Ubisame

I’ve been playing Ubisoft games since around 2010. Primarily the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs franchises. With the majority of them that I’ve played I always end up coming to the same conclusion:

Ubisoft, what are you so afraid of?

Before I get into my biggest criticisms of the company’s works I feel I should clarify that I do enjoy playing Ubisoft games even if critically and objectively I believe they fall short in key areas. I think they are all well crafted, technically impressive, gorgeous to look at, and have some of the most impressively detailed and realized worlds out there.

So many childhood memories

The problems lie within the finer details. Their games are extremely formulaic, without much differences in how their worlds are structured and how you can interact with them. They rarely deviate from their design philosophy, sprinkling extremely familiar objectives across their game worlds. It makes every game of this nature feel far too samey. Every time Ubisoft has an innovative idea it seems to be distilled down into it's most simplest form for the most broad appeal.

Narratively is actually the area I believe most Ubisoft games fall the furthest short. The dialogue in far too many of their games is sloppy. The characters can be shallow and two dimensional. The protagonists suffer from Ubisoft syndrome (my own personally coined term) where they develop very suddenly and too quickly. Thematically their games often don’t fully commit to a cohesive message or they use their themes in the most flimsy of ways (Watch Dogs 2 literally felt as though it was written by Buzzfeed not to mention the heavy ludonarrative dissonance on display throughout). Rarely do they make me think or consider any of my own preconceptions or test my philosophical resolve.

It may sound like I’m being too harsh. Maybe I am. These aren’t bad games (with the exception of the first Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed Syndicate), more painfully average than anything, but there’s only a few games in Ubisoft’s catalog that I can think of that I would consider must-play good games.

Ubisoft exemplifies AAA gaming’s far too safe and comfortable approach. Maybe it’s just the auteur theory believer within me but there are far too many incredibly and immensely talented people working at this studio to force them to stick to rigid convention. Trying to find the line between bold individualism and blind tradition must be exhausting.

This is where I believe I can answer my own question. What is Ubisoft so afraid of? Losing money.

I think that is a problem that transcends Ubisoft and is an issue throughout large scale western art/media projects. There are too many producers with too much creative influence. Creativity absolutely needs to be challenged, but there is a difference between challenging creativity and hijacking it. It is far too intrusive. Japanese games are more often idiosyncratic and individual because they are created with a unified vision and without the "supervision" of 8 producer suits.

I’m far too much of an artistic idealist for my own good. I’ll often side with the artist over the businessman selling it. I should have stopped buying Ubisoft games years ago and snuffed out that child-like wonder and fun the Assassin’s Creed games give me. 

The structural changes currently happening at Ubisoft I hope will have a positive impact not just for the working culture, but the creative culture as well. 

The workers won't have to be afraid of their superiors in a physical and a creative sense. The company won't have to live in this creative straight jacket anymore. Is that too much to ask for?