This is Santiago. Thanks for the shoutout! Many Ubisoft developers feel exactly the same way as you in this video. We all see the potential... until we don't anymore.
Thank you for your input. It is so good to know that everyone sees it from the same perspective. It is sad to see head decision makers curtailing the creativity that is so obvious for everyone to see..
I often watch the GDC talks from Ubisoft devs and they make me really sad as you can clearly tell how enthusiastic the devs are about whatever they are doing. Even sent a mail to one of them cause during the talk he was like "I bet most player won't notice this tiny detail" and I said, nope I noticed! He shared the mail with the team.
This, but not only. I hate pretty much every Assassin's Creed game (played all from 1 to Syndicate and some more than once), because when I finish AC1 and think of what the series could be, I remember how they added gimmick after gimmick, dropped all attempt at philosophy in the story, and just made it the yearly sludge game (sitting next to CoD in my eyes). It's not just "how much better this game could have been" it's also "they forgot about everything I liked in the previous game"
Well summed up. Every Far Cry game I've ever played has never escaped the shadow of what it could have been, if it had committed to some kind of vision in gameplay or narrative instead of being the most milquetoast designed-by-committee-ass game possible.
Lol, that game is so fricking long and that's sad because the main story is actually pretty cool but has soo much filler in it. Some really good filler but most not so much, at least world events in the game keeps things entertaining.. Well, if you actually do them. I always do them that are in my way between missions which I recommend doing if you think of playing Valhalla, a lot of reviewers always say you just hold the thump stick forward on a horse to get where you need to go next but those same people obviously not trying to interact with the world which is sad. The world is beautiful and the world events in between missions are a blast to complete, I remember a lot of them and one being my favorite is about a girl that's waiting next to a tree for her father to get home. She was told by her father that he will return before the last leaf fall off the tree, their is only one leaf left when you show up and with world events... You don't get told the objectives, you must find them out on your own. Their a hide and seek world event, where a bunch kids on a farm are playing and you decide join in and get chosen to hide from the seeker. A world event about getting a old band that separated, back together (Again you don't get told this at all, theirs hints throughout the city, with people talking or notes that you can read, that the event is in and you must think of it yourself). Just a lot of unique and fun world events that don't take itself too seriously, it's a good time and gave me much of my enjoyment in the filler parts of this game.
I find it deeply ironic that they popularised the phrase "Definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, and expecting something different"
Damn, that whole scene was so good. Even after all of these years of not playing FC3 I still remember how equally intimate and terrifying that whole scene was, it really sold Vaas as the well made villian he was.
I mean, they didn't "popularise" the phrase, and based on their business model "expecting something different" is the complete opposite of what they're trying to achieve. They know what makes them money, so to speak (the Ubisoft Formula).
That's the thing, they don't want something different. A game got them a lot of money, so they want to keep doing the same thing and keep getting a lot of money.
AC 3 for me. Then FC5 for the map editor. I've played everything they've made, and since 2012 it's all just not worthwhile. They don't respect your time, just money.
They were great in the PS2 era : Rayman 3, Prince of Persia : Sands of Times trilogy, Beyong Good & Evil, Splinter Cell...It's amazing how them shifting to open world made them one of the worst video game company ever. Their game design was already obsolete with AC1, and it didn't fundamentally change since then. A bore fest made for people who like to work tedious and repetitive tasks during their free time that are slowly gnawing at their humanity. Not really the kind of people you want to associate with.
It's a real shame, how Ubisoft turned out. I remember back in the 2000s, Ubisoft was releasing some of the most unique, cool games I'd ever played. Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Far Cry 1 and 2, Rayman, and the OG Rainbow Six games
Activision, EA, Bethesda, Take Two, Ubisoft. The Big 5 of the 2000s. Oh how the mighty have fallen. (I mean, they still do release good games every now and then but back in the 2000s they were the go-tos for gamers).
I had absolutely no idea that assassin's Creed Valhalla was the best selling in the series because I have yet to meet a person who actually liked the game.
It's sitting at 71% positive ratings out of 18,400 reviews on Steam, so it seems a lot of people liked it, just the ones who hated it are louder. I don't love it myself either, but it's a solid 7/10 for me. Not a masterpiece, just a comfort game I can sink a few hours in after work.
I really like it. I like the feel of it but I much prefer the older games like assassinscreed 1 2 3 and 4. I'm glad morrage has returned to the roots. It's a much better game.
Mostly because its Vikings, during a time when the Viking craze was still pretty strong. I dont think it would sell nearly as well today, i think most people are over the Viking aesthetic
Is it literally best selling? Or is it just most profitable cos of all the microtransactions and 17 special editions? Genuine question, I dont actually know I just merely presumed it was the latter.
@@kurtacus3581 the biggest factor is that it came out during the pandemic, more than some Viking craze that was sweeping the world around November 2020. And a lot of hype for Vikings was created by Valhalla's marketing and trailers. Vikings have always been kinda cool anyway, probably more so pirates whose pop culture boom began with Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Spartans who became popular after 300. Though you can make any time period/historical group seem cool really by putting an angry parkour murder guy or gal in the middle of it.
Ubisoft makes the right things in the absolutely worst way possible , they have a cancer in the upper management that’s prevent creativity and need to be removed ASAP
It's like they learn nothing too, the most hated mission in "Ghost Recon: Wildlands" and the problem people hated the most is copy pasted over and over again in "Ghost Recon: Breakpoint" missions. Their is a stealth class in Breakpoint but almost every mission in the episode 1 and 3 of the game ends with a forced gunfight and base alarm... Making stealth feel pointless because no matter what, I will be forced into combat. I played MGSV, the game that they're trying to recreate, they need to actually look at that game and see what good tactical mission design actually is.
I work at Ubi and think you've nailed it, each year we're given updates on upcoming games and so often the premise is SO exciting, but ultimately the trust that we stick to those core concepts isn't there for me anymore. I don't think execs believe you can sell a game just on a unique and well executed vision. Believe it or not GR Breakpoint looked INCREDIBLE initially, the military sim that people wanted GRW to be. In the end it was accused of being a reskin because it pulled punches and i guess that's so it felt more of a game for everyone.
This is sad. Games are supposed to be fun and creative. When you start developing games that appeal to everyone you end up appealing to no one. Honestly the last ubisoft game I played that I genuinely had fun start to finish was the first beyond good and evil. Now the only ubisoft game I have fun playing is brawlhalla. I've given up on singleplayer experiences from ubisoft.
GR:Breakpoint ended up being iterated on, adding more realistic features like Ghost mode, more milsim stuff and an stealth improvement, along with the Bodark campaign thing that was fun, but a reskin from Wildlands. From a player's perspective, the community sentiment was going pretty well and positive, until the game got sunset. How much do you think the game it turned out to be and the direction it was heading to, is closer to that initial view and excitement? Do you thi k
I remember that you summed this up yourself quite succinctly, years ago. "There was a time when I would have called Ubisoft my favourite developer/publisher. They were _really_ consistent at putting out quality games, across various genres. [...] Each had their own identity that made them stand out from one another, and when you saw that spiral logo on a box as you browsed your local game store, you were almost guaranteed to get something worthwhile that you'd remember for years. But this changed, and Ubisoft would begin stuffing almost all of their major franchises into the same cookie-cutter template." It's so incredibly frustrating to know, to fucking _know for a fact_ that this is still there and their games can shine like gold, if only they kept themselves from putting in the bullshit, but they simply cannot help themselves.
Steep and Riders Republic are both legitimately pretty good, but they still found ways to be absolutely disgusting with MTX. I beta tested at least 6 Ubi games, including Rider's Republic and the only thing they want to know from the beta test is if the MTX store works and damn everything else. You literally can't change your clothes from default in Riders Republic without buying something else.
Odyssey comes to mind for this. Love the setting and time period. But my god is it so fucking tedious. So much grinding, so much incentive to buy the micros. Its obnoxious and I have quit every single one of my playthroughs because of it. Only way I'll beat it is by putting a trainer on my game for the resource grind Not even gonna get into the stupid gameplay decisions like the twirling like a Shaolin Monk with your spear or the odd decision to take away the ability to use a shield as a SPARTAN in GREECE.
Take AC. It has potentiel however the issue is the scy fy stuff cant go anywear as its taking place in the real world so it always needs to be hidden and taken out as soon as its intodruced. The modern day beeibg taken to the far off future however could alow them to Do some cool shit without havibg to Focus on too much realism
Idk, in recent years I'd give that title to Bethesda. I still dropped 70 hours into Valhalla and had fun, but had to nope out of Starfield after like 10.
That was my impression of far cry 5. It was a good game but it could have been a great game. The concept was good but the way they went about it seemed flat at times. This could be me but it felt kind of flat in the cynical Outlook felt old
"Originality enough to appear on a postcard but not enough to be the destination." It's a great way to express how i've seen a trend in the past couple of years of developing something just enough to market it but not actually develop a "full" product.
The corpo speak for this is, minimum viable product. I think the logic is why shoot for 10 out of 10 experiences when you can make 7-8's publish them and move onto the nexy one.
Well for them to change tack, you would need someone in the driver's seat who has a deep love for games and wants to create art, instead of some fuckboy in a suit who went to school to learn how to make numbers go up
Rockstar and a couple others like Nintendo are the rare exceptions that have been delivering solid 8 out of 10 or even 9 out of 10 (even Red Dead 2 or GTA V could have been better) Wish more people in the industry took cues from those guys.
Watching this reminds me of years ago reading an article in Edge magazine from one of the level designers at IW for CoD 4, where he talked about how the original opening ship level was never meant to sink, but he wanted to make it sink and he spent weeks solo crunching the level to prove it was a good idea and it worked. It's wild to think that one guy's insistence on a cool idea shaped an initial impression of what would go on to be a behemoth in the industry, but now it feels like we're so far beyond any feeling of that individual with any large release. It's too easy to fault games when it doesn't feel like you can find individual influences on them anymore.
That's the sad thing, those hands are still there. Originally, I was trying to incorporate a personal experience I had, where because I'd talked to Santiago on a previous project, and knew he worked on Far Cry 6, I was playing through certain levels and thinking "...is that him?" and turned out those ones were.
Today the headline would read; " anonymous Call Of Duty developer speaks out about pervasive crunch culture that forced him to work alone for weeks on end"
@@BoleDaPoleno it wouldn’t. No one is arguing against people who want to work harder and get something working by themselves. People do that all the time in software engineering. You are conflating two different things.
