What's Going On With Ubisoft?

<v Speaker 1>Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a
<v Speaker 1>weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every
<v Speaker 1>Friday for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews,
<v Speaker 1>and exclusive reveals. Along it's a Game Informer staff and
<v Speaker 1>special guests from around the industry. I'm one of your
<v Speaker 1>hosts today, Alex van Aiken. Today I'm joined by Marcus Stewart.
<v Speaker 1>How are you?
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing good?
<v Speaker 1>How are you?
<v Speaker 2>I missed you.
<v Speaker 1>I know it's been a busy it's been a busy
<v Speaker 1>month so far. But happy to be back on the show.
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for holding it down, you know, how are you?
<v Speaker 1>How's January? Good? All good?
<v Speaker 2>Ah, you know it's all good down here. It's cold
<v Speaker 2>here in Florida. I know that's like you guys.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, man, let's pull out my at my weather app man.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if you guys know what cold is,
<v Speaker 2>but down here in Florida, it's been a chilly fifty
<v Speaker 2>four degrees nice.
<v Speaker 1>It's supposed to be minus twenty three on Friday, but Eric, it's.
<v Speaker 2>Been windy, which makes it feel like it's thirty degrees.
<v Speaker 3>No, no, you don't get to pull that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
<v Speaker 1>Our windshill on Friday is supposed to be like in
<v Speaker 1>the minus forties or something. Yeah, Marcus, you're lucky that
<v Speaker 1>you're lucky. We're on a podcast right now that's somewhat
<v Speaker 1>family friendly. All right. We're also joined by Eric Van Allen.
<v Speaker 1>How you doing, Eric?
<v Speaker 3>I thought I previously understood what cold was, and I
<v Speaker 3>think I had a frame of reference for what the
<v Speaker 3>word cold entailed. And then I went for a little
<v Speaker 3>walk to a local taco shop here little to get her, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>to get some food, and I experienced what actual cold
<v Speaker 3>feels like when a giant wind gust of minus thirty
<v Speaker 3>wind chill comes through and blasts you right in the face.
<v Speaker 3>And now I think Elsa is lying when she said
<v Speaker 3>the cold never bothered her anywhere anyways. I'd like her
<v Speaker 3>to move up to Minneapolis and repeat that sentiment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think she's just like cushy in her castle life.
<v Speaker 1>She doesn't get it. Well. We got a pretty big
<v Speaker 1>show this week. Big news from UB Software being diving
<v Speaker 1>into the cancelation of multiple projects and reductions in staff
<v Speaker 1>and strategic changes that have been outlined in a recent
<v Speaker 1>call Investor's Call. We got all those details coming after
<v Speaker 1>a break later and before we get into that we're
<v Speaker 1>going to be talking about MIO, which is Memories in Orbit,
<v Speaker 1>I believe is what it stands for. Ye, and it's
<v Speaker 1>a new Metroidvania as well as t R forty nine. No,
<v Speaker 1>that's not a new calculator. That is a new puzzle
<v Speaker 1>game that Eric really really enjoys. So guys, so let's
<v Speaker 1>get into it, shall we. I just want to say
<v Speaker 1>before we do, head over to gamingform dot com slash
<v Speaker 1>subscribe and pick up a magazine. It's the best way
<v Speaker 1>to support us. If you're looking at store shelves at
<v Speaker 1>Barnes and Noble Books a million or international newsstands, you
<v Speaker 1>can find our World of Warcraft issue on store shelves
<v Speaker 1>in the US. It's eleven ninety nine. And if you
<v Speaker 1>are a subscriber, good news. We've just announced our next
<v Speaker 1>issue that is coming as double O seven First Light.
<v Speaker 1>That's our cover story. And Eric, you flew out to
<v Speaker 1>where do you? Where did you go?
<v Speaker 3>Copenhagen went cop Yeah, yeah, it.
<v Speaker 1>Was just across the water from Malmo.
<v Speaker 3>It was really really nice out there, lovely, lovely place.
<v Speaker 3>If you stay tuned to the GI YouTube TikTok, Instagram
<v Speaker 3>and stuff like that. We'll be putting up some behind
<v Speaker 3>the scenes of our trip out there, what it's like
<v Speaker 3>out there on the ground where the folks at Io
<v Speaker 3>make all their games, including the Hitman trilogy and the
<v Speaker 3>upcoming Double seven First Light. We've got some cool behind
<v Speaker 3>the scenes and just general like putting you.
<v Speaker 1>In the place.
