From the moment that Ubisoft chose to open their E3 conference with aging rocker Jerry Cantrell cranking out a solo, it seemed clear that the company didn’t have a lot of cards up their sleeve. In fact for the first 30 minutes or so, Ubisoft took the opportunity to wow the audience with… almost literally nothing new at all.

With an updated edition of Rocksmith, a messy supercut Splinter Cell: Blacklist trailer consisting (as far as I can tell) entirely of trailers we’ve already seen and then a laborious explanation for The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot (which many members of the public are already testing), the only time the audience really reacted was when host Aisha Tyler mentioned South Park: The Stick of Truth and even the trailer for that was basically just one long extended fart joke and no actual gameplay footage.

However, all was not lost. Around the midway point Ubisoft really began to hit their stride, with CEO and Ubiboss Yves Guillemont revealing that the developers at Ivory Tower have been working on something called The Crew: a persistent, online racer that purports to have the entirety of the continental United States mapped out for your pleasure. It’s coming to PC in early 2014 and it sees you trying to infiltrate and take over a criminal organisation, which you can do through a series of vehicular based stuns because videogames. The demonstration showed that pulling your friends in and starting up some co-op was seamless, as was switching around between the different types of multiplayer offerings. The final footage of the game showed four players working together to perform a takedown of an enemy target, having been called in by their friend while they were off in another part of the country doing time trials, skill challenges, or other diversions.

From there it was a sudden slamp back to boredom again, with an all-CGI no-gameplay Watch Dogs trailer (which had, fittingly, already leaked before the conference), another instalment of Just Dance for an exciting new year, and another instalment of Raving Rabbids themed minigames and diversions. We were then finally treated to some new gameplay footage of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and another CGI trailer for it, before the reveal of Trials Fusion, a sci-fi themed Trials game for consoles and PC which links up with Trials Frontier, the new mobile edition of Trials. If you like Trials, it’s going to be a very good year for you.

It was the final reveal of the conference which had the most people talking, and for good reason — this was the long-awaited reveal of the ‘AAA next-gen online RPG’ that Ubisoft Massive have been keeping so close to their chest. Named Tom Clancy’s The Division, the game is a third-person persistent online shooter with strong exploration, survival and PVP elements set in a ruined modern world with only few remnants of current technology. Players do seem to have access to some high-tec gadgets however, including shield generators, mapping pulses and drones.

Unfortunately for PC players, it seems like The Division is only coming to PS4 and Xbox One. It’s not known whether players from different consoles will be able to interact, but it seems unlikely. Still, odds are good that The Division  will eventually make its way to PC, especially since the architecture to support it is already in place. From what we saw of it, it looked quite impressive, and certainly that sort of drop-in, drop-out PVP gameplay would go down a treat on Steam.

Ubisoft recently filed its fourth quarter and year end reports for fiscal 2013, reporting total sales of €1.26 billion for the year ($1.66 billion), an 18.4% increase on FY2012, and €175 million for the quarter ($230 million), an 8.7% year-on-year increase.

Far Cry 3 was one of the major movers and shakers behind this bounty, having shipped 6 million units, but The Settlers Online and Just Dance were also major performers, with Ubisoft highlighting the performance of free-to-play and casual games. The publisher noted that Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance had joined the ranks of the 20 best-selling franchies in the industry during the year.

It also revealed that the tepidly-received Assassin’s Creed III managed to ship 12.5 million units, including digital sales. During a post-release call to investors, Ubisoft said that it isn’t banking on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag to do the same.

“In our numbers we expect less than last year,” CEO Yves Guillemot said.

“We are actually pushing to achieve more than last year because we think the pirate segment is a great segment that can generate a lot more on a worldwide basis than what was achieved last year. But we wanted to be prudent on our expectations so that it can probably be a bonus if it comes.”

Other reveals from the call include word of the shelving of Patrice Desiléts’s 1666.