An old colleague did something similar for the original Medal of Honor. Some people wanted to have a cool level of unending enemies and you were on a mounted gun able to mow them down. For some reason everyone said it was impossible and couldn’t do it, then said person who recently joined the company developed it himself.
@@dhruvb38Yeah theyre different in the sense that back then you had developers who were actually passionate about their jobs, now they just hire people who do it strictly as a job and thats if they dont outsource the work to people that do it to literally be able to survive.
I've always thought of the Ubisoft formula as being essentially "think of cool idea, pay whatever number of graphic designers and world artists necessary to make it a reality. Make the gameplay and story work however you can in the deadline." It works because nailing a super detailed world with a cool concept is actually something that can be done fairly relaibly if you have the reaources. A few brainstorming sessions and you have a bunch of cool ideas. Throw enough people at the problem and you can make a huge, beautiful map within your alloted time. But game mechanics and systems are largley not a numbers issue, they're a time issue. You need to test and iterate and test and iterate, and there's no way around it. So reusing what already worked is the only thing that can be done consistently.
It's not just time. It's passion. Ubisoft develops their game mechanics and systems based on lowest common denominator, focus groups. This is why all of their games all have the same gameplay loops, are so open-ended that no matter how you approach problems, they always feel underwhelming and not impactful. These games don't have direction, they aim to please everyone possible. Assassin's Creed feels exactly like Watch Dogs, which feels exactly like The Division, which feels exactly like Ghost Recon which feels exactly like Far Cry, which feels exactly like Avatar, etc. etc. This is why anybody who has played these types of games before immediately drops them or doesn't talk about them beyond their "comfort session" that Raycevick mentions in the videos. Yes, "normies" are the reason why these games truly make money. Let's be honest, his demographic have very little to do with it beyond spending $10 on a sale a year later.
You're not far from the truth. I've been to a conference with Serge Hascoët (then Ubi's creative director and alleged harasser of the ladies) explain that AC was basically him reading about the "leap of faith" in a book set during that time period and telling the devs to make a game from that.
So on point, it's so infuriating how great the art direction/historical reproduction is in those games. It really makes me want to explore but, in the end, I will skip an awesome building which might have taken days to create and to get the historical facts straight cause it will just be observation point n°125, bandit camp n°333 or chests to loot n°516 which I will spend 10 seconds to complete mindlessly before moving on to the next "task", cause it feels like actual work playing through these things. It's so sad that the artists' work is not highlighted by the game/level design but, like you said, creating engaging gameplay mechanics takes time and involves some kind of risk if it repels part of the target audience, a risk which management/shareholders dare not take: better a forgettable/boring game which sells than a breakthrough or a solid game in its genre.
@@Vladiator I heard from an ex Ubisoft employee that they actually have guidelines for game design which date from 2007 that they aim to implement in all of their games. It's not just out of fear of taking risks or reproducing what works in other games, it's an actual philosophy Ubisoft's management has tried to stick to, hence how we get the same exploration formula in all of their games, the style changes, the substance stays the same.
Exactly what I was thinking. These people are mad that Ubisoft reuses their own assets and mechanics that they created themselves, as if no other AAA studio in the world does this.
I’ve just accepted that as a “core” hobbyist in gaming, Ubisoft isn’t making games for me, and that’s okay. There are more games to play and try than I would have time for if I did nothing else in life.
@@mondodimotori All consumers need to learn this. All cars aren't for you, all movies aren't for you, all clothing is not for you. I've accepted that Ubisoft games aren't for me and that's okay. I will admit that Ubisoft gets so close to making masterpieces that it can be a little infuriating sometimes.
The problem isn't exactly that Ubisoft has moved away from the genre gamers towards the general market; they earned that spot with some truly stand-out titles early on. The problem is within the gradual move away from distinguishable, well-defined mechanics and strong design towards blurred lines and weak design (weak as in non-committal and unpronounced, not qualitatively weak). People would be way less incensed if Ubisoft were still directing games within their respective genres, rather than turning EVERY franchise into some genericised version of itself. That's not to say that modern Ubisoft games are all bad, or all lack definition, they are just exceedingly similar to eachother and hardly focus on a single genre, instead trying to be everything all at once. And that has an opportunity cost.
dont do cyberpunk,i remember buying it on PS4 first day coming home to an absolute slap in the face, they took the money from last gen customers and built a better version but only for who can afford a current gen console! i dont care if CDPR makes the best game ever im never buying their stuff ever again. love your work btw!
@@vijaydizzleyour loss, it’s actually one of the most innovative first person RPG’s ever made at this point. i’d argue it’s the most immersive game made in the last 15 years. also if you bought the last gen version for a game that ambitious, then it’s kind of on you. kind of a big risk and partially why the launch was so awful. more time wasted
My man, the biggest relief I've ever had was stopping buying games close to their release (circa 2 years after release). You realize that your hype is generally much bigger than your actual wish to play the game itself, and that what is really good and relevant will stay good and relevant 5-10 years down the line, so no need to rush.
The last of us 2 leaks saved me so much money and I hate leaks, because since that game (I know some people like it) turned out bad I’ve stopped preordering games entirely
I remember being super hyped up for DOOM Eternal and there wasn't anything wrong with the game, but I was still disappointed after I completed it. I was just too hyped, and the game couldn't meet the standards I set despite being a great game. Afterward I always kept a distance from games, even when they were hyped up, so when Cyberpunk was announced and everyone on the internet went crazy I didn't let myself buy into the hype. When the game released I played it for about 60 hours and actually enjoyed it despite how buggy and fucked up it was. It's something I try to consider whenever a game is announced.
a quote I think from whitelight's video on Forza Horizon 5 the idea of games having a "soul": bad games can be made good because of it but great games can become good games for lacking one. Ubisoft frequently falls in the latter.
People often struggle to separate what's interesting from what's technically competent. They're both measures of what makes a piece of art "good" but especially in something with as many moving parts as computer games you can go a long way in one without affecting the other.
It feels like Ubisoft has a tendency to come up with game idea that has a lot of potential to be awesome, then developing about 60% of it and instead of pushing for 100% they're like "nah, that's enough let's just end it here and push it out the door"
I felt this way when playing Assassin's Creed Rogue. The reverse ship boarding mechanic felt like something that should have been in Assassin's Creed IV but for some reason they implemented it in Rogue instead. Plus they said that Rogue was made for the fans that wanted a game where they played as a Templar for the entirety of the game yet it felt like they did the barest f-ing minimum to make it a game about the Templars. They really do come up with good ideas but never perfectly execute those ideas.
@@RaycevickAt least they have the excuse of it being first person, unlike Hitman Absolution where you'd shove a 50 caliber sniper rifle in your coat pocket.
Unless its Splinter Cell. That franchise was taken out behind the shed and put down and Ubisoft brings out its corpse every now and then to see if anyone still cares.
ubisoft milks nothing compared to rockstar, bethesda, acti blizzard and ea. blizzard and rockstar just flatout delete what they sold you so they can sell it to you again. lmao.
Complete bollocks. Just within the AC series alone there's are countless examples of innovation since the first game. And yet Bethesda somehow gets a free pass for re-releasing the same game constantly since 2011? Why, because of the modding community, something Bethesda has little control over? The absolute double standards here.
Another big problem for Ubisoft is that almost every other big studio is copying their open world formula, which has led to way too many similar games with different settings, so the people that play many open world games are more likely to get burned out.
Someone I follow on bluesky shared this video after the news of ubisoft shareholders discussing buyout terms. So the part at 18:30 about the writing being on the wall sure lands a lot harder.
Pretty much most corporations, really. Their number #1 goal above all else is money. That means everything else is expendable to reach that goal, including quality.
I pray to god Ubisoft sells/licenses the Watch_Dogs IP to someone who can make the genuinely interesting and brilliant setting realize it's full potential, similarly how Bethesda licensed New Vegas to Obsidian. There is so much unrealized potential I still can't come to terms with the fact Legion killed the franchise
I remember being soooo hyped for Legion, I pre-ordered the special edition. Then it came out and I felt like it should’ve been so obvious that in order to make every character playable and still have a story, none of the characters can be unique. It’s an interesting feeling when an idea sounds awesome on paper, but thinking about it for like 30 seconds makes you realize that it doesn’t really work. It was especially egregious coming off of Watch_Dogs 2, which had awesome, really unique characters!
"Where else can you go" basically sums up the entire For Honor fandom. Pretty much everyone who plays it agrees it's a dogshit game that they hate... But that there just isn't another 3d low fantasy fighting game that scratches the itch FH gives you. Nowhere else do you get to put a longsword through a viking's chest shortly before a giant sumo warrior smashes you with a club.
It's not copying if they already created the assets and mechanics that they are using in a new game is it? Thats like you making a design for a website and you use the same design on 2 websites. Is that copying or reusing your own work?
@@RiFeX2703 "Its not copying...is it?" Yes. If you copy something then like, yea.... you copied it. Its self defining. "Is that copying or reusing". Its copying. Copying and reusing are basically synonyms.
The mention of Assassin’s Creed’s social stealth has always an odd one to hear due to the series never really having more than a couple of ways to “stealth” with the crowd. Hitman is the prior reference to social stealth because they actually nailed and perfected it by Blood Money
@@GoogleRuinsAnythingItTouches They're doing that at the moment with Assassin's Creed Red. But, knowing Ubisoft it'll be a watered down version of Ghost of Tsushima basically
@@OldMateJohnbut ghost of tsushima doesn't have modern day mission similiar like hunting or attacking abstergo facilities except if sucker punch mix it to infamous
Every now and then I re-install the original AC1 and it baffles me how good it looks. I don't know how they changed the cartoonish/realistic balance in future games, but AC1 have something about them that's pushing the game close towards the uncanny valley, but not quite into the uncanny valley. It looks really good.
