During the quarterly report, Ubisoft announced a significant increase in the team of developers working on the Assassin’s Creed series — their total number will increase by 40% in the coming years, from the current 2,000 to 2,800 people.
Ubisoft’s bet on its flagship franchise, which celebrated its 15th anniversary last year, did not come as a surprise to those who followed the latest news – the Assassin’s Creed series, along with mobile games, is the basis of the current anti-crisis strategy of the French developer, which is currently going through a difficult time. Previously, verified insider Tom Henderson said that the publishing house launched four more games from the Assassin’s Creed series — in addition to the six previously announced. Of course, not all of them will eventually see a release, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage, an action-adventure with an emphasis on stealth and storytelling, is said to have moved from 2023 to 2024.
Another news about Assassin’s Creed – the franchise will release a collection of NFT with game characters, which can be customized before purchase (change the pose, clothes and weapons) and get an additional physical figure in a glass cube, printed on a 3D printer (image below). Yes, Ubisoft has not given up on the idea of digital tokens, despite the failed launch of Digits NFT for Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Integral Reality Labs is the partner for the release of NFT with the heroes of Assassin’s Creed, which received the corresponding license. Details on the size of this collection and prices are not yet available.
As for Ubisoft’s financial “successes”, according to the results of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, the company earned 1.739 billion euros – 18% less than last year. At the same time, 1.004 billion euros or 58% of all annual revenue was provided by the sale of old Ubisoft games (a decrease of 30% compared to the previous year). The new installment of Assassin’s Creed about Vikings – Valhalla – earned 82% more than Origins in 2017 and surpassed 2018’s Odyssey by 61% in the ancient Greek setting. As part of restructuring and anti-crisis measures, Ubisoft has cut its workforce from 20,700 to less than 20,000 workers from September 2022, and plans to cut costs by 200 million euros over the next two years to fix its financial situation. In the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, Ubisoft expects revenue of about 240 million euros and, in general, expects “sustainable growth” throughout the year. However, investors do not seem to share the optimism and confidence of Ubisoft’s management — after the publication of the report (May 16), they fell sharply, although they recovered a little the following day.
In the official schedule of Ubisoft game releases until the end of March 2024, there are eight projects: in addition to the already mentioned Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (last postponed to July 2022), Rainbow Six Mobile, The Division Resurgence, Skull and Bones (after January 2023), The Crew Motorfest, XDefiant (over 1 million players played in the shooter’s closed beta) and “another big as-yet-unannounced premium game.” Most of them will likely be part of the upcoming Ubisoft Forward presentation on June 12 in Los Angeles.