Source: Ubisoft IR via Blue’s News

Following the surprise announcement last week that Ubisoft had unceremoniously and quietly fired Patrice Desilets, the man who created Assassin’s Creed, they’ve now confirmed that work on the title he was heading up has been suspended.

During the company’s 2013 investor earnings call, CEO Yves Guillemont claimed that they had “suspended Project 1666 for an undisclosed period of time”. Guillemont also noted that “After more than two months of discussions with Patrice, we couldn’t align our visions both on the project development and team management.”

“Consequently, our collaboration has ended.”

Project 1666 was in development at THQ Montreal, which was acquired by Ubisoft in January (along with Desilets).

Source: IGN

Patrice Desilets, the man who designed the first two Assassin’s Creed games which went on to make Ubisoft squillions, left the company a while back to go work at THQ. Then, THQ collapsed, and Ubisoft purchased the studio that Patrice was leading, as well as the game they were working on — something called 1666.

Today, however, it looks like the relationship between Desiliets and the company has soured.

“Unfortunately, since the acquisition (of THQ Montreal), the good faith discussions between Patrice and Ubisoft aimed at aligning Patrice’s and the studio’s visions have been inconclusive,” reads a statement by Ubisoft. “As a result, Patrice has left the studio. Our priorities remain with the teams already hard at work on projects in development.”

Patrice, however, tells a different story.

“Contrary to any statements made earlier today, this morning I was terminated by Ubisoft. I was notified of this termination in person, handed a termination notice and was unceremoniously escorted out of the building by two guards without being able to say goodbye to my team or collect my personal belongings.”

“This was not my decision,” he wrote. “Ubisoft’s actions are baseless and without merit. I intend to fight Ubisoft vigorously for my rights, for my team and for my game.”

Kotaku claims to have spoken to sources which indicate 1666 has been suspended. Ubisoft have yet to make any comment on the matter.

Source: Kotaku

Ubisoft have contacted us with an official statement regarding the hack earlier in the week which saw users gain access to the entire Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon game (and others) by using a simple text editor.

“We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it quickly,” reads the official statement. “Uplay’s PC download service will be unavailable until the problem is fixed, but no personal information was compromised and all other Uplay services remain available.”

We’ll bring you further news as we have it.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon hasn’t even been announced for PC. There was a listing for it on the Steam database, but no release date (although a pulled XBLA listing claimed May 1). And yet, right now, you can open uPlay on your PC and trick it into downloading it for you. Then, you can play it to your heart’s content. Beginning to end.

This isn’t some half-assed beta. This is the full, finished game. It’s just sitting there on uPlay’s servers, waiting for the bigwigs to pull the switch.

Is this legal? Probably not. And just to be safe, I’m not going to tell you how to do it. By tomorrow morning Ubisoft will have fixed this exploit anyway. They’re not stupid, and in any case, that’s not the point.

The real point here is this: Ubisoft is off to a pretty poor start on its mission to improve its relationship with PC gamers.

This is a joke, right?

There are an enormous amount of areas where uPlay desperately needs to improve. We’ve documented them before. It’s a broken system, to the point where we recently had to spend 45 minutes figuring out how to set up and install some Assassin’s Creed III DLC (which, it turns out, contained only 90 minutes of play time anyway).

It’s a broken system that Ubisoft is even cramming into its Steam titles, forcing you to launch uPlay even when you’ve purchased your game through Steam — or even Origin! Why would I want to use one DRM system that launches another? Why would I want to have to maintain all these different friends lists?

And now, we’re seeing that this system is so broken — so completely broken — that players can actually manually tear the curtains aside, using something as simple as a text editor, and see what they’re not allowed to have. Or even take other games they haven’t paid for!

This is really, really, dumb. Why are we using uPlay again?

Don’t launch a half-baked product and force us to use it

I’ll be the first to argue that Ubisoft have the right, just as EA do, to invent and support their own digital marketplace and game management software. Steam is a middle man, and middle-men need to justify their existence. If a game’s publishers think they can do a better job in the age of the internet than the middle-man they used to sell through, then why shouldn’t they try? It’s madness to suggest otherwise, and if you ran Ubisoft, you’d do it too.

