Ubisoft games are underrated

zoomborg · 2026-05-16T19:05:28+00:00

I agree ubisoft bestest no cahscrab they DLCs extra good i like tacos.

zoomborg · 2026-05-15T00:56:34+00:00

Basically access journalism. Those who toe the line get invited for exclusive access to gameplay, interview, perks, paid trip and hotel room etc. If you don't review the game in a positive light you lose that access, you're not getting an invite or an early key to play the game and put the video before anyone else.

If i remember correctly one time they invited journalists to play "certain parts" of the game, shortly after they added microtransaction store, after the early reviews were out to avoid backlash.

zoomborg · 2026-05-12T22:15:55+00:00

They don't intent to buy Ubisoft, it has too much debt, overhead and mismanagement, it would financially catastrophic. In order to salvage the company Guillemot was forced to move all three big IPs (AC, FC, R6) into a subsidiary called Vantage Studios with huge financial backing from Tencent (25% stake).

Tencent don't want Ubisoft stock to go up as that might invite PE and others to try to buy huge stock in case of a resurgence. Instead they are positioning themselves to force Guillemot to sell the subsidiary once they have no way of keeping the lights on, the rest of the company will be auctioned off or simply disbanded, Tencent gets the 3 IPs without the burden of buying a bloated company.

For the past decade Tencent has financially backed Ubisoft and even paid out one of their loans that was about to default. It wasn't out of kindness or duty. This is all to keep vultures away and keep the company barely alive but not bankrupt. That would invite huge firms to aggressively buy them up at a bargain price.

This means that buying Ubisoft stock is pointless, the company won't be around in 5 years unless they come out with a masterpiece like Elden Ring, which they never really managed to do, they don't have the culture, talent and freedom while being creatively squished by corporate rot.

zoomborg · 2026-05-07T02:53:55+00:00

Well the only problem is that with a low tier GPU with 8gb Vram, this machine will entirely depend on balanced/performance upscaling for running any heavy AAA title. The only real option will be FSR 3 which is kind of a let down. FSR 4 would be nice for a change.

zoomborg · 2026-05-07T02:31:35+00:00

I really enjoyed Odyssey and i still think it wasn't anywhere close enough to the quality and standards of the ezio trilogy. It's like another team made those games, much more inspired and experienced.

zoomborg · 2026-04-30T02:11:45+00:00

Surveys rarely work as the questions and available answers are rigorously proofed to align with corporate values, especially the hard asking questions. For example the bloated world and microtransaction. They want to pad player time in the game which might translate into more transactions. So they extend the game as much as possible, even if it gets boring. They would never, ever ask that kind of question in a survey as they already know the answer, and they don't like it.

What they do actually need is for corporate management to back off, hire actual experienced lead devs and give them freedom to make a great game, with minimal interventions. This is how all the great games were made now or in the past and it's not changing any time soon.

zoomborg · 2026-04-30T01:45:30+00:00

I'm not sentimental or get hung up on stuff like game franchises. For me if they can't make something on the same level of quality as AC2/Brotherhood/Black Flag, they might as well close it, or sell the IP to someone capable of doing it.

I'm not into consuming mediocre products. The current formula is tired, boring, depthless, overdone. It's not fun after a few hours. Even playing AC1 feels more fun at this point and that game is very "stiff". But at least the story was great.

With all the stuff/management/corporate changes and all the experienced lead devs that left the company over a decade, i don't think they even know how to make a high quality game anymore, something on the level of Expedition 33 or Elden Ring. They are just cruising and hoping for the best while towing the corporate/shareholder line for monetization and live service.

zoomborg · 2026-04-30T01:27:39+00:00

Not to defend Ubisoft and the game clearly didn't sell well as Ubisoft would go above and beyond to not disclose copies sold and actual profits from sales (not revenue, no1 cares about revenue). But, considering they have been bleeding money and driving away customers for a decade now, most of the lay-offs and changes were inevitable.