<v Speaker 3>That's something we're trying to do a little bit more
<v Speaker 3>of with some of our kind of story trips. Is like,
<v Speaker 3>let you see the sites and sounds and places where
<v Speaker 3>people make these games, because I think that does carry
<v Speaker 3>a lot of story into how the games are made.
<v Speaker 3>So look for that. There'll be some cool stuff there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and that issue launches early. The early Digital Access
<v Speaker 1>goes live next week, so next episode we'll be diving
<v Speaker 1>into our impressions of the game, what we saw on
<v Speaker 1>our cover trip, and then a couple of weeks later
<v Speaker 1>those issues will be hitting mailboxes and news stands at
<v Speaker 1>their normal time. Digital is always kind of like an
<v Speaker 1>early version early access, and you get that with a subscription.
<v Speaker 1>Go to GameInformer dot com slash subscribe. We usually have
<v Speaker 1>discounts running and it is cheaper to get a subscription
<v Speaker 1>than it is to buy issues from the news stand
<v Speaker 1>every time. So if that is an option for you,
<v Speaker 1>if you're in the States, I recommend it. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>let's get into the show. Guys. Marcus, tell me about
<v Speaker 1>this new Metroid Vana Mio.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's it's it's so funny because this game I
<v Speaker 2>almost want to say, hey, do you like Hollo Nite,
<v Speaker 2>because this is what this game reminds me of the most,
<v Speaker 2>And I.
<v Speaker 1>Know haven't haven't had a Hollow Night experience in a while. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's been a minute.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's and it sounds productive, but it really is
<v Speaker 2>a cut from a similar cloth. So Meo Memory is
<v Speaker 2>in orbit. It's out now as of this week. It
<v Speaker 2>is like a sort of like sci fi uh, very
<v Speaker 2>very beautifully rendered uh Metroid Veana. It's got a really
<v Speaker 2>nice sort of like watercolor art direction that I really like.
<v Speaker 2>And you play as this little robot named Meo who
<v Speaker 2>wakes up in this mysterious world. And as far as
<v Speaker 2>I can gather, I have not finished this game, but
<v Speaker 2>you are sort of tasked with exploring this sort of
<v Speaker 2>like abandoned almost kind of like derelict. I don't even
<v Speaker 2>know if it's like a space station or if it's
<v Speaker 2>a planet, I don't know where you are. It's just
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of different biomes and you're kind of collecting
<v Speaker 2>or you're reactivating. I think these kind of like these
<v Speaker 2>nose that all make up part of like a seemingly
<v Speaker 2>like a larger consciousness, like like they're each sort of
<v Speaker 2>like biome contains like sort of the these like wall
<v Speaker 2>of mcguffins for the sake of the conversation. Yeah, like
<v Speaker 2>a mcguffin named after like a body part of like
<v Speaker 2>this area has the eye, this area is the spy,
<v Speaker 2>this one's the heart. And you don't know why you're
<v Speaker 2>doing this, and this kind of like you don't know
<v Speaker 2>totally why you're doing a lot of things. It's one
<v Speaker 2>of those games that's this.
<v Speaker 1>Sounds like there's not much exposition then.
<v Speaker 2>No, at least not yet, but it is one of
<v Speaker 2>those games that's sort of a bit it's a little
<v Speaker 2>bit cryptic in his story telling, like you're finding Audiologus
<v Speaker 2>along the way from seemingly a either a civilization that
<v Speaker 2>was once around that is no longer present or some
<v Speaker 2>of the other robotic life forms that you'll meet along
<v Speaker 2>the way, Like you'll come across these other robots that
<v Speaker 2>are either having like their own little problems, you can
<v Speaker 2>do a little quest for them, or you're coming across
<v Speaker 2>the robots that are just dead, like you'll just see
<v Speaker 2>like robots buried on the rubble and they'll have a
<v Speaker 2>little word prompt that'll just be like, Nah, this guy,
<v Speaker 2>he's too far gone. You can't fix him. And you're like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of sad. But I bring up the Hollo
<v Speaker 2>of Night comparison, because like that game, it is a
<v Speaker 2>very challenging game. Mainly it does the holl of Night
<v Speaker 2>thing where you cannot see the map for a lot
<v Speaker 2>of the game. In the beginning, you're just sort of
<v Speaker 2>like flying blind until you eventually unlock the ability to
<v Speaker 2>see the map. And it all also has a similar
<v Speaker 2>sort of like progression system where you are collecting sort
<v Speaker 2>of like abilities, but you can only equip certain abilities
<v Speaker 2>at a time, and each one spends a like limited
<v Speaker 2>resource that you have, so you're constantly going to your
<v Speaker 2>sort of like safe station to swap out the ability
<v Speaker 2>to collect based on how much bandwidth you have. So,
<v Speaker 2>like one of the abilities gives you the the power
<v Speaker 2>to see the enemy's health bars or another one allows
<v Speaker 2>you to see your own status, So if which is
<v Speaker 2>that's an interesting one where like if you don't equip that,
<v Speaker 2>you have no idea what your health is, but you
<v Speaker 2>might want to equip it just to make you know
<v Speaker 2>room for something else that you might think is more important,
<v Speaker 2>Like I have one that makes your combo attack stronger,
<v Speaker 2>and then I got one recently where there's like some
<v Speaker 2>that like takes take away your bandwidth and exchange for
<v Speaker 2>an ability.