That’s fine, of course — in theory. But there’s no point in launching a service basically designed to steal customers from Steam if the end result is that you provide an experience objectively worse than Steam in every single way.

Ubisoft took a good step when it removed the always-online DRM requirement from its games. The company is to be congratulated for that. But just as having always-online DRM forced on us is unpalatable, so is having to use a system that simply doesn’t do its job.

The Streisand Effect

When videos of Blood Dragon started leaking this morning, Ubisoft just as quickly started to take them down. This, of course, didn’t work — a textbook example of the Streisand Effect in action or, if you prefer a more lowbrow explanation, “trying to take piss out of a pool”.

And, although Ubisoft can lock out Blood Dragon and make it so people won’t be able to play it any more (presumably), the damage here is done. The game’s files are in the open, and they’ll never come down from the internet again. It won’t be long before somebody figures out how to crack them and seventeen different torrents spring into existence.

The graceful way for the company to handle this would be turn around, to own this mistake, and to say “Whoops! Bad call on our part. Here’s all the information about Blood Dragon. We’ll be releasing the PC version on the same day as the console versions.”

I’d be very surprised if that’s what happens. In fact, I’d be very surprised if there’s an official comment on the matter at all.

PC gamers are sick of waiting for Ubisoft titles. Sometimes they’re day-and-date with the console versions — the simultaneous launch of Far Cry 3 for example was well handled — but Assassin’s Creed III players had to wait literally an entire month before they could get their hands on the game (and even then it was lacking in substantial graphics options).

It’s one thing to wait for a game, under the impression that it’s just not ready, or that the company is beavering away on it to make it extra special for your platform. But it’s another thing entirely to wait for a game, only to find out that it’s completely 100% ready and you just… can’t have it. Why? What does this mean? Was Assassin’s Creed III sitting on uPlay’s servers the entire 30 days PC gamers had to wait for it, and all we needed was a text editor to unlock it?

Now is the time

We’ve already outlined here on games.on.net the number of ways we think Ubisoft needs to lift its game, and our commenters have done the same countless times. This anger with Ubisoft’s practices is born not out of misplaced entitlement, but out of simple frustration: we like Ubisoft games. Far Cry 3 was balls-out fun. Assassin’s Creed III was great (mostly). Watch Dogs is looking amazing.

We’re just frustrated because the relationship seems so one-sided. We love these games, and we want to play them — but we have to deal with this utterly broken uPlay framework, and this arms-length treatment. It doesn’t make PC gamers feel wanted, and it doesn’t make us feel like our relationship is improving.

Today’s episode with Blood Dragon has the potential to be a turning point in that relationship — for better or worse. Ubisoft needs to step up and deal with this, before it turns sour.

Over the last few years Ubisoft has replaces a number of formerly vilified publishers to become the PC gamer’s antagonist of choice, with its – shall we say, unpopular? – DRM practices; delayed or absent PC releases for multiplatform titles; and shoddy ports. Its Uplay service is often resented as an unnecessary extra step of authentication, and its extension to third-party titles hasn’t gone down very well.

Worldwide director Stephanie Perotti says the publisher is aware of feedback and working hard to win back gamers’ trust by providing an alternative to existing digital distributors.

“Announcing all these partners for Uplay and a wider choice of PC games, it shows our commitment to PC, and we want to improve our relationship with the PC community,” she told MCV.

“We are always seeking to improve. We took a lot of that feedback on board. With every game on PC we are improving. Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed III on PC were very high quality.”

I don’t think you can have too much choice. It is just another way to expose more content. At Uplay we are also offering all Ubisoft titles, more console content and elements that gamers are more interested in. It’s about offering more options and more choice.”

Source: MCV

In a surprising twist, today Ubisoft and EA agreed to use each others’ digital delivery platforms to sell each others’ various games. Presumably coming together in a concerted effort to make Steam less appealing, the two publishers will now work together rather than trying to cut each others’ lunch.