I think that the biggest problem with video game industry is that is realy hard to reinvent the wheel so almost everything good and fun that they do on new games has already been done in another game in the past so to people who have been playing for a lot of years everything feels the same. But most of the times when developers make something completly new people just dont like it
TIP: For Rider's Republic go to settings and set voice AND music to 0. The game becomes exponentially more enjoyable. Play your own music and put on subtitles so you only have to read what Ubisoft thinks influencer-cringe sounds like
you can tell there are artists with vision in unbisoft, but you can also tell the business side of them is also really involved in all the decision makings
Few years ago i would've agreed, but now i think the artists and developers are crap as well. For example Breakpoint, even if the game was fully finished and polished, the artistic aspect would've been crap. Rainbow 6 Siege too, they keep adding goofy colorful cosmetics that only few people want. This is not the business guys involved, this is the artists' decision. If the business guys only knew how much money they're losing by not making proper military cosmetics.. Ghost Recon has tons of goofy gimmicky stuff that nobody wants, but the fanbase would pay some money for proper military cosmetics. It's all because they're hiring based on race and gender, not based on actual skills and artistic talents. If there are 10 men who can make a great military game, they will not hire them. Instead, they will hire 2 women, 2 black people, 2 transgenders, 2 muslims, 1 gay and 1 lesbian. And they're supposed to make a tactical stealth military game, but they are not suited for it. They don't know anything about military, they don't even like military games and they have no passion for it, maybe they even hate military games. So they can't be creative and artistic when it's not their court. It's like asking the creator of Dora Explorer or Teletubbies to make a horror movie.
@@twentytwo138This comment traversed all levels of disagreeable. Kind of crazy how you managed to devolve your argument so hard. Actually, from the start it was all opinion. Guys please dont read more it kinda hurted me to process day
AC Brotherhood, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Far Cry 3 and Steep were the last Ubisoft titles I played. Ubisoft loves to innovate with their games and then stagnate for a decade.
It’s kind of an advantage to not play „modern“ games. I can play or replay the ones i liked as a Teen and still enjoy them because I don’t even know the little improvements or graphics upgrades. Black Flag was my last one but replaying 2 and Brotherhood are on my agenda
I remember paying through the first hour or so of far cry 6, there is a mission which is basically the same as far cry 3. Where you go to a field of things being grown (can’t remember what it was because I don’t care) and at the end the player character says out loud that it was fun and seemed oddly familiar. I had a moment of realization that these games haven’t changed since 2013. Plus when Jason does it in far cry 3, he’s laughing like a crazy person and ACTUALLY having fun. Splinter cell chaos theory is Ubisoft best game though hands down
It's an Easter egg pretty much. There's putting drugs on fire in all far cry games after 3. It's like baka mitai being a karaoke song in every yakuza game. You are getting angry at fan service
Yes, I am angry at fanservice the same way I am angry to see a pantyshot in a random ass manga. Fanservice and eastereggs should be a nod to the fan, something discreet and rewarding to pick up. Not a full frontal double drop kick in your teeths, like the most lazy creator in the universe.
@@buttonasasyou are not alone, I remember Whitelight once having a joke facereveal, but only a text 'Raycevick' appeared with manic laughter in the background, loved that.
The problem with Ubisoft is they came up with a great open-world sandbox template nearly two decades ago now yet have become one of the least-imaginative companies using it, just recycling increasingly barebones story/world on it. AC Valhalla and Horizon Forbidden West for example are night and day despite using the same fundamental gameplay template.
I wish Ubisoft would've kept the more serious and grounded tone of the first Assassin's Creed. I'm not claiming it was super realistic, but at least I could easily suspend my disbelief, which is something I struggle to do in most of the sequels. They're simply too ridiculous.
I really like Watch Dogs 2. It is not Grand Theft Auto but it has a very different pace and lots of fun mechanics. I also say the same for Steep. Ubisoft since like 2018 have been going downhill.
@@theobell2002 I like the dopamine I get from the instant gratification followed by completing a mission, but personally I feel Ubisoft games are too long for their content. Like, it's fun to "liberate an enemy camp" or whatever, but It's *way less fun* to do it the twentieth time than it was to do the first few times. I don't feel compelled to fire up a game when I know it's just asking me to do the same thing again. Might as well just make a 6 hour game with some random generation to stir things up every run. Because that's kinda what it feels to me. Not worth $70 buy-in.
Just discovered your channel randomly Yesterday, And I can't stop watching all your vid' (and english is not even my main language) Really I can see all the work behind the scene on each of those. I like the tone and the rythm and tend to agree with all you said (not just on this one) 👍
Anno 1800 is the last Ubisoft game I played that I was like, "Yup, this game is good!" I miss the days of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, AC2, Farcry 2 (Far Cry 3 was really good as well), OG Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six 3. They were incredible games.
I had this sensation when I was playing FC6 -- never played an FC game before but after a couple of hours I thought 'this feels really familiar', having just come of AC:V, a game that shouldn't be similar in any way
@@StarmenRockIn my defense, it was on discount and I was shopping for a new game. It was tolerable enough for me to finish but I've never felt the urge to play it again. Even ME:A was worth a second playthrough
Case in point: The Crew, older Open Maps were damn amazing with the USA. But Moterfest's map being so downsized just makes it mundane after a few hours, cuz while in the USA you could let your mind run wild to an extent, Honolulu limits it further.
i love that screensaver effect, as someone who's really sick of the usual video editing styles of "video essayists" or whatever the term is, i crave the sillyness of stylized media
I think you've summed up the Ubisoft frustration well! I enjoy their games, but they annoy me immensely. The other thing with Ubisoft is the recent comments about "players must get comfortable with not owning their games", which automatically makes me suspicious and reminds me that the modern 'always online' game, even if it is single-player, is not a great selling point for any game.
I stopped buying Ubisoft games over a decade ago when they started pushing obnoxious DRM on PC. The whole "players not owning their own games" thing is a continuation of that. They never got better. I'm still not buying their games. I'm still wondering why so many people keep forgiving Ubisoft over and over for the same issues.
The first Asassin's Creed is still the only title in the series where you could really feel the attention to detail in every pore of the game, everything was connected, everything made sense, especially the philosophy and the motivations of the characters. You were actually exploring Damaskus and the Middle East instead of just meet and greeting a cavalcade of historical figures that the player had heard about but made 0 sense in the game.
My biggest issue with Ubisoft as a game making entity is that they can't do anything else besides Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and the occasional Tom Clancy brand stamp. Every year they keep releasing the same game! Even the entries with actual potential of something 'new' is being squandered by the fact that they're using the same gameplay loop, mechanics and artistic direction.. and the games that could actually be it's own fun, new IP is being turned into a Tom Clancy game with no rhyme or reason. They're literally terrified of investing in new IP's.
Assassins Creed nowadays is like a new movie, which story on of itself would be good, but force you to do the same tired stuff to go to the next good szene. Real shame that the gameplay became the bloat of the franchise....
Hello Ray, I've watched your F1, racing, CoD 4, Warframe and a few more of your works. I really enjoy your narration, humour timing and editting. And since more often than not you're able to delve into the nitty details rather than letting yourself caught up in hype, I'd love to hear your opinion on Nier: Automata, which, over the course of the last decade, still remains one of if not the best gaming experience I've ever had
You've summed it up well. Ubisoft puts out some really cool things, and I can tell that a ton of talented and passionate people are working on these games. Yet the corporate side so often harms these projects in their desire to maximize profits at all costs.
Are you sure about that? Is it the corporate fault or the artist' fault for putting goofy, gimmicky and colorful cosmetics in tactical shooters like Ghost Recon and Rainbow 6? I don't think the business guys have anything to do with this. Not many people buy these goofy cosmetics, most players want realistic and tactical military cosmetics, especially in Ghost Recon. So they're actually losing money, if the business guys only knew how much they're losing they'd fire these ''artists''. I think the artists and developers are just crap and the business guys have no idea, they probably think the profit is enough, but it could be much more if they have better artists. But now they don't hire based on talents and skills, now they hire based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality etc.. That's why the art is crap. And it's someone else's fault, the woke culture and society is to blame.
@@twentytwo138 Who do you reckon decides that these goofy, gimmicky and colourful shyte should go in the game? The artists? Or the people on top who can tell them to pack their bags and fuk off if they dont do it their way? Sure, the artists may have some agency in what they put out, but ultimately the control over the final product falls under the guys they're working under, who also happen to be working under the guys who want stuff done their way. Most of what artists do as far as I'm concerned is making the designs, characters, environments that enforces the visions of the higher ups. Because who cares if an artist draws up the most setting appropriate character/environmental design for a tactical shooter? If the visions of the creative designer wants there to be anthropomorphic furries shooting at eachother in the chocolate factory, then it's "fuk your designs, I want my furries," and if the artist don't comply, then they just get replaced with someone that does comply.
@@majimasimpI do agree with you and you're right, but to an extent. I think the higher-ups are not even familiar with the game, they probably don't even look at the final product, they just want money ASAP and they don't care how they get it. And the artists are rushed without a centralized idea, i think they don't have a single leader with vision. There's too many people with too many different ideas, and they're all trying to be inclusive and be involved. The end result is mashed potatoes.. In my country we have a saying: ''When the cat is not there, the mice are running the show'' i think that's what happens to these artists, they're all on their own without proper guidance and without a true leader, but they're also rushed because of money. But the biggest problem is that now the companies are hiring employees based on gender, race and sexuality. They have a quota to fill, they need a certain percentage of women, people of color and LGBTQ members. They want inclusiveness and variety, and also they hate straight white men. But let's be honest, straight white men are the most passionate about the military genre. A lot of those other people aren't even passionate about genre, maybe they hate guns and violence. They don't see beauty in dark realistic camoflauge, they prefer the pink flower furries. Wrong people for the wrong job. Also they are heavily influenced by Sweet Baby Inc. The companies are paid a lot of money for them to be allowed to influence the game. And if the company doesn't want to cooperate with Sweet Baby, they try to sabotage them with sexual allegations, racial and homophobic allegations, toxic masculinity allegations, lawsuits and public shaming etc.. And that's too risky for the higher ups. Sweet Baby Inc. is basically a rich mafia that is against straight white men, and they extort the higher ups with money, bribe and corruption. All under the fake terms of ''inclusiveness''. It's the woke culture poisoning the entertainment industry.
I was having a shitty day when a new Raycevick video pops up, and I'm immediately in a good mood. Nice shout outs to Skill Up and Jack Sather as well. Thanks Ray ❤
Rain, hail, sleet, snow. What a throwback to Pure Pwnage man, referencing our Canadian brothers. I love that track and PP is so amazingly nostalgic for me, I never thought I'd hear it again in this kind of context. Thanks for the nostalgia trip dude.
Seemingly being so out of touch of modern trends and pop culture in general, while having one of the best gaming channels on a platform obsessed with trends, is quite the achievement. Love your vids, and I am always happy when a new one drops.
