Skull and Bones – long-suffering pirate action in the open world of Ubisoft – can already be called Duke Nukem of the 20s. Yes, its release was postponed. Again (at least the sixth time). This is how Ubisoft reacted to the slowdown in overall sales growth and the economic downturn.
Development of Skull and Bones began way back in 2013 — as an expansion to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Since the announcement of the game in 2017, its release has already been postponed as many as six times, the last time – to March 9, 2023. And now Ubisoft has rescheduled again, putting Skull and Bones at “the beginning of fiscal year 2023-24.” This means that Skull and Bones will not be released before April 2023.
In a call to investors, Ubisoft said it was “surprised” by the performance of Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Just Dance 2023 — both games fell short of the company’s expectations (read: failed in sales). And really “very strange”, why suddenly? Ironically, Skull and Bones isn’t the only Ubisoft game stuck firmly in production hell. The development of Beyond Good and Evil 2, announced back in 2008 — the continuation of the well-known classic Action RPG, loved by many — has, as you know, completely stopped. And her further fate is still unknown.
And that’s not all “good” news for Ubisoft. The company also announced the cancellation of three more unannounced projects — this is in addition to the four that were abandoned last year. Right now, the plan is to focus on already launched game services and other big franchise projects that are already in development. Ubisoft’s plans for 2023-24 include the next Assassin’s Creed, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and other “as yet unannounced premium games, including one big one.” We can only guess which of these games will see the light of day.
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According to Kotaku, Ubisoft has created a special “quick response team” in its Paris studio to help the core team in Singapore to organize Skull and Bones. Here we can’t help but mention previous reports about not very high expectations for this game. In addition, Ubisoft employees said that layoffs have already begun in various teams, which is generally expected – large-scale layoffs at large technology companies began as early as 2022 and continued into 2023.
Amid financial problems, Ubisoft continues to cut costs, with the company writing off about 500 million euros for games, canceled projects, and research and development costs. Also, Ubisoft will carry out a restructuring with the aim of reducing expenses by 200 million euros over the next two years.
Ubisoft also revised its sales and profit forecast for the current fiscal year (from April 2022 to March 2023) – the company now expects a profit of 725 million euros (versus 830 million euros previously), and instead of a 10% increase in the main financial indicators, it is now forecast their deterioration by the same 10%. In other words, difficult times are ahead for Ubisoft.
Ubisoft prepares for recession – seriously cuts budgets, postpones Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to 2023-2024 and cancels four games at once