In fact, Ubisoft is opening its doors to all manner of third-party developers for the first time, including Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, 1C Company, bitComposer Games, Bohemia Interactive, Encore Software, Focus Home Interactive, Freebird Games, Iceberg Interactive, Nordic Games, Paradox Interactive, Recoil Games, Robot Entertainment, Telltale Games, and Torn Banner Studios.

There’s no word on whether or not installing an EA game through uPlay will require you to launch Origin, or if buying an Ubisoft game through Origin will mean firing up uPlay anyway. Hopefully not, as that would be… well, the word “horrific” springs to mind.

Source: Press Release

You may remember several months ago, some screenshots surfaced that many speculated were Prince of Persian in origin. They came up again yesterday when Ubisoft Montreal’s CEO stated that the Prince of Persia franchise had been paused. Speculations were that it was taking place in some sort of Egyptian setting that we couldn’t quite make out.

Well, we were right and we were wrong, it turns out. It was an Egyptian setting, but it wasn’t Prince of Persia. It was called ‘Osiris’, and a rough-cut trailer was uploaded to Vimeo five months ago as part of the composer’s portfolio.

Between this and Ubi Montreal’s statement about the franchise yesterday, Polygon went straight to the source to clear it up. It was definitely A Thing, they replied, but said Thing has been shuttered.

“The content in question was from a Ubisoft project that is no longer moving forward,” An Ubi rep replied.

Head over to Vimeo to check out what exists of the trailer and let us know what you think of it. Can you see any little hints in there we may have missed out on?

Source: Polygon

If you follow industry gossip at all, you’ll know that Ubisoft’s acquisition of THQ Montreal is a little bit amusing, because the studio was founded when Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Desiléts jumped ship to THQ, taking so many former colleagues with him that Ubisoft sought an injunction against its rogue agent.

Desiléts is yet to speak out about the acquisition, but Ubisoft Canada boss Yannis Mallat seems pretty calm about it. “I’ve known Patrice for 13 years and I know him very well, he’s a great talent and I respect him as a creator. We’re very happy to look forward to working with him again,” Mallat told the Financial Post.

THQ Montreal employs around 170 staff and was working on two new IPs, codenamed 1666 and Underdog, which Ubisoft now owns. Ubisoft already has extensive offices in Montreal, where its flagship development studio boasts one of the highest headcounts in the world and has fingers in practically every triple-A Ubi pie.

Source: Financial Post via GamesRadar

MCV UK is reporting overnight that Ubisoft are rumoured to be considering a purchase of the struggling THQ, who recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as they restructure.

According to sources within Ubisoft, the company is currently in negotiations with THQ (or their new owners at Clearlake Capital) but aren’t willing to drop the dosh on THQ until the price drops to bottom-barrel levels. Ubisoft are reportedly prepared to hold out until THQ becomes desperate enough to sell off specific assets — presumably, one or two key franchises that the French company have had their eye on.

Ubisoft have made no comment, and considering the nature of the story, probably won’t. More as it happens!

Source: MCV UK

Ubisoft desperately want their Uplay platform to take off, and it makes sense; why advertise another company’s store-front when you could have one all your own? Why merely share in your profits when you could reap the entire amount for yourself? In theory this sounds like a reasonable justification, but in practice it seems that companies have yet to learn that competing with Steam is a tough row to hoe, and that their legitimate customers are the ones yoked to the plough.

1. Uplay or Steam. Not both.

Uplay’s first and most egregious misstep is that it is a secondary and inferior DRM hurdle for customers purchasing Ubisoft titles via Steam. If you wish to have your copy of Assassin’s Creed III or Far Cry 3 listed alongside the rest of your Steam game collection, you’ll have to put up with jumping through both Steam and Uplay’s hoops to get to the content that you have rightly paid for.

Not only do you have to be signed into Steam, but you also need to have Uplay running to be able to play. It would be fairly safe to assume from comments made by Ubisoft leading up to the release of these titles that this situation was the compromise reached jointly with Valve to get ACIII and FC3 listed on Steam.