Raycevick, you're so right. I heard all the valid critisims of Assassins Creed Odesey and thought "Yeah, but I really want to run about in ancient Greece." The premise got me good. (I'm glad I didn't play it long enough to hit the infuriation stage. I just got about 5 hours into playing Grand Theft Malacca on starting island and decided I just didn't care enough to keep playing.)
AC Odyssey broke me and I haven't played a new Ubisoft game since. OTOH it got me really interested in ancient history and got me to go visit Greece IRL so it was overall worth it.
I was in my early 20s when the first AC came out, and I remember things very differently. The general consensus was not "watershed game", it was more like "good game but not great." So I looked it up, Metacritic score: 81 (PS3), 81 (X360), 79 (PC). Pretty much what I remembered.
It's frustrating to see millions upon millions being spent on generic middle of the road games, and it's even sadder when something like that makes a billion dollars in revenue. If Ubisoft type games were the only ones being made, I wouldn't be here playing video games anymore, but thankfully there's a lot of alternatives out there - even for the big AAA games.
10:50 Hold up hold up hold up... How the f* was this part made? The video playing on the phone... the phone screen still has its cracks visible above the video, the shadows from the trees cast on the screen, the video is visible on the phone as it is being pulled up, the screen has it's bezel, the thumb is perfectly cut out... Dunno why but I literally had to pause the video and watch it again. Such fine editing...
As the years have gone its become very clear how Ubisoft has gotten worse and worse as the times gone by. Everyone needs to take a long look at the game companies their supporting if we are to ever have some positive change in the industry instead of waiting around for the game companies to get so greedy and incompetent that they just implode on their own.
AC1 was one of the last big videogames which felt like a huge leap forward in the medium. It was the last time I played something and thought "this could not possibly be done on older hardware." And I don't mean the graphics, I mean the massive crowds and ridiculous animation systems. It was crazy for 2007. I think the only other game that came close to capturing that feeling was GTA4.
Been playing the first AC again, and couldn't agree more with the lack of boldness and bullshit in the modern day Ubisoft experience. Excellent video as always!
This though. And don't forget the CEO covering up for his friends when they sexually abuse and harass their coworkers! 5 were finally arrested in 2023 after years of investigation revealed "systemic sexual violence"
The biggest thing you need to know about ubisoft is this; during the release window of skull and bones, the playerbase for assassin's creed black flag skyrocketed. people are finally realizing Ubisoft's old games are better, less bloated versions of the games they give us now.
Before that for me, though I can't remember exactly which game or when. It's been more than a decade of hearing people complain about Ubisoft - for their games, their business practices, and their work culture - and wondering why people keep buying their games, complaining about the games/company, then buying their games again. This one weird trick to not being frustrated by Ubisoft: Don't buy their games.
You're so on point about what makes me still THINK about playing big Ubisoft titles (I've passed the point of playing them day one): The concept of their games are just amazing, especially for Assassin's Creed, who doesn't dream of exploring an historical setting so greatly reproduced? I had this exact feeling about AC Odyssey 2 years ago and was eager to play it but the same exact pattern repeated where, after 10 hours, I was getting bored and feeling like mindlessly completing artificial objectives and being inside of a theme park with 5 different activities and an "open world" revolving around the player only. Yet, I still feel this eagerness of trying out Valhallah, even Shadows, even though I KNOW it's going to get boring the same way, these guys really get the premices right and always make me wonder what could have been when playing their games. What's more infuriating is that Ubisoft is capable of making great games, which is what you see when playing their more underground/innovative titles like For Honor where they had more creative freedom. From what I heard, their developpers know they're not making great games anymore with their big titles and just doing what the shareholders/marketing teams tell them to. It's sad to see what a company previously full of passionate people capable of great innovation to create good games has fallen into after becoming too big and having shareholders to please. It's actually a good cautionary tale about the harmful effects of capitalism and the race to grow infinitely. Companies should stop growing at some point to keep some creative freedom, hence why games like Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3 always get the game awards. Unfortunately however, it doesn't mean these are the games making the most money, which is just what these big companies are for now, better a mediocre game full of microtransactions milking the few people paying for them than an actual breakthrough or just a solid game in its genre.
This is Santiago. Thanks for the shoutout! Many Ubisoft developers feel exactly the same way as you in this video. We all see the potential... until we don't anymore.
Thank you for your input. It is so good to know that everyone sees it from the same perspective. It is sad to see head decision makers curtailing the creativity that is so obvious for everyone to see..
It’s really interesting and refreshing to hear Ubisoft devs talking about their games in a more candid setting
I know. I wanna hear some of the behind the scenes of Far Cry 5 and the massive disconnect of the plot
I can't imagine how soul-crushing that place must be sometimes. Your bosses are the biggest R-tards in the gaming industry.
I often watch the GDC talks from Ubisoft devs and they make me really sad as you can clearly tell how enthusiastic the devs are about whatever they are doing. Even sent a mail to one of them cause during the talk he was like "I bet most player won't notice this tiny detail" and I said, nope I noticed! He shared the mail with the team.
The Best part of ubisoft games is when you complete them and think about how much better they could be
This, but not only. I hate pretty much every Assassin's Creed game (played all from 1 to Syndicate and some more than once), because when I finish AC1 and think of what the series could be, I remember how they added gimmick after gimmick, dropped all attempt at philosophy in the story, and just made it the yearly sludge game (sitting next to CoD in my eyes). It's not just "how much better this game could have been" it's also "they forgot about everything I liked in the previous game"
I don't personally know a single person who has bothered to complete a modern Ubisoft game.
Well summed up.
Every Far Cry game I've ever played has never escaped the shadow of what it could have been, if it had committed to some kind of vision in gameplay or narrative instead of being the most milquetoast designed-by-committee-ass game possible.
And this since that first Assassin's Creed.
Me when I played Blacklist. I can't believe Splinter cell hasn't had a real mainline game since 2005.
Ubisoft is always sooooo close to making a game I would love to sink hours into, and then mess something else up so horribly its ruined.
And Steep is way better than Riders Republic
Descenders is really fun
It's usually the combat for me. When that's 70% of your game it CANNOT be mediocre.
Not even close to RR sadly which once again... Infuriating @@r3dsnow757
Didn't the latest Prince of Persia game do really well?
Let’s be honest. The reason no one is buying newer Ubisoft games post Valhalla is because players are still trying to actually finish Valhalla.
Lol, that game is so fricking long and that's sad because the main story is actually pretty cool but has soo much filler in it. Some really good filler but most not so much, at least world events in the game keeps things entertaining.. Well, if you actually do them. I always do them that are in my way between missions which I recommend doing if you think of playing Valhalla, a lot of reviewers always say you just hold the thump stick forward on a horse to get where you need to go next but those same people obviously not trying to interact with the world which is sad. The world is beautiful and the world events in between missions are a blast to complete, I remember a lot of them and one being my favorite is about a girl that's waiting next to a tree for her father to get home. She was told by her father that he will return before the last leaf fall off the tree, their is only one leaf left when you show up and with world events... You don't get told the objectives, you must find them out on your own. Their a hide and seek world event, where a bunch kids on a farm are playing and you decide join in and get chosen to hide from the seeker. A world event about getting a old band that separated, back together (Again you don't get told this at all, theirs hints throughout the city, with people talking or notes that you can read, that the event is in and you must think of it yourself). Just a lot of unique and fun world events that don't take itself too seriously, it's a good time and gave me much of my enjoyment in the filler parts of this game.
I'm still finishing Odyssey
I find it deeply ironic that they popularised the phrase "Definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, and expecting something different"
That's more of an EA thing
Damn, that whole scene was so good. Even after all of these years of not playing FC3 I still remember how equally intimate and terrifying that whole scene was, it really sold Vaas as the well made villian he was.
It's almost like the devs wanted to tell/warn the players the Truth of the company.
I mean, they didn't "popularise" the phrase, and based on their business model "expecting something different" is the complete opposite of what they're trying to achieve. They know what makes them money, so to speak (the Ubisoft Formula).
That's the thing, they don't want something different. A game got them a lot of money, so they want to keep doing the same thing and keep getting a lot of money.
The statement "it's better to be bad than to be boring" is a rather perfect summary of why I haven't bought a Ubisoft game since Siege
It's funny how many people's cut off has been Rainbow 6 Siege.
AC 3 for me. Then FC5 for the map editor. I've played everything they've made, and since 2012 it's all just not worthwhile. They don't respect your time, just money.
They were great in the PS2 era : Rayman 3, Prince of Persia : Sands of Times trilogy, Beyong Good & Evil, Splinter Cell...It's amazing how them shifting to open world made them one of the worst video game company ever. Their game design was already obsolete with AC1, and it didn't fundamentally change since then.
A bore fest made for people who like to work tedious and repetitive tasks during their free time that are slowly gnawing at their humanity. Not really the kind of people you want to associate with.
Play the Mario and Rabbids series. Their version of XCOM is perfect
now that I think about it
Doesn’t that sentiment apply to deadly premonition
It's a real shame, how Ubisoft turned out. I remember back in the 2000s, Ubisoft was releasing some of the most unique, cool games I'd ever played. Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Far Cry 1 and 2, Rayman, and the OG Rainbow Six games
Activision, EA, Bethesda, Take Two, Ubisoft.
The Big 5 of the 2000s.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
(I mean, they still do release good games every now and then but back in the 2000s they were the go-tos for gamers).
Ubisoft didn’t do Far cry 1
And Beyond Good and Evil!
crytek was farcry 1 ubisoft just published it
Far Cry 1 was made by Crytek. Ubisoft only pubblished it. Then Crytek sold the IP, kept the technology, and made Crysis.
I had absolutely no idea that assassin's Creed Valhalla was the best selling in the series because I have yet to meet a person who actually liked the game.
It's sitting at 71% positive ratings out of 18,400 reviews on Steam, so it seems a lot of people liked it, just the ones who hated it are louder. I don't love it myself either, but it's a solid 7/10 for me. Not a masterpiece, just a comfort game I can sink a few hours in after work.
I really like it. I like the feel of it but I much prefer the older games like assassinscreed 1 2 3 and 4. I'm glad morrage has returned to the roots. It's a much better game.
Mostly because its Vikings, during a time when the Viking craze was still pretty strong. I dont think it would sell nearly as well today, i think most people are over the Viking aesthetic
Is it literally best selling? Or is it just most profitable cos of all the microtransactions and 17 special editions?
Genuine question, I dont actually know I just merely presumed it was the latter.
