Hyper Scape – at least it got released but it didn’t last long (pic: Ubisoft)



A Ubisoft employee has claimed the company once had 12 different battle royale games in development, as the publisher searches for a hit.



Although they’ve been part of the bedrock of the games industry for decades now It’d be hard to understate just how much trouble Ubisoft is in right now, after their 2022 line-up underperformed , they had to cancel a bunch of games, and their share price took a tumble.



You can tell things are bad because they admitted as much in public, even warning staff, in a leaked email, that it was up to them to grind out a new hit and get the company back on top.



Internally, Ubisoft has apparently blamed the problems on a range of different factors, including working from home, but according to a new report one of the biggest issues is that too many of the games were ‘not what gamers wanted’.



Many fans were frustrated when Ubisoft announced it wanted to focus on live service titles , which while highly lucrative, if they’re a hit, are rarely the sort of thing to excite core gamers.



There’s also the problem that making the games a hit is extremely difficult, with most live services titles failing after only a few months.



According to one source speaking to Insider Gaming , Ubisoft at one time had ‘at least a dozen’ battle royale games in development, but it’s unclear what happened to most of them.



It’s not cheap to develop 12 different games at once, especially as that’s at the same time as all Ubisoft’s other games, which quickly helps to explain how they’ve got into financial trouble.







Multiple sources apparently claim that the other main reason for the delays and cancellations were simply that they needed more time and polish, another indication of just how long it takes to make modern games.



One source claimed to have been working on an unannounced live service title since 2019 and doesn’t expect to launch it until 2025 or later.



It does at least mean Ubisoft isn’t willing to push just anything out the door and naturally they’ll be hoping that this year’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora will help to settle things down for them.









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MORE : Ubisoft returns to Steam in December with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla





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