<v Speaker 1>Uh, Like I got one.
<v Speaker 2>It was like, oh, here's minus five off of my life,
<v Speaker 2>like currently, like my cap is thirty five. Like nodes,
<v Speaker 2>I guess we'll call them. But some of them can
<v Speaker 2>take like ten or right if like two that takes
<v Speaker 2>twenty where it's like I don't know, I would have
<v Speaker 2>to pretty much unequipped everything to use this one. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>some of them are like, hey, you lose overall bandwidth,
<v Speaker 2>but you get this useful ability. So it's a lot
<v Speaker 2>of juggling around with those and sort of like switch
<v Speaker 2>switching them in and out depending on the situation, whether
<v Speaker 2>it's like a specific platforming segment or like a really
<v Speaker 2>hard boss. But I was like it thankfully it plays
<v Speaker 2>really well, like I think the combat like it's basically
<v Speaker 2>kind of like three hit combos, but it feels pretty nice.
<v Speaker 2>You've got kind of like a like a floaty or
<v Speaker 2>jump than maybe in something like Hall Night. But it
<v Speaker 2>does allow for a lot of sort of like like
<v Speaker 2>air combos on your part, or if you play your
<v Speaker 2>cards right, you can kind of like jump in the
<v Speaker 2>air like maybe a flying enemy and then just like
<v Speaker 2>hit a combo, then double jump, then kind of reset
<v Speaker 2>your jump and just keep hitting in the air and
<v Speaker 2>just kind of keep doing that and just kind of
<v Speaker 2>maintain your like airborne assault and while also dodging in
<v Speaker 2>the air. Like right now, I unlocked it ability where
<v Speaker 2>I can shoot sort of like a wire that can
<v Speaker 2>use kind of like a grapple hook and can also
<v Speaker 2>pull you towards enemies. That's been really useful. And then
<v Speaker 2>I also have like like a teleporting dodge. They see
<v Speaker 2>like he almost goes like or she almost goes like
<v Speaker 2>Nightcrawler just kind of disappears in a poof of smoke
<v Speaker 2>to like evade damage and then come back. So like
<v Speaker 2>those have kind of added some nice depth to what
<v Speaker 2>are often pretty challenging combat encounters. The regular enemies can
<v Speaker 2>take you down if you're not on your game. But
<v Speaker 2>the boss fights like Hollow Night are really sort of
<v Speaker 2>dependent on like reading enemy patterns and like you know,
<v Speaker 2>like trying to find out like what's my window here,
<v Speaker 2>like how many how much damage can I audition before
<v Speaker 2>I need to back off, And a lot of like
<v Speaker 2>maneuverability to sort of like try to stay behind enemies
<v Speaker 2>or just trying to trying to target their weak points.