@@kurtacus3581 the biggest factor is that it came out during the pandemic, more than some Viking craze that was sweeping the world around November 2020. And a lot of hype for Vikings was created by Valhalla's marketing and trailers.
Vikings have always been kinda cool anyway, probably more so pirates whose pop culture boom began with Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Spartans who became popular after 300. Though you can make any time period/historical group seem cool really by putting an angry parkour murder guy or gal in the middle of it.
Ubisoft really is the Mcdonalds of video games. Not bad enough to swear it off, but not good enough to crave it every day
it's a game you really want but after you play it a little you're ashamed of yourself
Looks good in ads but when you get it in person there's barely anything and is more or less a 10 year old product that was just warmed up in the oven
But you just can't help really craving it a couple times a year...
It's bad enough that you shouldn't be buying it at all.
@@ekki1993 All too often do we, as people, fall short of the ideal.
Ubisoft makes the right things in the absolutely worst way possible , they have a cancer in the upper management that’s prevent creativity and need to be removed ASAP
Too late, this company gonna keep it the way it is
@@ClaseyMeanAh only if Vaas can tell them the definition of insanity ;)
@@FEzio78funny how you can take a quote from their older title and throw it at them and it just makes sense
Remove all woke people from upper managements and put people into management who have actual balls to make.
It's like they learn nothing too, the most hated mission in "Ghost Recon: Wildlands" and the problem people hated the most is copy pasted over and over again in "Ghost Recon: Breakpoint" missions. Their is a stealth class in Breakpoint but almost every mission in the episode 1 and 3 of the game ends with a forced gunfight and base alarm... Making stealth feel pointless because no matter what, I will be forced into combat. I played MGSV, the game that they're trying to recreate, they need to actually look at that game and see what good tactical mission design actually is.
Not me but someone on crowbcat’s video on Ubisoft:
“ Ubisoft have 10/10 ideas but 6/10 execution”
they had one singular 7/10 idea in the year 2007 and have copy-pasted it relentlessly for over a decade with 4/10 execution
@@boldCactuslad10/10 idea but yeah
you're being too generous 4 at least and 5 at most.
@@nundulanyou out of your mind if ass creed is a 10/10
@@cavc1979 the idea is a 10/10, can you read?
I work at Ubi and think you've nailed it, each year we're given updates on upcoming games and so often the premise is SO exciting, but ultimately the trust that we stick to those core concepts isn't there for me anymore. I don't think execs believe you can sell a game just on a unique and well executed vision.
Believe it or not GR Breakpoint looked INCREDIBLE initially, the military sim that people wanted GRW to be. In the end it was accused of being a reskin because it pulled punches and i guess that's so it felt more of a game for everyone.
This is sad. Games are supposed to be fun and creative. When you start developing games that appeal to everyone you end up appealing to no one. Honestly the last ubisoft game I played that I genuinely had fun start to finish was the first beyond good and evil.
Now the only ubisoft game I have fun playing is brawlhalla. I've given up on singleplayer experiences from ubisoft.
GR:Breakpoint ended up being iterated on, adding more realistic features like Ghost mode, more milsim stuff and an stealth improvement, along with the Bodark campaign thing that was fun, but a reskin from Wildlands.
From a player's perspective, the community sentiment was going pretty well and positive, until the game got sunset.
How much do you think the game it turned out to be and the direction it was heading to, is closer to that initial view and excitement?
Do you thi k
Ubisoft devs are creatively and morally bankrupt.
Won't you get fired for speaking against the company? Not joking.
@@Miuranger1 I mean the company has like 50 studios and 20000 employees. Unless they're being really specific, they're not going to be found out.
Modern Ubisoft games can have soul, but its usually hard to see buried beneath so much bullshit and tedium. And that’s if it can be seen at all.
You have to buy the "time savers" duh. Imagine people doing this...
A billion for Valhalla-.- gamers are lost
I remember that you summed this up yourself quite succinctly, years ago.
"There was a time when I would have called Ubisoft my favourite developer/publisher. They were _really_ consistent at putting out quality games, across various genres. [...] Each had their own identity that made them stand out from one another, and when you saw that spiral logo on a box as you browsed your local game store, you were almost guaranteed to get something worthwhile that you'd remember for years. But this changed, and Ubisoft would begin stuffing almost all of their major franchises into the same cookie-cutter template."
It's so incredibly frustrating to know, to fucking _know for a fact_ that this is still there and their games can shine like gold, if only they kept themselves from putting in the bullshit, but they simply cannot help themselves.
Steep and Riders Republic are both legitimately pretty good, but they still found ways to be absolutely disgusting with MTX. I beta tested at least 6 Ubi games, including Rider's Republic and the only thing they want to know from the beta test is if the MTX store works and damn everything else. You literally can't change your clothes from default in Riders Republic without buying something else.
Odyssey comes to mind for this. Love the setting and time period. But my god is it so fucking tedious. So much grinding, so much incentive to buy the micros. Its obnoxious and I have quit every single one of my playthroughs because of it. Only way I'll beat it is by putting a trainer on my game for the resource grind
Not even gonna get into the stupid gameplay decisions like the twirling like a Shaolin Monk with your spear or the odd decision to take away the ability to use a shield as a SPARTAN in GREECE.
Take AC. It has potentiel however the issue is the scy fy stuff cant go anywear as its taking place in the real world so it always needs to be hidden and taken out as soon as its intodruced. The modern day beeibg taken to the far off future however could alow them to Do some cool shit without havibg to Focus on too much realism
Ubisoft [n]: The definition of missed potential
The JJK Megumi of game companies lol
Turning arts into theme parks is a pitfall the likes of Ubisoft Disney and Marvel has fallen into.
"Did I ever tell you the definition of missed potential?"
*opens dictionary and shows a picture of Ubisoft*
Idk, in recent years I'd give that title to Bethesda. I still dropped 70 hours into Valhalla and had fun, but had to nope out of Starfield after like 10.
That was my impression of far cry 5. It was a good game but it could have been a great game. The concept was good but the way they went about it seemed flat at times.
This could be me but it felt kind of flat in the cynical Outlook felt old
The irony of getting a Ubisoft ad midway through the video… befuddled me.
You get youtube ads?
Bro get with the times - you don't have to take it. Haven't seen an ad on here in years.
@@DTMC00 I was watching on mobile.
I like the word 'befuddled' 😊
@@Vistalgia revanced. I think there's a similar thing for IOS too
TLDR - Ubisoft gets the appeal right, but fails the core mechanics and gameplay loop.
"Originality enough to appear on a postcard but not enough to be the destination."
It's a great way to express how i've seen a trend in the past couple of years of developing something just enough to market it but not actually develop a "full" product.
The corpo speak for this is, minimum viable product.
I think the logic is why shoot for 10 out of 10 experiences when you can make 7-8's publish them and move onto the nexy one.
Well for them to change tack, you would need someone in the driver's seat who has a deep love for games and wants to create art, instead of some fuckboy in a suit who went to school to learn how to make numbers go up
Rockstar and a couple others like Nintendo are the rare exceptions that have been delivering solid 8 out of 10 or even 9 out of 10 (even Red Dead 2 or GTA V could have been better)
Wish more people in the industry took cues from those guys.
Watching this reminds me of years ago reading an article in Edge magazine from one of the level designers at IW for CoD 4, where he talked about how the original opening ship level was never meant to sink, but he wanted to make it sink and he spent weeks solo crunching the level to prove it was a good idea and it worked.
It's wild to think that one guy's insistence on a cool idea shaped an initial impression of what would go on to be a behemoth in the industry, but now it feels like we're so far beyond any feeling of that individual with any large release. It's too easy to fault games when it doesn't feel like you can find individual influences on them anymore.
That's the sad thing, those hands are still there. Originally, I was trying to incorporate a personal experience I had, where because I'd talked to Santiago on a previous project, and knew he worked on Far Cry 6, I was playing through certain levels and thinking "...is that him?" and turned out those ones were.
Today the headline would read;
" anonymous Call Of Duty developer speaks out about pervasive crunch culture that forced him to work alone for weeks on end"
@@BoleDaPoleno it wouldn’t. No one is arguing against people who want to work harder and get something working by themselves. People do that all the time in software engineering.
You are conflating two different things.
An old colleague did something similar for the original Medal of Honor. Some people wanted to have a cool level of unending enemies and you were on a mounted gun able to mow them down.
For some reason everyone said it was impossible and couldn’t do it, then said person who recently joined the company developed it himself.
@@dhruvb38Yeah theyre different in the sense that back then you had developers who were actually passionate about their jobs, now they just hire people who do it strictly as a job and thats if they dont outsource the work to people that do it to literally be able to survive.
I've always thought of the Ubisoft formula as being essentially "think of cool idea, pay whatever number of graphic designers and world artists necessary to make it a reality. Make the gameplay and story work however you can in the deadline."
It works because nailing a super detailed world with a cool concept is actually something that can be done fairly relaibly if you have the reaources. A few brainstorming sessions and you have a bunch of cool ideas. Throw enough people at the problem and you can make a huge, beautiful map within your alloted time.
But game mechanics and systems are largley not a numbers issue, they're a time issue. You need to test and iterate and test and iterate, and there's no way around it. So reusing what already worked is the only thing that can be done consistently.
It's not just time. It's passion. Ubisoft develops their game mechanics and systems based on lowest common denominator, focus groups. This is why all of their games all have the same gameplay loops, are so open-ended that no matter how you approach problems, they always feel underwhelming and not impactful. These games don't have direction, they aim to please everyone possible. Assassin's Creed feels exactly like Watch Dogs, which feels exactly like The Division, which feels exactly like Ghost Recon which feels exactly like Far Cry, which feels exactly like Avatar, etc. etc. This is why anybody who has played these types of games before immediately drops them or doesn't talk about them beyond their "comfort session" that Raycevick mentions in the videos. Yes, "normies" are the reason why these games truly make money. Let's be honest, his demographic have very little to do with it beyond spending $10 on a sale a year later.
You're not far from the truth. I've been to a conference with Serge Hascoët (then Ubi's creative director and alleged harasser of the ladies) explain that AC was basically him reading about the "leap of faith" in a book set during that time period and telling the devs to make a game from that.
So on point, it's so infuriating how great the art direction/historical reproduction is in those games. It really makes me want to explore but, in the end, I will skip an awesome building which might have taken days to create and to get the historical facts straight cause it will just be observation point n°125, bandit camp n°333 or chests to loot n°516 which I will spend 10 seconds to complete mindlessly before moving on to the next "task", cause it feels like actual work playing through these things.