2. Implement a Redeem Code feature.

Steam’s snappy, intuitive, and almost utilitarian user interface plays a major part in users’ support of the platform. Uplay, on the other hand, makes a number of mistakes when it comes to ensuring that users feel comfortable and confident as they navigate through their catalogue of Ubisoft purchases. For one, there is no obvious Redeem Code feature listed in the application. This means that users need to either install their disk-based games, or wait for the painfully slow and completely separate from Uplay retail downloader to put their files in place before Uplay will acknowledge their purchases. The Redeem Code feature is designed to eliminate the gap between sale payment and fulfilment, a fretful and confidence-fraying period for customers trying a service for the first time. The fact that the service does not make it clear how to associate your purchases with your account is not a great first impression.

3. Make updates secondary to gameplay.

Steam has made many advances in getting out of the user’s way, and one of the most notable examples is its ability to apply updates in the background. This means that it is far more likely that your games will be updated and ready to go when you’re ready to play.

Uplay has no such feature. It checks for updates when you attempt to run a game. This means that if an update exists, you must waste precious gaming time waiting for it to be downloaded and applied. Implementing a background update process is more complex than it sounds, but a quick stop-gap measure would be for the check to apply on exit, so that the update can be applied between gaming sessions rather than delaying your current one.

4. Gracefully handle the movement of game files.

At the time of writing, it isn’t possible to move your installed games from one location to another without reinstalling them completely. If Uplay loses access to a documented installation location, it will not associate itself with those files again unless you reinstall the game from scratch. Thankfully if you bought your games on disk, this process doesn’t take long, but if you bought the game from their download service, look forward to another game-sized hole in your monthly data cap.

5. Back Uplay points with quality content.

The one truly good idea buried amongst all of this Uplay cruft is the Uplay Points system. Associating some actual value to achievement points is genuinely exciting — finally, something you can do with those achievements! Unfortunately, the content on offer for users to spend their Uplay points on has been almost uniformly sub-par. If Ubisoft instead made some high-quality content available for purchase with Uplay points, perhaps some of their paid DLC or even physical items, statues, tchotchkes and the like, they would have one major selling point over Steam.

Admittedly, it has taken a number of years for Steam to reach its current dominant position on PC. There have been dark times, many of us are still trying to forget the horrors of the Half-Life 2 launch, and so it may be unfair to compare the two. That said, Ubisoft are clearly attempting to position Uplay as a competitor to Steam, and thus will naturally invite such comparisons. Sadly, they still have a long way to go to match the disappointing EA Origin service on a platform level.

Far Cry 3‘s co-developer Ubisoft Massive are working on a next-gen triple-A online RPG, according to an employee’s LinkedIn profile. Marc Cartwright, who has since changed his profile, was listed as a ‘Game Designer on AAA Next-Gen Online RPG’ on the site, and is now listed as simply a ‘Game Designer at Massive Entertainment’. Hmmm.

Cartwright has a history of working on MMOs and the title is described as an ‘Online RPG’ so there is speculation that the mystery title is an MMO. There are also rumours that it is related to some screenshots that were leaked, screenshots which many speculated were a new Prince of Persia game. Hopefully it won’t be a Prince of Persia MMO, because that seems like a terrible idea.

What do you think, sports racers? Do you know something we don’t? Do you have anything to add? Which would you rather it be, Prince of Persia or MMO? Or would you like to see a PoP MMO? Let us know.

Source: VG247

It’s no secret THQ are in serious financial trouble. In case you haven’t been following, here’s a quick recap: first poor financials meant they had to delay some of their top upcoming titles, games they hoped would be their saviour; then following that news, their share price plummeted. Finally, it was reported that they had defaulted on their $50 million line of credit with Wells Fargo.

All in all, not doing so hot. THQ are now, understandably, looking for new ways to inject an influx of cashy-money into their company. One way to get some quick cash would be to sell off some IP — a prospect that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has said would interest his company. “They have good things,” he told GamesIndustry.biz as part of a larger interview. “We are always interested in good brands. For sure, it’s something we can consider, but I can’t tell you more.”