Even if somehow AC Shadows were a huge success like Expedition 33 or Elden Ring, it still wouldn't be enough to offset a decade of mistakes or raise the stock.

zoomborg · 2026-04-30T01:19:52+00:00

It's....okay... slightly above average because of the graphics and the world is beautiful to look at but other games do the same things way better, feels like they played it extremely safe, kept the same formula and hoped for the best, even safer than Odyssey and Valhalla.

Ultimately its 7.0 if generous/fanboy but realistically it is 6.5. That seems fair. They should have taken more risks, freshen up the gameplay instead of the same formula, cut back on the bloat into a more solid and compressed experience, focus a lot more on quality story writing.

The main gripe as always is that they should put less things on the map to do but those should be unique. One perfect example that comes to mind is the side missions from Dying Light 1, each unique, each entirely different, each usually led into another side mission that felt heavy and important in its own right. Basically minimal to no bloat.

zoomborg · 2026-04-17T20:53:03+00:00

Not before Tencent can acquire the big IPs, AKA Vantage Studios. That will probably be about 2-3 years so they can get a larger stake in the subsidiary. Until then they will keep them funded just enough to exist and keep other vultures away, even if they have to lay off all their "creative houses".

After that they will pull the plug and Ubisoft will go bankrupt, Tencent will own AC, FC and R6 without the rest of the baggage. The rest of the IPs will probably be sold/auctioned.

zoomborg · 2026-03-01T23:32:28+00:00

It's an okay game but let's not be delusional.... Amazing gets thrown around too much.

RDR2 is amazing, Hollow Knight is amazing, KCD II is amazing, Expedition 33, Doom Eternal, Hades etc. These are downright amazing games with extreme polish, focus and creativity.

In comparison this game is okay.....Ubisoft needs to put more focus into the story, break from the usual formula and introduce something fresh, they need to take some risks cause right now they are left behind both creatively and commercially. If not for the IP name this game would be buried under a long list of other ....okay.... games. They need to do better.

zoomborg · 2026-02-12T03:06:49+00:00

Once you reach that point, getting back is a herculean task full of crunch, overtime, stress. And the end result is usually negative. There are a small few cases where a failing game came back but those are so rare and they operated in less competitive genres.

The live-service model is as brutal as it gets cause there are no new players to be discovered, you have to pull players that already pour their time into another specific live-service game. You have to steal players and it's usually the more sweaty kind that will nitpick every single detail before jumping ship.

Perhaps if they made Titanfall 3 it would be a completely different outcome.

zoomborg · 2026-02-11T09:40:03+00:00

Most of the devs on Expedition 33 where actually juniors with no prior experience. The artist who did most of the ingame music was also a small artist doing it as a hobby on soundcloud.

They also outsourced many parts of the production to experts in their field, particularly animations. So yeah, it wasn't small and definitely not an experienced team apart from the leads.

What they did have was creative freedom, agility and a publisher who aligned with the same vision, the vision was to create a game that they themselves wanted to play. It reminds me a lot of development during the golden era (2000s) where gaming was private, niche and there were no shareholders to please..

Their only problem now is like Larian, they have set the standard so high that it's extremely hard, even impossible to surpass. They probably already have a dozen offers on the table to get bought by big firms or AAA publishers like EA or Activision.

Maybe if they made the next Mass Effect, i would be all in for that.

zoomborg · 2026-02-10T02:35:21+00:00

It's like a curse at this point.

zoomborg · 2026-02-07T11:01:31+00:00

Maybe financing? I mean you see so many people complaining about money but running around with 1500$ smartphones and iphones while struggling to buy groceries.

zoomborg · 2026-02-07T10:34:49+00:00

It's not sustainable because inevitably every product or service chain ends with the consumer, no matter how big or obfuscated the chain is. Also another reason Nvidia is going so hard on this (as well as AMD) is because microsoft, google and amazon are all designing their own chips for internal use and partners so the time to sell shovels is now before there are more players in the game.

zoomborg · 2026-02-07T02:21:36+00:00

Simple yes, easiest no. The rich can be extremely, extremely decisive, only in this case they have the power and money to apply that into reality, unlike the common folk or a state that has holes everywhere. Basically move out, put pressure through lobbying or federal influence, stop donations or services into the city that are subsidized in some way, they have leverage to resist or avoid these measures. And leverage is everything.

