Ubisoft seems to be on their last last breaths, limping and crawling. AC Black Flag resynced will probably do well, but it will not turn around Ubisoft’s fate. It can’t save an entire company at the verge of bankruptcy. Ubisoft is dying, maybe the final nail will be tomorrow, maybe 2 years later. Regardless of when they cease to exist, the worst part of it will be losing the Anvil Engine.
I have always loved the lighting, scalability and dynamic systems of the Anvil Engine. I know that the recent games have had bad animation, but I’m sure they can put in mocapped animations in that engine and it would look amazing. There’s some jank for sure, but apart from Rockstar, Ubisoft is the only other company capable of making really immersive, dynamic and breath taking open worlds. The artists also do an amazing job of creating these open worlds. There aren’t many games where I like slow walking like I’m in an E3 gameplay, but I do it with most Ubisoft games.
I really hope Ubisoft doesn’t die and turns itself around somehow. Not just in terms of business, but also in terms of Employee treatment, sexual harassment, bullying etc. There’s a lot of really talented folks at Ubisoft, and it would suck if they had to lose their jobs. Plus, a disbanded talent team has rarely produced anything equally as good compared to their previous ventures as a team.