Speaking more generally of THQ’s hard times, Guillemot said that it was lamentable, but part of the nature of the beast.

“What happened to [THQ] is something that happens regularly when we have transition,” he said. “Some can make it, some decide to go in different direction. It happened with Atari and Midway and also Acclaim last generation. … It’s something that happens in this industry and that’s the way the industry consolidates.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

An interview with the outspoken Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemont has revealed that he plans to steer the company away from AAA releases and into the promising waters of F2P and smartphone games. Asked if a new era of consoles and wide cross-platform releases would result in fewer titles, Yves confirmed: “With next gen consoles, it’s going toward bigger games, and yes, we will make less of them.”

“But with free-to-play games, the teams aren’t as big,” he continued. “so we can try different things and find subjects that are of interest to consumers. We announced Mighty Quest for Epic Loot last week, and we are announcing new types of games. This new environment is actually giving us the chance – because we’re reaching new consumers – to develop new types of game brand and experience.”

“What I like about the F2P model is that you are with your consumers all the time – you can spend six months refining the gameplay and then put it in another environment, another title, because you automatically know it works well.”

Yves was famously quoted back in August as saying that the company made a similar amount of profit from F2P games as from AAA titles due to what he called a “93-95% PC piracy rate“.

Source: Guardian via Blue’s News

We interrupt your regular evening programming to bring you breaking news out of the good folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Ubisoft are publicly scrapping their always-on DRM that has been so upsettingly crowbarred into their PC titles of recent years.

Ubisoft’s worldwide director for online games, Stephanie Perotti, explains that “whenever you want to reach any online service, multiplayer, you will have to be connected, and obviously for online games you will also need to be online to play. But if you want to enjoy Assassin’s Creed III single player, you will be able to do that without being connected. And you will be able to activate the game on as many machines as you want.”

While Perotti refused to admit that always-online DRM was a mistake and described previous comments by the company that it had been effective in reducing piracy as “unfortunate”, she remained adamant that Ubisoft had quietly axed the policy in June last year.

“We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time online activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline.”

It’s been a long time coming, but this is a great win for gamers, and Ubisoft should be applauded for recognising the error of this practice.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun (Thanks Jamie)

“We want to develop the PC market quite a lot and F2P is really the way to do it,” said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot to Games Industry International. “The advantage of F2P is that we can get revenue from countries where we couldn’t previously – places where our products were played but not bought. Now with F2P we gain revenue, which helps brands last longer.”

Guilllemot claims that Ubisoft’s games are so heavily pirated that making them F2P and then charging for microtransactions actually makes the company the same amount of money. “On PC it’s only around five to seven per cent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it’s only about five to seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated,” said Guillemot. “It’s around a 93-95 per cent piracy rate, so it ends up at about the same percentage.”

Source: Games Industry International

Having a chat with CVG at Gamescom, Assassin’s Creed III director Alex Hutchinson has defended Ubisoft’s decision to release the franchise annually. “The way we see Assassin’s Creed 3 now is as a franchise, like Mario or Resident Evil, that will have its ups and downs. It wasn’t the original plan to be an ongoing series, no, but it became the plan,” he has said, adding, “Since when is something less amazing if you get a new one every year? If Breaking Bad was shown twice a week I’d watch it twice a week. If Radiohead put out an album every six months I’d gladly buy one every six months.”

“But if you can keep a series interesting and fresh,” he concluded, “then I don’t see why it shouldn’t go on.”

Source: CVG

Ubisoft are launching their new online store in Australia, and to celebrate they’ve decided to mark down some of their titles on it to the measly price of one dollar.

Driver: San Francisco, From Dust, Silent Hunter 5 and Tom Clancy’s® H.A.W.X.® 2 are now available for $1 until Sunday.

During the same time frame you can also pick up bargains on other titles including all Assassin’s Creed games at 75% off. Check out the full list of games up for sale over at this link.