It's so sad that the artists' work is not highlighted by the game/level design but, like you said, creating engaging gameplay mechanics takes time and involves some kind of risk if it repels part of the target audience, a risk which management/shareholders dare not take: better a forgettable/boring game which sells than a breakthrough or a solid game in its genre.
@@Vladiator I heard from an ex Ubisoft employee that they actually have guidelines for game design which date from 2007 that they aim to implement in all of their games. It's not just out of fear of taking risks or reproducing what works in other games, it's an actual philosophy Ubisoft's management has tried to stick to, hence how we get the same exploration formula in all of their games, the style changes, the substance stays the same.
Exactly what I was thinking. These people are mad that Ubisoft reuses their own assets and mechanics that they created themselves, as if no other AAA studio in the world does this.
Love the DVD bouncing raycevick at 08:57. Editing here is top notch as always
I’ve just accepted that as a “core” hobbyist in gaming, Ubisoft isn’t making games for me, and that’s okay. There are more games to play and try than I would have time for if I did nothing else in life.
That's the cost of Ubisoft trying to make games for everybody, they end up making games for nobody.
That's something msot gamers don't understand: The industry is so vast that you don't need to play games you don't like.
@@mondodimotori All consumers need to learn this. All cars aren't for you, all movies aren't for you, all clothing is not for you. I've accepted that Ubisoft games aren't for me and that's okay. I will admit that Ubisoft gets so close to making masterpieces that it can be a little infuriating sometimes.
I really love the self- description as “hobbyist”
The problem isn't exactly that Ubisoft has moved away from the genre gamers towards the general market; they earned that spot with some truly stand-out titles early on. The problem is within the gradual move away from distinguishable, well-defined mechanics and strong design towards blurred lines and weak design (weak as in non-committal and unpronounced, not qualitatively weak).
People would be way less incensed if Ubisoft were still directing games within their respective genres, rather than turning EVERY franchise into some genericised version of itself. That's not to say that modern Ubisoft games are all bad, or all lack definition, they are just exceedingly similar to eachother and hardly focus on a single genre, instead trying to be everything all at once. And that has an opportunity cost.
Cyberpunk is not the next video, I was just using a meme. When that does get made, I'll use Alan Wake 2's stretched face, but yellow.
Very based
We all know the next video is halo wars years later
dont do cyberpunk,i remember buying it on PS4 first day coming home to an absolute slap in the face, they took the money from last gen customers and built a better version but only for who can afford a current gen console! i dont care if CDPR makes the best game ever im never buying their stuff ever again. love your work btw!
@@vijaydizzle The PS4 is more than 10 years old and the PS5 is 4 years old now, I think it's time to upgrade mate.
@@vijaydizzleyour loss, it’s actually one of the most innovative first person RPG’s ever made at this point. i’d argue it’s the most immersive game made in the last 15 years. also if you bought the last gen version for a game that ambitious, then it’s kind of on you. kind of a big risk and partially why the launch was so awful. more time wasted
My man, the biggest relief I've ever had was stopping buying games close to their release (circa 2 years after release). You realize that your hype is generally much bigger than your actual wish to play the game itself, and that what is really good and relevant will stay good and relevant 5-10 years down the line, so no need to rush.
Plus you save *so* much money, since a year or two gets you half off for everything except for the most Nintendo of Nintendo stuff.
The last of us 2 leaks saved me so much money and I hate leaks, because since that game (I know some people like it) turned out bad I’ve stopped preordering games entirely
I remember being super hyped up for DOOM Eternal and there wasn't anything wrong with the game, but I was still disappointed after I completed it. I was just too hyped, and the game couldn't meet the standards I set despite being a great game. Afterward I always kept a distance from games, even when they were hyped up, so when Cyberpunk was announced and everyone on the internet went crazy I didn't let myself buy into the hype. When the game released I played it for about 60 hours and actually enjoyed it despite how buggy and fucked up it was. It's something I try to consider whenever a game is announced.
Ironically the one game I allways buy new is Assassins Creed.
And this video sums up why.
Also means you get the benefit of whatever patches and bug fixes were made after launch.
a quote I think from whitelight's video on Forza Horizon 5
the idea of games having a "soul": bad games can be made good because of it but great games can become good games for lacking one.
Ubisoft frequently falls in the latter.
People often struggle to separate what's interesting from what's technically competent. They're both measures of what makes a piece of art "good" but especially in something with as many moving parts as computer games you can go a long way in one without affecting the other.
It feels like Ubisoft has a tendency to come up with game idea that has a lot of potential to be awesome, then developing about 60% of it and instead of pushing for 100% they're like "nah, that's enough let's just end it here and push it out the door"
they come up with 100% of concepts and drip feed it over 3 entries.
60% of the way there then they spend the other 40% on adding microtransactions
I felt this way when playing Assassin's Creed Rogue. The reverse ship boarding mechanic felt like something that should have been in Assassin's Creed IV but for some reason they implemented it in Rogue instead. Plus they said that Rogue was made for the fans that wanted a game where they played as a Templar for the entirety of the game yet it felt like they did the barest f-ing minimum to make it a game about the Templars. They really do come up with good ideas but never perfectly execute those ideas.
and most of their modern games reflect that by being 6/10s at best lol
More like "nah, that's good enough. Just copy and paste some game mechanics from our other games to pad it out and we're good to sell it"
13:00 "and of course...." *Cuts to advert*
I don't know if that was intentional, but that had me laughing.
I couldn't think of a more appropriate place.
*cuts to an Outback Steakhouse ad
The editing done on the phone walking through the forest was extremely impressive.
Full credit to Stoofer for that; it's not editing, it's witchcraft.
UA-cam was REALLY persistent with showing me this video and i'm glad i finally decided to watch it
"Let me holster this 6 foot rocket launcher. This will make me a lot less suspicious."
MGSV has a high-level RPG with "tranquilizer ammo" that somehow kept you inconspicuous
"Lets mention this in our deep dive as a selling point"
@@RaycevickAt least they have the excuse of it being first person, unlike Hitman Absolution where you'd shove a 50 caliber sniper rifle in your coat pocket.
True but MGS has a long history of Goofy weapons so it fits the world much better
Is that a rocket launcher in your pocket or are you just happy to see me
Ubisoft innovates once and milks that innovation for 20+ years to the point it becomes predictable and tedious.
Unless its Splinter Cell.
That franchise was taken out behind the shed and put down and Ubisoft brings out its corpse every now and then to see if anyone still cares.
Bethesda enters the chat
@@SYLRMHA I was just about to comment this lol
ubisoft milks nothing compared to rockstar, bethesda, acti blizzard and ea. blizzard and rockstar just flatout delete what they sold you so they can sell it to you again. lmao.
Complete bollocks. Just within the AC series alone there's are countless examples of innovation since the first game. And yet Bethesda somehow gets a free pass for re-releasing the same game constantly since 2011? Why, because of the modding community, something Bethesda has little control over? The absolute double standards here.
Another big problem for Ubisoft is that almost every other big studio is copying their open world formula, which has led to way too many similar games with different settings, so the people that play many open world games are more likely to get burned out.
This reminds me of guerilla games and the Horizon franchise. It's literally a Ubisoft copy/ paste formula
Someone I follow on bluesky shared this video after the news of ubisoft shareholders discussing buyout terms. So the part at 18:30 about the writing being on the wall sure lands a lot harder.
Ubisoft has been the definition of one step forward and two steps back for a while now
Pretty much most corporations, really. Their number #1 goal above all else is money. That means everything else is expendable to reach that goal, including quality.
I'd.. **presses pointer fingers together** ..I'd like Halo Wars Years Later.
*raises hand* I second that.
Yeah!!
I pray to god Ubisoft sells/licenses the Watch_Dogs IP to someone who can make the genuinely interesting and brilliant setting realize it's full potential, similarly how Bethesda licensed New Vegas to Obsidian.
There is so much unrealized potential I still can't come to terms with the fact Legion killed the franchise
I remember being soooo hyped for Legion, I pre-ordered the special edition. Then it came out and I felt like it should’ve been so obvious that in order to make every character playable and still have a story, none of the characters can be unique. It’s an interesting feeling when an idea sounds awesome on paper, but thinking about it for like 30 seconds makes you realize that it doesn’t really work. It was especially egregious coming off of Watch_Dogs 2, which had awesome, really unique characters!
That game could've been the MR robot of hacking games.
"Where else can you go" basically sums up the entire For Honor fandom. Pretty much everyone who plays it agrees it's a dogshit game that they hate... But that there just isn't another 3d low fantasy fighting game that scratches the itch FH gives you. Nowhere else do you get to put a longsword through a viking's chest shortly before a giant sumo warrior smashes you with a club.
As the Ubisoft proverb goes...
Innovate once, copy twice.
god if only they stop at twice now
It's not copying if they already created the assets and mechanics that they are using in a new game is it? Thats like you making a design for a website and you use the same design on 2 websites. Is that copying or reusing your own work?
@@RiFeX2703
"Its not copying...is it?"
Yes. If you copy something then like, yea.... you copied it. Its self defining.
"Is that copying or reusing". Its copying. Copying and reusing are basically synonyms.
The mention of Assassin’s Creed’s social stealth has always an odd one to hear due to the series never really having more than a couple of ways to “stealth” with the crowd.
Hitman is the prior reference to social stealth because they actually nailed and perfected it by Blood Money
They need to set an assassin's creed in Japan and use the ninja setting to revamp the stealth system.
@@GoogleRuinsAnythingItTouches
They're doing that at the moment with Assassin's Creed Red. But, knowing Ubisoft it'll be a watered down version of Ghost of Tsushima basically
@@OldMateJohn You predicted it :P
@@OldMateJohnbut ghost of tsushima doesn't have modern day mission similiar like hunting or attacking abstergo facilities except if sucker punch mix it to infamous
Every now and then I re-install the original AC1 and it baffles me how good it looks. I don't know how they changed the cartoonish/realistic balance in future games, but AC1 have something about them that's pushing the game close towards the uncanny valley, but not quite into the uncanny valley. It looks really good.
Dead Space 1 is like this as well (i reshade it though)
I thought for sure I was the only person who remembered Rain Snow Sleet Hail. You're a real one. Thanks for the hit of nostalgia!
Man, Rayman Origins and Legends were so good.
Legit the only good Ubisoft games.
@@darren591
?
@@darren591 Those games are great, but there are others like AC4
@@darren591Chaos theory????