<v Speaker 2>But don't be surprised if it takes you probably at
<v Speaker 2>least and the bosses that I fay at least like
<v Speaker 2>three to maybe six or seven attempts to get past something,
<v Speaker 2>and the runbacks can be pretty lengthy until you unlock shortcuts,
<v Speaker 2>as you do in these kind of games. Okay, I
<v Speaker 2>do think does Matt actually pose this question? Matt Miller
<v Speaker 2>or editor and chief who reviewed this game, and you
<v Speaker 2>can read his review now on the website. He was
<v Speaker 2>kind of asking if he thought this game was harder
<v Speaker 2>than Hollow nighte Silk Song, and he brought up an
<v Speaker 2>interesting point that might put it over the edge, in
<v Speaker 2>the sense that me and mio you can't heal yourself
<v Speaker 2>at will, so when you begin the game, you only
<v Speaker 2>have two health pips whatever you want to call them, Like, essentially,
<v Speaker 2>you can get hit twice or three times before you
<v Speaker 2>go down, and there's no way to heal yourself, unlike
<v Speaker 2>an Hollow Night, where you can. The only way to
<v Speaker 2>replenish your health is that you have to reach these
<v Speaker 2>kind of like designated little checkpoints where you have to
<v Speaker 2>spin currency to replenish each pip individually. So one pip
<v Speaker 2>might cost like ten of this resource, and then the
<v Speaker 2>second we'll jacket up to fifteen, And so you kind
<v Speaker 2>of have to decide like, oh, do I want to
<v Speaker 2>spend money to heal right now or do I want
<v Speaker 2>to save this because I found like a shop keep
<v Speaker 2>that has an upgrade, I'm kind of you know, saving
<v Speaker 2>up for So what's the move here, especially because I
<v Speaker 2>got this like tough platforming gautlet ahead of me, and
<v Speaker 2>that has made the game, I think, at least for me,
<v Speaker 2>Like as someone that likes Hollow Night, I think this
<v Speaker 2>does make it a little bit more difficult in that
<v Speaker 2>sense of like you have two hits and you are
<v Speaker 2>not replenishing this until you can hopefully find a place
<v Speaker 2>where you can, you know, like the safe station, and
<v Speaker 2>then you gotta hope do you have enough money, which
<v Speaker 2>thankfully it's not super expensive, but when you're dying over
<v Speaker 2>and over again having to replenish it, run through your
<v Speaker 2>your wallet pretty quickly. Like I've had times where it's
<v Speaker 2>like I'm stuck on this little platforming segment and every
<v Speaker 2>time I take a hit, I double back to like
<v Speaker 2>replenish that hit, and then it's like.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I'm out of money.
<v Speaker 2>Well, like it's going to work what I have, and
<v Speaker 2>then if I die, I'm going all the way back
<v Speaker 2>to the last checkpoint, which for a long time in
<v Speaker 2>this game, the first check point in the game was
<v Speaker 2>the only checkpoint I had. Jez, Yeah, it took me
<v Speaker 2>a while to find like the next real checkpoint that
<v Speaker 2>you can kind of fast travel between. Otherwise you're just
<v Speaker 2>kind of unlocking a bunch of shortcuts that just lead
<v Speaker 2>you back to the sort of like the initial checkpoint.
<v Speaker 2>This probably all sounds like, like I think, if you
<v Speaker 2>will know if you like this game, like if you
<v Speaker 2>enjoy kind of like challenging action platformers, well like A
<v Speaker 2>Holid Night or even like A because I think the
<v Speaker 2>other game this reminds me of a little bit is
<v Speaker 2>orient the Blind Force, at least on the platforming side
<v Speaker 2>and orient in the whist and it's like it's not
<v Speaker 2>just the combat that's tough, but there's stretches where it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>now we're gonna have to really master your like double
<v Speaker 2>jump and your little grapple hook because you're going to
<v Speaker 2>go through this crazy series of like platforming challenges, and
<v Speaker 2>again with such limited health, where like I can get
<v Speaker 2>hit twice and then I'm out.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think it comes close to kind of hitting
<v Speaker 1>the same highs as something like an or not quite?
<v Speaker 2>I think I think because ORI's platforming I think is better.
<v Speaker 2>But also Ari is a lot more of a platforming
<v Speaker 2>focus game. Like I look at Ori, especially the sequel,
<v Speaker 2>it's like that is a platforming first and combat second game,
<v Speaker 2>whereas Hollow Nite is kind of the opposite, at least
<v Speaker 2>to me. Even though I think Hollow NIGHTE has like
<v Speaker 2>some good platforming sequence, I look at that game more
<v Speaker 2>as an action game than a platformer. I think Mio
<v Speaker 2>is in that camp, like closer to the Holomax kind
<v Speaker 2>of things, even though there are some like genuine like Okay,
<v Speaker 2>this is a pure platforming challenge here, this is this
<v Speaker 2>is the challenge is going to teach me to get
<v Speaker 2>good but the grapple hook.
<v Speaker 1>And also like.
