Ubisoft is one of the world’s biggest video game companies, no doubt. And surely many video game fans were elated when it announced that Far Cry 6 would be hitting the shelves in February 2021.
The game’s announcement trailer sure looked the part, and as previously rumored, confirmed that star actor Giancarlo Esposito would be playing the game’s villain. We still don’t know, though, whether Vaas (the bad guy in the earlier Far Cry 3) will feature in this latest Far Cry game, as actor Michael Mando had raised the possibility of him playing the character again in the future…
But sadly for fans of the first-person action series, Far Cry 6 did not make its original release date, and had instead been delayed by Ubisoft with no release date given.
Thankfully, we now have a better idea of when Far Cry 6 will be released, as Ubisoft has set a deadline for the arrival of its action open-world game, and also of the other blockbuster games it has in the pipeline. These other games are Rainbow Six Quarantine, The Division Heartland, Roller Champions and the Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake.
During the company’s most recent earning call, Ubisoft said that Far Cry 6 and the games mentioned above will arrive by March 31, 2022, as was recently reported on VG247.
This means that gamers worldwide won’t have to wait that long to roam about Far Cry 6’s island setting of Yara, where they will take part in a conflict between the rebels and the forces of dictator Antón Castillo (who’s played by Giancarlo Esposito). Aside from the main story, Far Cry 6 is also expected to have plenty of side activities to take part in like its predecessor Far Cry 5 did. It remains to be seen, though, whether it will beat the Montana-set Far Cry 5 in terms of sales, still the best-selling Far Cry game to date.
Ubisoft also has Skull and Bones in the pipeline, an action and adventure game inspired by its own pirate-themed Assassin’s Creed game Black Flag, but this will not be coming before March 31, 2022, when Ubisoft’s current fiscal year ends.
But looking at Ubisoft’s upcoming games, it’s hard not to notice the presence of free-to-play games in its roster, including the likes of post-apocalyptic shooter The Division Heartland and sports game Roller Champions.
Actually, Frederick Duguet of Ubisoft (who’s the company’s chief financial officer) made it clear at Ubisoft’s recent earnings call that free-to-play will play a larger role in the French video game company’s strategy from now on.
Duguet also commented on how Ubisoft had learned from working on free-to-play games like the battle royale title Hyper Scape, which came out last year and is meant to compete with Epic’s world-conquering Fortnite game.
“We’ve taken the time to learn from what we did last year with Hyper Scape. We’re also learning with the launch we’ll be making on Roller Champions, we’ve been learning a lot with Brawlhalla that is rapidly growing, and we think it is now the time to come with high-quality free-to-play games across all our biggest franchises, across all platforms”, said the Ubisoft man.
The thing is, Ubisoft’s words about a shift of strategy to free-to-play games caused something of a ruckus in the gaming community, with some commentators even proclaiming that traditional Ubisoft franchises like Assassin’s Creed were dead.
Ubisoft quickly stepped in to clarify things, though, explaining that free-to-play games would be part of a larger mix of games coming from Ubisoft.
“Regarding the Ubisoft comment, it’s in reference to F2P becoming a larger share of the revenue pie, not an indication that there will be less traditional paid games like AC. The content mix is expanding, not changing”, said Ubisoft’s Sean Lama on Twitter responding to video game personality and showman Geoff Keighley.
It’s hard to fathom why Ubisoft would stop putting out traditional single player games like Assassin’s Creed and let the series die – last year’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was a big success – and it’s likely Ubi is already hard at work on the next instalment, which rumors say could take place in Japan.
But no matter how much free-to-play ends up being part of Ubisoft games in the future, the company’s upcoming catalog of games sure is appealing, especially Far Cry 6, which is likely to end up being one of the top action games of 2021 (if it does release this year) or perhaps of 2022, and surely one video game many are waiting for with baited breath.