Ubi is the perfect example of a company that grinds it's IPs to dust.
Or not paying attention to the IPs that everyone wants them to focus on, aka Splinter Cell, Rainbow 6, prince of Persia etc. etc.
@@RooiValk11 Or actually killing franchises...
Assassin’s Creed is less ground to dust than it is disrespected and underrealized, at least
"Come out now youre surrounded!"
"I HATE THEMEPARK GAME DESIGN I HATE THEMEPARK GAME DESIGN"
I think that the biggest problem with video game industry is that is realy hard to reinvent the wheel so almost everything good and fun that they do on new games has already been done in another game in the past so to people who have been playing for a lot of years everything feels the same. But most of the times when developers make something completly new people just dont like it
TIP: For Rider's Republic go to settings and set voice AND music to 0. The game becomes exponentially more enjoyable. Play your own music and put on subtitles so you only have to read what Ubisoft thinks influencer-cringe sounds like
you can tell there are artists with vision in unbisoft, but you can also tell the business side of them is also really involved in all the decision makings
Few years ago i would've agreed, but now i think the artists and developers are crap as well. For example Breakpoint, even if the game was fully finished and polished, the artistic aspect would've been crap. Rainbow 6 Siege too, they keep adding goofy colorful cosmetics that only few people want. This is not the business guys involved, this is the artists' decision. If the business guys only knew how much money they're losing by not making proper military cosmetics.. Ghost Recon has tons of goofy gimmicky stuff that nobody wants, but the fanbase would pay some money for proper military cosmetics. It's all because they're hiring based on race and gender, not based on actual skills and artistic talents. If there are 10 men who can make a great military game, they will not hire them. Instead, they will hire 2 women, 2 black people, 2 transgenders, 2 muslims, 1 gay and 1 lesbian. And they're supposed to make a tactical stealth military game, but they are not suited for it. They don't know anything about military, they don't even like military games and they have no passion for it, maybe they even hate military games. So they can't be creative and artistic when it's not their court. It's like asking the creator of Dora Explorer or Teletubbies to make a horror movie.
@@twentytwo138This comment traversed all levels of disagreeable. Kind of crazy how you managed to devolve your argument so hard. Actually, from the start it was all opinion. Guys please dont read more it kinda hurted me to process day
@@missasyan though very stupid I didn't find it painful to read.
Perhaps I've been on the internet for too long
@@missasyanWell, your opinion is only your opinion, and your opinion is very wrong. My opinion is right, true and 100% factual.
@@twentytwo138 "It's all because they're hiring based on race and gender" Argument immediately invalidated.
AC Brotherhood, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Far Cry 3 and Steep were the last Ubisoft titles I played. Ubisoft loves to innovate with their games and then stagnate for a decade.
Replaying those as we speak lmao
It’s kind of an advantage to not play „modern“ games. I can play or replay the ones i liked as a Teen and still enjoy them because I don’t even know the little improvements or graphics upgrades. Black Flag was my last one but replaying 2 and Brotherhood are on my agenda
Try Watch Dogs-1,2 also they were great, before ubisoft turned into sht.
Yo, your use of 'Mexican Mission' from Timesplitters gave me flashbacks, my dude. Good taste. Kudos.
I remember paying through the first hour or so of far cry 6, there is a mission which is basically the same as far cry 3. Where you go to a field of things being grown (can’t remember what it was because I don’t care) and at the end the player character says out loud that it was fun and seemed oddly familiar. I had a moment of realization that these games haven’t changed since 2013. Plus when Jason does it in far cry 3, he’s laughing like a crazy person and ACTUALLY having fun.
Splinter cell chaos theory is Ubisoft best game though hands down
I had a very similar feeling. I was like "Oh they don't even hide it, now ?". So infuriating...
It's an Easter egg pretty much. There's putting drugs on fire in all far cry games after 3. It's like baka mitai being a karaoke song in every yakuza game. You are getting angry at fan service
Yes, I am angry at fanservice the same way I am angry to see a pantyshot in a random ass manga. Fanservice and eastereggs should be a nod to the fan, something discreet and rewarding to pick up. Not a full frontal double drop kick in your teeths, like the most lazy creator in the universe.
Chaos Theory? I prefer Minecraft ❤ sorry
But they have changed. They got worse. Farcry would be an amazing series if they consistently put out the same quality as Farcry 3
"Ubisoft isn't EA, but they try so hard to be"
-Whitelight
I legitimately mix them up sometimes.
It's worse than EA in some regards while EA is worse than Ubisoft in others.
Long story short, both are terrible.
@@nathanlabrador7664 wait, you're not a labrador, you're a Dodogama! Equally jolly, I assume.
for me i often confuse bethesda and ubisoft@@buttonasas
@@buttonasasyou are not alone, I remember Whitelight once having a joke facereveal, but only a text 'Raycevick' appeared with manic laughter in the background, loved that.
Ubisoft refuses to take lessons theyve learned and apply them to future titles.
Oh they did. They learned instead of making many different games, they can just make every game play the same.
Why bother? It keeps selling.
@dvdivine1962 Oh trust me, they rather blame fans for their mistakes than apologizing...
Ubisoft could have had a "captured lightning in a bottle" moment like GTA was for Rockstar Games, but they just fumbled real hard.
The problem with Ubisoft is they came up with a great open-world sandbox template nearly two decades ago now yet have become one of the least-imaginative companies using it, just recycling increasingly barebones story/world on it. AC Valhalla and Horizon Forbidden West for example are night and day despite using the same fundamental gameplay template.
don't forget about Watch Dogs, they fumbled it hard
Valhalla smoked Horizon in sales revenue. That’s the whole point of this video.
Horizon sucked too lmao
Bro, defending Horizon games proves why Ubisoft formula is safest bet for AAA studios
@@AfflictamineWD1s NPCs were actually not that bad, Legion threw it all away imo.
What I think is that Ubisoft games are just aimed to the hyper casual audience that is not Nintendo. FIFA, COD, and these guys
This is so charitable and refreshing. And you hit the nail on the head, the problem is missed potential. Really well done.
Loved the video, brother.
Yeah is cool to see another point of look instead of just “the big bad company that we need to reveal against”
I'm just amazed the company still exists after all the SA stuff was confirmed and Yves was just like "omg no way?? I had no idea lol"
I knew exactly what that track was when it started around 2:00. Pure Pwnage. What a trip down memory lane for a moment. Great video as well!
I wish Ubisoft would've kept the more serious and grounded tone of the first Assassin's Creed. I'm not claiming it was super realistic, but at least I could easily suspend my disbelief, which is something I struggle to do in most of the sequels. They're simply too ridiculous.
When that Pure Pwnage song started I was shocked lol, just had to put that out there. Great stuff.
I really like Watch Dogs 2. It is not Grand Theft Auto but it has a very different pace and lots of fun mechanics. I also say the same for Steep. Ubisoft since like 2018 have been going downhill.
Playing Ubisoft games feels like doing most mindless secondary job
Hey, and sometimes that can be fun. It's okay to enjoy mindless things from time to time.
@@theobell2002 I like the dopamine I get from the instant gratification followed by completing a mission, but personally I feel Ubisoft games are too long for their content.
Like, it's fun to "liberate an enemy camp" or whatever, but It's *way less fun* to do it the twentieth time than it was to do the first few times.
I don't feel compelled to fire up a game when I know it's just asking me to do the same thing again. Might as well just make a 6 hour game with some random generation to stir things up every run. Because that's kinda what it feels to me. Not worth $70 buy-in.
lost potential summs up Ubisoft really well which sucks as I liked the older games and the newer ones always make me sigh
Thanks for including A New Frontier from the VA-11 Hall-A OST in this video. You made me remember how much of a banger OST that game has
Just discovered your channel randomly Yesterday, And I can't stop watching all your vid' (and english is not even my main language) Really I can see all the work behind the scene on each of those.
I like the tone and the rythm and tend to agree with all you said (not just on this one)
👍
Anno 1800 is the last Ubisoft game I played that I was like, "Yup, this game is good!" I miss the days of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, AC2, Farcry 2 (Far Cry 3 was really good as well), OG Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six 3. They were incredible games.
R.U.S.E was quite good as well and an excellent console RTS.
Ubisoft’s open-world game design is so boring
I had this sensation when I was playing FC6 -- never played an FC game before but after a couple of hours I thought 'this feels really familiar', having just come of AC:V, a game that shouldn't be similar in any way
soulless
@@StarmenRockIn my defense, it was on discount and I was shopping for a new game. It was tolerable enough for me to finish but I've never felt the urge to play it again. Even ME:A was worth a second playthrough
@@StarmenRockblaming the player for developers making a shit game??
Not his fault Ubisoft sucks, Far cry 6 should be the pinnacle of the franchise.
Case in point: The Crew, older Open Maps were damn amazing with the USA. But Moterfest's map being so downsized just makes it mundane after a few hours, cuz while in the USA you could let your mind run wild to an extent, Honolulu limits it further.
Psycholagy [n]: The feeling before a Raycevick vid drops
how??
Psycho-lagy???
Ubisoft drives me crazy because because they are the only company to do what they do but they’re not good at what they do
i love that screensaver effect, as someone who's really sick of the usual video editing styles of "video essayists" or whatever the term is, i crave the sillyness of stylized media
I only wish I could've gotten the logo to work with it.
I think you've summed up the Ubisoft frustration well! I enjoy their games, but they annoy me immensely. The other thing with Ubisoft is the recent comments about "players must get comfortable with not owning their games", which automatically makes me suspicious and reminds me that the modern 'always online' game, even if it is single-player, is not a great selling point for any game.
I stopped buying Ubisoft games over a decade ago when they started pushing obnoxious DRM on PC. The whole "players not owning their own games" thing is a continuation of that. They never got better. I'm still not buying their games. I'm still wondering why so many people keep forgiving Ubisoft over and over for the same issues.
Their CEO and a whole range of employees put their feet in their mouths so often they should be called Boobisoft.
I miss Rayman...
I remember Rayman trying to teach me math while platforming.
Rayman's studio created the latest Prince of Persia
The first Asassin's Creed is still the only title in the series where you could really feel the attention to detail in every pore of the game, everything was connected, everything made sense, especially the philosophy and the motivations of the characters. You were actually exploring Damaskus and the Middle East instead of just meet and greeting a cavalcade of historical figures that the player had heard about but made 0 sense in the game.
03:09 "There was no prior reference for its social stealth mechanics"
Hitman : Am I a joke to you ?