Ubisoft’s Uplay doesn’t exactly have a good rep with PC gamers already due to its tendency to go down at key times and leave gamers unable to play their games – but it’s about to get even worse. Late last night it was revealed that Ubisoft’s Uplay software came unwittingly packaged with a gaping backdoor: a browser plugin that Uplay installs into your computer during setup.

This browser plugin could theoretically be used to execute nearly any program through Uplay – indeed, adventurous users on the Ubisoft forums themselves quickly discovered they could quickly write scripts that used Uplay to launch Windows Calculator and other programs – and as such we’re being warned to update our Uplay software immediately.

Ubisoft jumped on the news quickly and have issued the following statement: “We have made a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application that was brought to our attention earlier today. We recommend that all Uplay users update their Uplay PC application without a Web browser open. This will allow the plug-in to update correctly. An updated version of the Uplay PC installer with the patch also is available from Uplay.com.” Many users are uninstalling completely until the problem can be verified as fixed, which might be a reasonable precaution.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Ubisoft’s always-on DRM system Uplay was overloaded last night thanks to the Steam sales, causing countless users to be unable to log in to their newly purchased single-player games. Over at the Ubi forums there are a full 26 pages of unhappy customers before a rep finally steps up to issue a rather bland apology, which seems to get the crowd more riled up than calmed. The system is up and running again now apparently, but that doesn’t bring back the last of the Sunday play hours to the angry 9-to-5′ers, unfortunately.

Source: VG247

Ubisoft’s press conference took place just hours ago in Los Angeles, CA. The esteemed publisher invited select members of the gaming industry to the Los Angeles Theatre to show off their latest and greatest. What they brought to the table were a host of titles – some that we had already seen, and others that were brand new.

To start off the media briefing, Ubisoft brought out dancers for their upcoming title Just Dance 4. A glorious array of lighting and sound was emitted throughout the crowd, and on my third floor balcony seat, there were questions of the structure’s integrity. The montage in front of us flared up different features of Just Dance 4, including recently announced four-player cooperative play and competitive-slanted “Battle Mode.”

The AAA broadside

Next, “Ubisoft Montreal” flashed across the screen. Producer Dan Hay and Lead Game Designer Jamie Key then took the stage, preparing to show us all Far Cry 3. Among the elements on show were stealth kills, destructible environments, and much more. The Far Cry franchise is known for its stellar artificial intelligence – and it was on display today.

After coming out from cover, the demo player was instantly pelted with gunfire and almost died. The developers were keen to inform us of the game’s expansive world that the player can explore, noting that there is an “entire archipelago” of islands reserved for adventure.

A montage then ensued, and the shift diverted away from Far Cry 3 and on to the topic of Splinter Cell: Blacklist. This game was shown at Microsoft’s press conference earlier today, but this showed an entirely different level, as well as other tools for the player to use. After a quick cinematic and introduction by creative director Max Beland, the crowd was finally treated to a taste of gameplay. It goes without saying that Sam Fisher is still one bad operator, and this might just be the most brutal we have seen him yet. Throughout the level, Fisher dispatched of his enemies with unnerving ease and precision; this garnered many cheers from the media.

Next, a brief look at Marvel’s Avengers: Battle for Earth came into existence. While no solid information was given on the game, the crowd was given a cinematic to gaze upon. This cinematic showed us many of the characters who will be in this title, including Venom, Wolverine, Spiderman, Magneto, Storm, and one group we all know – The Avengers. The only detail that was released was that the game will see a fall 2012 release.

Wii U-bisoft (geddit)

The briefing then turned to Wii U related discussion. Senior Game Manager working on Rayman Legends, Michael Mocholic took center stage. This turned very quickly to a gameplay demo, wherein we saw the newly-announced “pro” controller for the Wii U. The game features a character that can only be played via the original Wii U controller – his name is “Murphy,” and he plays the role of partner to Rayman. It appears that the game features drop-in, drop-out cooperative play, tilt functions with the Wii U controller, and race-style gameplay. This racing element was very reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog, as you must collect items along the way and achieve a boastful score.