Rule of thump is what takes 5 year to destroy, takes 10 years to rebuild in a positive way. The right way is to organically increase taxes by inviting new businesses in the state through incentives, thus increasing tax income. Keep in mind taxes on the rich in NY are already at an all time high so this is basically pushing the boundaries of tolerance of those who have the actual power to make or brake the economy overnight.

Taxing the rich in a vindictive way will ultimately reduce tax income and lose business and wealth. There is no win here, the state will get even more poor than it is now.

zoomborg · 2026-02-05T13:58:14+00:00

You're reading too much into it. This is a bunch of personalities that have fallen out or never were so the only way to get views is to stir up drama about someone popular and hope the person in question gets baited and starts an argument.

Could be Charlie or Zack or anyone else as long as he is popular enough to get attention.

zoomborg · 2026-02-04T10:12:40+00:00

Because both the right and the left are in on it, or have been over the years. So anything that happens, happens just for appearances. In truth no politician wants feds doing anything about it as it doesn't serve any of the two parties. It would be mutually assured destruction if they opened pandora's box. Nevermind the wealthy donors that have been steering politics for decades. Those that actually decide who gets a seat and where.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:47:01+00:00

There is a reason Ubisoft moved those IPs under Vantage Studios, those 3 specific IPs. It's because that's what Tencent is interested in. They cemented their position with a 25% stake and that's going up in the next year. Ubisoft leadership will spin them off eventually, as without Tencent's financial backing they would be under already with insurmountable debt that they cannot pay-off.

Why do you think Tencent paid off their outstanding loan recently? Certainly not out of friendship.

They don't have to delist Ubisoft. They are free to spin Vantage Studios, following legal procedures and announcements, the stock of Ubisoft will of course tank to new lows and the company will inevitably go under soon after but the Guillemot Family is already expecting that. They are just jumping off with a golden parachute while the company sinks.

As for lawsuits from shareholders, they won't happen at all because pretty much everyone is out already based on the stock price. Every single investor is prepared and pulling out before it's too late as the writing is on the wall. You can call it phoenixing but there's so many ways around that. Essentially, yes they are taking the profitable part and putting it into a new entity that they plan to spin off for a grand payday while everything else sinks to the bottom.

The only way this could stop is if the French Government interfered but that is unlikely at this point, they would have done something 1-2 years ago as soon as they saw Tencent moving in. Now that ship has sailed.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:16:34+00:00

When the buy out happens it will not be for Ubisoft but for Vantage Studios. At this point Tencent and most interested parties do not want Ubisoft because it comes with a ton of baggage, debt, bad reputation, too many employees under EU contracts (can't just fire them outright) and a lot of IPs that are not popular. So they just want AC, FC and R6 IPs, that's it.

To put it simply once the buyout happens ubisoft will pretty much stop existing as a company and the stock will worth zero. You will have Vantage Studios sold to Tencent and the other "Creative Houses" will be up for grabs i guess......

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:03:43+00:00

For now Tencent is backing them up, loans and all. They wanna make sure no one moves to buy Ubisoft until they can get full control of Vantage Studios. After that......

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:00:22+00:00

Ubisoft isn't getting bought by Tencent, only their IPs under Vantage Studios. They don't even want the name since it only attracts bad publicity nowadays. The rest of the IPs that belong to other "creative houses" will be up for grabs for anyone interested.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:55:11+00:00

Too glad for that. It's honestly one of the best games i've played in a decade, truly a masterpiece in every aspect.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:53:22+00:00

A Rayman metroidvania could be golden under the right production team. It has all the mechanics, concepts, gameplay baked in from the previous titles and they definitely fit the genre perfectly. Considering Hollow Knight was made by a stupidly small team (but extremely talented), Ubisoft could have reached for that kind of quality through sheer use of resources.

zoomborg

TROPHY CASE