"Halo Wars: Years Later" is confirmed!! 🤯
The "If Elden Ring was made by Ubisoft" meme is real.
In a lot of ways it may as well have been
Been a avid hater of Ubisoft ever since like far cry 4. And it infuriates me how little people shit on them as a company
My biggest issue with Ubisoft as a game making entity is that they can't do anything else besides Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and the occasional Tom Clancy brand stamp. Every year they keep releasing the same game! Even the entries with actual potential of something 'new' is being squandered by the fact that they're using the same gameplay loop, mechanics and artistic direction.. and the games that could actually be it's own fun, new IP is being turned into a Tom Clancy game with no rhyme or reason. They're literally terrified of investing in new IP's.
Assassins Creed nowadays is like a new movie, which story on of itself would be good, but force you to do the same tired stuff to go to the next good szene. Real shame that the gameplay became the bloat of the franchise....
ubi is like that basketball player that can hit half-court shots occasionally and win the game but misses lay-ups on the regular
That Pure Pwnage track instantly had me in flashbacks to my childhood.
me too, me too...
Hello Ray, I've watched your F1, racing, CoD 4, Warframe and a few more of your works. I really enjoy your narration, humour timing and editting. And since more often than not you're able to delve into the nitty details rather than letting yourself caught up in hype, I'd love to hear your opinion on Nier: Automata, which, over the course of the last decade, still remains one of if not the best gaming experience I've ever had
You've summed it up well. Ubisoft puts out some really cool things, and I can tell that a ton of talented and passionate people are working on these games. Yet the corporate side so often harms these projects in their desire to maximize profits at all costs.
Are you sure about that? Is it the corporate fault or the artist' fault for putting goofy, gimmicky and colorful cosmetics in tactical shooters like Ghost Recon and Rainbow 6? I don't think the business guys have anything to do with this. Not many people buy these goofy cosmetics, most players want realistic and tactical military cosmetics, especially in Ghost Recon. So they're actually losing money, if the business guys only knew how much they're losing they'd fire these ''artists''. I think the artists and developers are just crap and the business guys have no idea, they probably think the profit is enough, but it could be much more if they have better artists. But now they don't hire based on talents and skills, now they hire based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality etc.. That's why the art is crap. And it's someone else's fault, the woke culture and society is to blame.
@@twentytwo138 Who do you reckon decides that these goofy, gimmicky and colourful shyte should go in the game? The artists? Or the people on top who can tell them to pack their bags and fuk off if they dont do it their way? Sure, the artists may have some agency in what they put out, but ultimately the control over the final product falls under the guys they're working under, who also happen to be working under the guys who want stuff done their way. Most of what artists do as far as I'm concerned is making the designs, characters, environments that enforces the visions of the higher ups. Because who cares if an artist draws up the most setting appropriate character/environmental design for a tactical shooter? If the visions of the creative designer wants there to be anthropomorphic furries shooting at eachother in the chocolate factory, then it's "fuk your designs, I want my furries," and if the artist don't comply, then they just get replaced with someone that does comply.
@@majimasimpI do agree with you and you're right, but to an extent. I think the higher-ups are not even familiar with the game, they probably don't even look at the final product, they just want money ASAP and they don't care how they get it. And the artists are rushed without a centralized idea, i think they don't have a single leader with vision. There's too many people with too many different ideas, and they're all trying to be inclusive and be involved. The end result is mashed potatoes.. In my country we have a saying: ''When the cat is not there, the mice are running the show'' i think that's what happens to these artists, they're all on their own without proper guidance and without a true leader, but they're also rushed because of money.
But the biggest problem is that now the companies are hiring employees based on gender, race and sexuality. They have a quota to fill, they need a certain percentage of women, people of color and LGBTQ members. They want inclusiveness and variety, and also they hate straight white men. But let's be honest, straight white men are the most passionate about the military genre. A lot of those other people aren't even passionate about genre, maybe they hate guns and violence. They don't see beauty in dark realistic camoflauge, they prefer the pink flower furries. Wrong people for the wrong job.
Also they are heavily influenced by Sweet Baby Inc. The companies are paid a lot of money for them to be allowed to influence the game. And if the company doesn't want to cooperate with Sweet Baby, they try to sabotage them with sexual allegations, racial and homophobic allegations, toxic masculinity allegations, lawsuits and public shaming etc.. And that's too risky for the higher ups. Sweet Baby Inc. is basically a rich mafia that is against straight white men, and they extort the higher ups with money, bribe and corruption. All under the fake terms of ''inclusiveness''. It's the woke culture poisoning the entertainment industry.
@@twentytwo138 ye, you make a good point. i dont have anything to say about that really. you have a good one
I just realized your profile pic is exactly like the cover of the Paramore ablum "Riot".
As a Hayley Williams appreciator, I approve.
I was having a shitty day when a new Raycevick video pops up, and I'm immediately in a good mood. Nice shout outs to Skill Up and Jack Sather as well. Thanks Ray ❤
19:00
Bonework's soundtrack is so good, I'm surprised this is one of the first times I've heard someone use it in the background of a video
Rain, hail, sleet, snow.
What a throwback to Pure Pwnage man, referencing our Canadian brothers. I love that track and PP is so amazingly nostalgic for me, I never thought I'd hear it again in this kind of context. Thanks for the nostalgia trip dude.
Seemingly being so out of touch of modern trends and pop culture in general, while having one of the best gaming channels on a platform obsessed with trends, is quite the achievement. Love your vids, and I am always happy when a new one drops.
Raycevick, you're so right.
I heard all the valid critisims of Assassins Creed Odesey and thought "Yeah, but I really want to run about in ancient Greece." The premise got me good.
(I'm glad I didn't play it long enough to hit the infuriation stage. I just got about 5 hours into playing Grand Theft Malacca on starting island and decided I just didn't care enough to keep playing.)
AC Odyssey broke me and I haven't played a new Ubisoft game since.
OTOH it got me really interested in ancient history and got me to go visit Greece IRL so it was overall worth it.
I was in my early 20s when the first AC came out, and I remember things very differently. The general consensus was not "watershed game", it was more like "good game but not great." So I looked it up, Metacritic score: 81 (PS3), 81 (X360), 79 (PC). Pretty much what I remembered.
They’re infuriating because there are flashes of brilliance (especially in the ps2 and early 3 days) covered in corpo bull.
It's frustrating to see millions upon millions being spent on generic middle of the road games, and it's even sadder when something like that makes a billion dollars in revenue. If Ubisoft type games were the only ones being made, I wouldn't be here playing video games anymore, but thankfully there's a lot of alternatives out there - even for the big AAA games.
10:50
Hold up hold up hold up...
How the f* was this part made? The video playing on the phone... the phone screen still has its cracks visible above the video, the shadows from the trees cast on the screen, the video is visible on the phone as it is being pulled up, the screen has it's bezel, the thumb is perfectly cut out... Dunno why but I literally had to pause the video and watch it again. Such fine editing...
It's not my editing, it's Stoofer's blackmagic.
@@Raycevick What is this heresy?!?
Purge the unclean!!
Please no my magic is holistic and fun for all the family!
As the years have gone its become very clear how Ubisoft has gotten worse and worse as the times gone by. Everyone needs to take a long look at the game companies their supporting if we are to ever have some positive change in the industry instead of waiting around for the game companies to get so greedy and incompetent that they just implode on their own.
If you play one Ubisoft's game, you played all of then. I'ts the same game with diferent skins
AC1 was one of the last big videogames which felt like a huge leap forward in the medium. It was the last time I played something and thought "this could not possibly be done on older hardware." And I don't mean the graphics, I mean the massive crowds and ridiculous animation systems. It was crazy for 2007. I think the only other game that came close to capturing that feeling was GTA4.
Been playing the first AC again, and couldn't agree more with the lack of boldness and bullshit in the modern day Ubisoft experience. Excellent video as always!
They are Bad in treating devs not like humans beeings, but like lifestock
This though. And don't forget the CEO covering up for his friends when they sexually abuse and harass their coworkers! 5 were finally arrested in 2023 after years of investigation revealed "systemic sexual violence"
The biggest thing you need to know about ubisoft is this; during the release window of skull and bones, the playerbase for assassin's creed black flag skyrocketed. people are finally realizing Ubisoft's old games are better, less bloated versions of the games they give us now.
This video has made me realize I haven’t played a Ubisoft game since 2014’s Watch Dogs. Damn I feel old.
you're better for it
@@Cosmicgardeningthis
Before that for me, though I can't remember exactly which game or when.
It's been more than a decade of hearing people complain about Ubisoft - for their games, their business practices, and their work culture - and wondering why people keep buying their games, complaining about the games/company, then buying their games again. This one weird trick to not being frustrated by Ubisoft: Don't buy their games.
For me, it was Assassin's Creed Unity... also from 2014. It burnt away all my good will towards the series forever, it seems.
The song you picked at 1:37 brought back all my memories of the Pure Pwnage web series 😢
Everything ubisoft has made since AC1 has just been "oh i guess I'd play that for $5"
You're so on point about what makes me still THINK about playing big Ubisoft titles (I've passed the point of playing them day one): The concept of their games are just amazing, especially for Assassin's Creed, who doesn't dream of exploring an historical setting so greatly reproduced?
I had this exact feeling about AC Odyssey 2 years ago and was eager to play it but the same exact pattern repeated where, after 10 hours, I was getting bored and feeling like mindlessly completing artificial objectives and being inside of a theme park with 5 different activities and an "open world" revolving around the player only. Yet, I still feel this eagerness of trying out Valhallah, even Shadows, even though I KNOW it's going to get boring the same way, these guys really get the premices right and always make me wonder what could have been when playing their games.
What's more infuriating is that Ubisoft is capable of making great games, which is what you see when playing their more underground/innovative titles like For Honor where they had more creative freedom. From what I heard, their developpers know they're not making great games anymore with their big titles and just doing what the shareholders/marketing teams tell them to. It's sad to see what a company previously full of passionate people capable of great innovation to create good games has fallen into after becoming too big and having shareholders to please.
It's actually a good cautionary tale about the harmful effects of capitalism and the race to grow infinitely. Companies should stop growing at some point to keep some creative freedom, hence why games like Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3 always get the game awards. Unfortunately however, it doesn't mean these are the games making the most money, which is just what these big companies are for now, better a mediocre game full of microtransactions milking the few people paying for them than an actual breakthrough or just a solid game in its genre.