuff, from new trailers to announcements to deeper looks at upcoming games. It’s going to be hard to top, but that’s exactly what Ubisoft is looking to do when they host the next event in September, just a few months away.
What’s exciting about this second event is that nobody really knows what to expect. The first event showcased a lot of upcoming games that players were waiting to hear about. Now that those are out in the open, what does that leave for September’s conference?
We’ll probably see more of Far Cry 6, posted above, which was officially announced at Forward and won’t hit retail shelves until February of 2021. We could see more of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion, but considering that they launch not long after the event, it’s hard to get excited about another preview. And Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad, coming to mobile, will already be out before September rolls around.
So what will we see at this new event? There’s the recently leaked reveal of a new Splinter Cell title. That could be announced, which would send some gamers through the roof after a long 7-year wait. They could talk about Beyond Good & Evil 2. There’s Skull and Bones, a title inspired by the naval combat in Assassin’s Creed, originally announced in 2017. The game is reportedly being reworked and will follow the live-service model.
There’s the action-adventure title Gods and Monsters, which is apparently undergoing a name change. We haven’t heard about that one in a while.
And then, of course, there are the numerous allegations of sexual harassment that have majorly rocked the company in the last few months. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla creative director Ashraf Ismail stepped down after numerous accusations were leveled at him directly. A report in Bloomberg News compared Ubisoft’s Paris headquarters to a fraternity house.
The company has reportedly moved forward with reorganizations of both their editorial team and human resources team. The issues weren’t addressed at the recent Ubisoft event, due in part to most of the event being planned long in advance. Unless they have a few major surprise games up their sleeve, it’s possible that this second event will be partially devoted to discussing what’s been going on internally.
That will no doubt be disappointing to some gamers, who would rather hear about games and nothing but games, but these are important developments that need to be addressed in an extremely transparent matter.