Ubisoft confirmed that today Project Q (opens in new tab), the “PvP battle arena game” officially revealed in 2022 after numerous leaks, has been canceled. This continues the wave of trials at the publisher that saw three unannounced projects canceled and delayed Skull bones (opens in new tab) for at least six times, news that the studio’s share price has halved over the past six months.
Project Q first came to light in September 2021 thanks to a GeForce Now database leak that contained a slew of unannounced game titles, many of which have since proven to be real (opens in new tab). Also included in the list were four games supposedly from Ubisoft with “Project” codenames: Project Meteor, Project Orlando, Project Over, and Project Q. Ubisoft denounced the whole thing as “speculative (opens in new tab)“But of course that was a mistake: it was the only publisher to make a slur about it, so everyone immediately turned to Ubisoft’s listed games.
In April 2022, more information about the game leaked out Performer (opens in new tab)and that’s when Ubisoft threw in the towel.
“Introducing codenamed Project Q, a team-based battle arena that truly makes the experience your own!” the tweeted (opens in new tab) a few days after the second leak. “The game is in early development and we continue to test, so for now you can only register for upcoming tests.
“By the way, this is not a Battle Royale. The game will feature several PvP modes with a single goal in mind: FUN!”
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Unfortunately, it now seems that the fun is over. Following notification of cancellation on Insider gaming (opens in new tab) yesterday Ubisoft confirmed with VGC (opens in new tab) that Project Q is no longer in development.
“We can confirm that we will no longer support Project Q development to focus on priority projects, which our teams will be assigned to,” said Ubisoft.
Ubisoft announced last week that it is developing three unannounced projects (opens in new tab) to focus its resources on existing brands and live services – and, more broadly, to turn its ill-gotten fortunes around. My assumption is that Project Q wasn’t one of them as it was previously announced, although it’s plausible that the use of a codename means it hasn’t been fully revealed and thus possibly one of three games confirmed as canceled last week.
I’ve reached out to Ubisoft to clarify the situation and will update if I get a response, but either way, it’s more bad news for Ubisoft. Project Q probably wasn’t extremely informative to anyone most anticipated games (opens in new tab) list, but at least it was a known quantity, and far enough into the development process for Ubisoft to talk about it and accept playtest submissions. Shutting it down might not rob the world of a potentially great game – honestly, the only piece of concept art I’ve seen reminds me of a slightly less hyper Hyperscape (opens in new tab)– but Ubisoft’s reputation has already been badly battered, largely due to its perceived inability to simply complete and release games. Adding another block to that fire is something Ubisoft doesn’t need right now.