Last week, Ubisoft opened up about its financial problems (opens in new tab)citing disappointing sales for recent games, the cancellation of three unannounced projects (for a total of seven canned games in the past six months), and yet another Skull and Bones delay (opens in new tab). In response, the global publisher is pulling the wallet in 2023.
Ubisoft did what it was supposed to do on paper. As our hobby zigzagged from isolated, one-off experiences and went big on live-service games, Ubisoft followed along with every major game maker. Not only did it have the resources and diverse teams to chase emerging trends like battle royale, looter shooters and hero games, it already had a foot in the door. The one game that has consistently done well for Ubisoft is Rainbow Six Siege, an unexpected FPS hit from a long-dormant series.
Siege is known today for its excellent gunfights and impressive destruction tech, but when it launched in 2015, fans and critics declared the 5v5 tactical shooter doomed. For longtime Rainbow Six fans, Siege was an insult to a beloved series that had always been single-player first. For multiplayer FPS fans, it was a mess of bugs and shoddy revenue. The following year, Ubisoft continued with planned seasonal “Operation” updates, fixing bugs and delivering new operators, weapons, and maps at a comfortable pace. By the end of 2017, Siege had gone from a launch flop to a celebrated, if still quite buggy, comeback story.
Seven years later, Siege is still making money for Ubisoft. It’s the closest thing to a “print money (opens in new tab)service game, but it’s also not that big a game compared to the top league. It’s not Apex Legends big, and it’s certainly not Call of Duty: Warzone 2 big. That’s left Ubisoft in a precarious place.
It makes sense that Ubisoft would want more games like Siege and would look to proven genres like Battle Royale for inspiration, but it hasn’t worked so far. Why?
Why Ubisoft games keep failing
Ubisoft’s extensive network of studios around the world gives it the flexibility to cast a wide net and see what snags. I’ve always appreciated this about Ubi, because you can say what you want about the recent output, at least it takes risks. I can’t think of another major publisher that would greenlight a competitive roller derby game or a pirate RPG, or single-handedly revive the extreme sports video game craze of the early ’00s.
Ubisoft didn’t develop Siege with the goal of making the next Fortnite or Rocket League.
Now that strength becomes a weakness. Are no longer good enough (opens in new tab) to release a lightly successful game with a big budget. In the service game game you have to be better than the other guys on day one or you risk being written off by players who are just as happy with a similar game that came out five years ago. Reading the last six years of Ubisoft’s live service gaming endeavors as a case study in too little, too late:
“Let’s Make Fate”
- The Division 2 (2019): Destiny, but Tom Clancy. Nice, but too simple to keep Destiny fans busy. The modern setting and Clancy aesthetic also made for some really boring loot (yipee, another sweatshirt and an ultra rare AK-47).
- Skull and Bones (2023): The lagging boat game which, I think, is a bit like Destiny, but with Assassin’s Creed naval combat. Coming soon finally.
- Ghost Recon Breakpoint (2019): Ubisoft wanted Ghost Recon to be as replayable and grindy as The Division, resulting in a sloppy marriage of tactical shooter and bullet-spongy RPG. So badly received that Ubi spent a year reverting these changes to a series of updates that actually made Breakpoint pretty good.
“Let’s Make Apex Legends”
- Hyperscape (2020-2022): A free-to-play battle royale FPS with a dense city map and character agnostic abilities. Released a year after Apex Legends and (even more sadly) a few months after Call of Duty: Warzone. In the face of dwindling player numbers, the developers turned to team deathmatch. Closed in April 2022.
- Ghost Recon Frontline (Cancelled): Another battle royale. The reaction to the 2021 announcement was so negative that Ubisoft canceled plans for a playtestand then unceremoniously killed the entire project.
“Let’s Make Forza Horizon”
- The Crew 2 (2018-now): An open-world racing game that seems fine, but unfortunately shares a track with the beloved Forza Horizon series. I don’t know a single person who plays it, but it still gets regular updates (opens in new tab).
- Equestrian Republic (2021): A damn good extreme sports smorgasbord in a massive open world that’s basically Forza Horizon, but with snowboards and BMX bikes. Released a week before Forza Horizon 5.
“Let’s Make Call of Duty”
- XDefiant (202?): Ubisoft’s shot at traditional 6v6 Call of Duty multiplayer featuring factions from the Clancyverse. This was another bad announcement – the internet had a fun few hours describing the horrible name and cringe-inducing attitude of the reveal trailer (“it’s fast-paced gunplay… meet punk-rock moshpits”). Ubi has largely gone dark on XDefiant over the past year and a half, though playtests are apparently still happening.
