Although it might not have blown fans away, the Ubisoft conference was definitely adequate. Aisha Tyler hosted the conference as usual and the biggest takeaway from her monologues was Ubisoft’s acknowledgment of the bugs and problems with some of their recent games.
That said, Ubisoft decided to start out strong by announcing the sequel to South Park: The Stick of Truth, titled South Park: The Fractured but Whole. As a fan of Stick of Truth, I cannot wait for another South Park game. The creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, hinted that the sequel would focus more on superheroes. The trailer also showcased some of the new gameplay. The game looks like exactly what the gaming world needs, considering how over-saturated it is with open world games with hundreds of hours of content. South Park’s raunchy humor was already seen in the trailer, from the title of the game to a jab at pre-ordering it. The game promises to be as good as any South Park episode, if not better.
Ubisoft’s next game was a new intellectual property called For Honor. It is a team based co-op game featuring melee combat. Players can choose to play as three types of warriors from history – Vikings, Samurais, and Knights. The game’s trailer showed off these classes and the combat system, which incidentally seemed too close to that of Skyrim. Although I was underwhelmed by the game’s trailer, the live 4 v 4 demo of the game left me optimistic. The demo also showed hints of the games ‘Art of Combat’ system, which supposedly reflects everything from the weight of the blade to the impact of each strike. The game looks like it could be interesting if its content is not restricted to co-op.
Normal saturday night with your bros
The conference moved on to expansion packs for existing games, starting with The Crew. Wild Run adds a lot of content to the game. I must admit that the expansion pack seemed meaty enough, even though specifics would have been appreciated. The other game that received an expansion pack was Trials Fusion. The Awesome Level Max expansion was announced but details were missing again.
The next game was one of the most anticipated games in Ubisoft’s conference, which was evident from the crowd’s reaction. Tom Clancy’s The Division was announced last year and fans have been waiting for a long time to get their hands on it. The presentation specified that even though The Division was an open world RPG, the game still had co-op elements at its heart. The demo took place in the Dark Zone, a quarantined area. It introduced other neutral players during a routine fight and showed players that choices could be made about whether to work with or against those other players. The demo was definitely one of the best at E3 so far. Fans were ecstatic when the release date was set for March 8, 2016. The Division is shaping up to be a great RPG and I cannot wait to join the beta in early 2016. The game’s release date seems just a tad bit too far away, but I would rather get my hands on a finished product without bugs than an Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Anno 2205 at its base is a city and world building game. One of the few genre’s that Ubisoft doesn’t dominate. The trailer initially was cool, so cool in fact that I forgot I was watching a trailer for a city building game. Traveling to the moon and building futuristic cities around the world is a very good idea certainly not new but it’s fresh from Ubisoft’s perspective. Then came Just Dance. It happens every year, usually with a game like Just Dance. Where a celebrity comes out on stage and sings for the group of journalists just trying to do their job. It’s annoying but let’s face it it was still better than most of EA’s conference. That being said there is little to say about Just Dance, you either play it and love it like many people do or you just don’t care.
Breaking into the entourage house
Angela Basset then came out to shock us almost as much as the South Park game shocked us. I’ll be honest I didn’t even think RS: Siege would even have a single player type of component and from what they showed I’m still a bit skeptical on whether it will have one. Either way Rainbow Six looks to be shaping up well, and those rumors of delays must be false because we are getting closer and closer to release. “Terrohunt” is a questionable name, but I digress. The new map looked much more polished than anything I’ve seen in the Alpha this past year. And hopefully, there is more to this story mode than what we were given.
Trackmania felt a bit like a game I could just push under the rug. I’m not sure where it fits into a company that has The Crew; sure another racing game is great but other than being dropped from the sky I’m not sure the purpose of this game. But that was followed up by the yearly Assassin’s Creed, Syndicate looks like an Assassin’s Creed game… A lot like Just Dance you either love it or don’t care. No gameplay but a nice cinematic trailer that showed off some carriage riding. Still would like to see Evie game-play but I suppose people won’t buy an Assassin’s Game without a brooding male protagonist.
But then the show stopper was a brand new game. Ghost Recon: Wildlands, the trailer was so long that I eventually got annoyed I didn’t know what it was called. It looks great, its Pre-Alpha game-play so I guarantee that will not look the same, and we probably won’t play it until 2018, but it’s cool to see Ubi end on another surprise like last year. South Park and Wildlands are the clear standouts this year for Ubisoft. I can’t express enough how excited I am for more South Park. But overall a good if not great conference with plenty of depths and actual game-play by games like For Honor, RS: Siege, The Division and a tease of what’s to come in the future.