Next, the company introduced ZombiU, a survival horror game coming exclusively to the Wii U. A cinematic with no real gameplay was shown, and while pretty cool, gave us no idea what we could expect from the game. It would be worth noting that this cinematic in particular took place in the U.K, and was set to “God Save the Queen.” It looks like Nintendo wants to reach that core market after all. A segue montage then took place, showcasing smaller titles such as Rabbids Land, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012, and Sports Connection.

The Star of the Show

This brought the briefing into what everyone was waiting for: Assassin’s Creed III. A brand new trailer was shown to the crowd, with Connor charging through enemy lines in a valiant effort to raise the Colonials’ morale. He succeeded, and in doing so, also audibly raised the morale of the audience in the room. At this point, Assassin’s Creed III was looking like everything everyone had hoped for. Producer Francois Pelland then put us in gear for yet another gameplay presentation for the stealth-action game.

Connor is shown running through snow-covered woodlands in New England. The year is 1776, and the war for independence is in full swing. However, at this point in time, Connor is not hunting redcoats or colonials – just deer. After reaching an unavoidable cliff, the only option Connor now has is to keep moving forward, less he lose the trail of his prey – this is where a fantastic new gameplay element comes in. Connor jumps, without hesitation, onto the trees in front of him. He sprints across the spindly branches with graceful agility, and finally catches up to his now-docile and grazing deer.

Connor jumps down into a group of bushes, readying himself for an attack. The assassin draws his bow, and looses an arrow directly into a deer’s heart. A pack of wolves then appear, and Connor fends them off with a fury, using quicktime events and gunfire. After dispatching the woodland terrors, Connor then takes the deer meat to a nearby colonial camp. He hands it off to a butcher, who in turn gives him some cash for Connor’s trouble. Our hero wastes no time in getting back to work, though – immediately after, he talks to the camp’s commander, discovering that there is about to be an attack mounted on a nearby British encampment.

Connor then proceeds with a group of colonials to attack this fort, and they quickly dispatch a group in front of the encampment. One of the redcoats does attempt to run away, but Connor – through use of trees, once again – stops him. From here, he uses his exceptional climbing abilities to infiltrate the camp. He then sees his target, a Templar named “Silas.” After shooting a number of explosive barrels and bringing about mass chaos, Connor finds his target once again in the crowd – he is running. The assassin chases him down and executes him with a wondrous leap and bayonet in the back. This prompted many cheers from the crowd.

The surprise hit

Ubisoft Co-Founder and CEO Yves Guillemot introduced a new game, and told us that it is one of the biggest projects the publisher has ever conceived. It has reportedly been in development for three years now, and addresses growing concerns of cyber-terrorism and other current threats. The name of this game – is Watch Dogs.

A huge system known as a “CTos,” controls a city’s water supply, power grid, and other general infrastructure functionality. You, the player, control Aiden Pierce, a person who has hacked into this service. You are very much a serial-killer, and as such, hunt down and kill others using this “mainframe.” There is a twist, though – you only kill bad people, at least, that’s what the presentation let on.

The gameplay gave us a very cut-and-dry mission, but excited nonetheless. You are using yourself as bait by going out in public and making a scene with your hacking prowess. You hope to attract your prey, and things escalated from this point on. It goes without saying, being able to control others’ cell phones and such makes for an interesting gameplay element – and looks to be pretty dangerous, at that.

After the demo player killed his target via an intersection mishap, a cinematic cut in. On the opposite side of the stage, another player had picked up a controller. This unnamed player had hacked into a nearby security camera and was watching your every move. The presentation then ended to thunderous applause, and left a gaping hole in all of our minds. Watch Dogs could be the next big thing if Ubisoft plays their cards right.

So, Ubisoft’s press conference hit everything in all the right areas. They’ve appealed once again to all of their markets – young, hardcore, casual, and old – and shown that they still have plenty of imagination. It will be interesting to see what these titles bring to the table after they’ve been released to the public.