“Let’s Make Rocket League”
- Roller Champions (2022): Ubisoft’s contribution to a growing pile of neglected, offbeat sports games that aren’t Rocket League. When it finally came out, my colleagues kept confusing it with dodgeball knockout city (another forgotten stunner).
“Let’s…make Skylanders?”
- Starlink: Battle for Atlas (2019): A toys-to-life game launched years after Activision, Disney and Lego squeezed all the life out of the genre. Everyone I know who has played this game likes it.
“Let’s Make Co-Op Rainbow Six Siege”
- Rainbow Six Extraction (2022): A miscalculated co-op Siege spinoff that didn’t look like the beloved four years and two name changes later Left 4 Dead-like siege mode that inspired it. Released three months after Back 4 Blood.
In hindsight, maybe all those updates weren’t what resurrected Rainbow Six Siege from the dead. Maybe it only worked out because Siege is actually original.
“Ubisoft Originals” must be truly original
Unlike the publisher’s latest batch of multiplayer games, Ubisoft didn’t develop Siege with the goal of making the next Fortnite or Rocket League. In 2014, Siege was an intriguing FPS that journalists couldn’t quite classify: it was a bit like CS:GO, but that comparison fell apart as easily as Siege’s destructible walls. It had bits from other games that Ubisoft knew worked, like a bomb mode and hero characters, but also a lot of stuff that’s normally hard for competitive shooters, like one-shot kills and walls that suddenly can’t be walls anymore. Siege was a weird and adventurous idea conceived at a transition point for shooters: the last era of Call of Duty was coming to an end, CS:GO was exploding, Titanfall was thrilling, and Battle Royale was nothing else.
The biggest advantage of Siege is that there is no “other” Siege.
The biggest advantage of Siege is that there is no “other” Siege. There are other round-based competitive shooters out there, but there’s no real Siege alternative. If I get tired of CS:GO one day, Valorant is largely the same game. When I give up on Apex Legends, Warzone 2 is there with open arms. New Escape From Tarkov clones pop up every year. Even Overwatch 2 still has a worthy impersonator in Paladins. Siege is a bit different: if I want to play an FPS with destructible environments, deadly close-quarters firefights, and complex character skills, there’s only one.
It also helps that the basics of Siege are excellent. Even in the game’s buggiest states (a bar that keeps getting higher as years of updates overwhelm an aging engine), Siege’s constantly expanding web of gadget interactions and high skill ceiling has kept things interesting over the years. Sometimes new operators don’t really get on (opens in new tab), but they often bring imaginative tools that deepen the meta. A favorite of recent years Zero (code name for an old, grizzled Sam Fisher) and his tacky cameras that can pierce walls and see what’s on the other side. You don’t find anything like that in competitive shooters.
I guess this is why I can’t get excited about Ubi’s upcoming multiplayer stuff. Do I really think XDefiant is going to become the 6v6 arena FPS to bankrupt traditional Call of Duty? Heck no, did you play Modern warfare 2 (opens in new tab)? It rocks. It’s hard to imagine the next big battle royale ever being a PvP spin-off of Ghost Recon Breakpoint. And after the disappointment of Rainbow Six Extraction, it’s easy to believe that other spin-offs like The Division Heartland aren’t happening because it’s the natural evolution for the series, but because Ubisoft wants a game like Escape From Tarkov and already has that expensive third made. -person shooter bots in The Division 2.
That said, originality isn’t an automatic win for Ubi either. There’s no other For Honor (although you might consider Chivalry 2 a distant cousin), Rainbow Six Extraction was surprisingly unusual for a co-op zombie game, and Riders Republic certainly has no equal. Of course, it pays to lean into genres that millions of people currently love, but you have to bring them something new: Hyper Scape was Apex Legends with taller buildings and fewer things to do. Siege was really the sweet spot. A shooter so original that no game has successfully replicated it, but one that has been used for ideas by many others (the rosters of Apex Legends and Valorant would look very different if there never was a Siege).
For me, it was the hardcore, tactically cool, surprisingly expressive competitive FPS I didn’t know I wanted. It’s still my most played game ever, and the one game that threatens to dethrone it, Hunt: Showdown, feels inspired by it. It’s exactly the kind of inventive, quirky game that Ubisoft used to be good at, and hopefully will learn to make again someday.