<v Speaker 2>There's like like I got to this area and it's
<v Speaker 2>kind of like almost this really beautiful kind of like
<v Speaker 2>greenhouse area where it had like these flowers that you
<v Speaker 2>can hit, and when you hit the flower, it replenishes
<v Speaker 2>your double jump and your ability to use the grapple hook,
<v Speaker 2>because those are like very quick cool downs, but enough
<v Speaker 2>of a cool down to where if you don't touch
<v Speaker 2>the ground, you will just and you need to use
<v Speaker 2>a grapple hook, you just won't and then it will
<v Speaker 2>just fall into a pit and die. So it kind
<v Speaker 2>of like hitting those flowers kind of replenishes that resource
<v Speaker 2>in mid air. So I was in one little area
<v Speaker 2>where it's like, okay, I got to get through this.
<v Speaker 2>Like it's like I'm surrounded by this weird foliage that
<v Speaker 2>kills you if you touch it, and there's nothing but
<v Speaker 2>grapple points and those little bounce flowers that replenish your thing.
<v Speaker 2>I need to like just get through this and in
<v Speaker 2>mid air, hit those flowers, get my grapple back, and
<v Speaker 2>keep grappling across while also hitting those flowers and never
<v Speaker 2>touching the ground because if I touch the ground, it's death,
<v Speaker 2>it's that is it's all really fun. Like I'm enjoying
<v Speaker 2>the game so far. I couldn't tell you confidently what
<v Speaker 2>is happening in the story, but it's it's more like
<v Speaker 2>the lore and some of the at least the implication
<v Speaker 2>of the Lord that I find marg thing than the
<v Speaker 2>actual plot is just like, oh, this is just like
<v Speaker 2>a it's got a fun, mysterious vibe. I think some
<v Speaker 2>of the robots are kind of funny or like cute.
<v Speaker 2>The enemy seemed pretty cool, Like there's like they're all
<v Speaker 2>just they almost remind me a little bit of like
<v Speaker 2>Makeing X enemies because some of them are just like
<v Speaker 2>weird robot animals, like like there's these like chamellions in
<v Speaker 2>one area that can turn invisible and shoot their tongues
<v Speaker 2>at you, and you're like, oh, that's a cool enemy
<v Speaker 2>like stuff like that. I do think though, that the
<v Speaker 2>like I said, the run backs and sort of the
<v Speaker 2>the health restrictions are pretty rough, and I still don't
<v Speaker 2>know if I if I think the game needs that
<v Speaker 2>to be enjoyable, you know of like maybe it's like
<v Speaker 2>if I could heal in any time, would it really
<v Speaker 2>detract from the experience, which is why I recommend. I
<v Speaker 2>believe there are some like difficulty assist options in the
<v Speaker 2>maybe that you can turn on. I haven't really delved
<v Speaker 2>into them yet. I'm kind of like, I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>stubborn game or guy, I just feel like, yeah, I don't.
<v Speaker 2>I mean not that I think it's bad, I just
<v Speaker 2>I just typically don't. I just don't use those often enough.
<v Speaker 2>I should go in there sometime and just see what's
<v Speaker 2>what's actually available in there. But I know they're there,
<v Speaker 2>which is nice for those that want to if they
<v Speaker 2>can make the experience easier for them. But yeah, I'm
<v Speaker 2>enjoying it so far though.
<v Speaker 1>Overall.
<v Speaker 2>Have you guys started at all?
<v Speaker 1>No? Unfortunately, No. It has been on my list to
<v Speaker 1>get to this and of the next game we're gonna
<v Speaker 1>be talking about TR forty nine. Both of those are
<v Speaker 1>on my playlist for this month. I think I just
<v Speaker 1>felt like I needed a little bit of a break
<v Speaker 1>from a Metroidpinion because I sunk a lot of time
<v Speaker 1>into Silksong yeah, and got pretty burnt out, honestly, and
<v Speaker 1>the thought of doing that again isn't as appealing right
<v Speaker 1>now as maybe it will be with a few more
<v Speaker 1>weeks time or or even you know, next month or something.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I think it was Charles Charles Hard that
<v Speaker 2>made this jog where he's saying like, I wonder how
<v Speaker 2>much the MEO devs were so confident that Silk Song
<v Speaker 2>wasn't coming out that they were like, we can make
<v Speaker 2>a holidnight. Some songs never coming out and came not
<v Speaker 2>too long before there, it's like, oh crap, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I hope that's not the case because that's unfortunate.
<v Speaker 1>But speaking of TR forty nine, Eric would love to
<v Speaker 1>hear about that game from you. This is from Inkle right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>to Inkle is a dev tool, but they also publish
<v Speaker 1>their own games.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Inkle makes Ink the game development tool also has
<v Speaker 3>made overboard Highland song, the one that I never remember
<v Speaker 3>the name of the school, No, Heaven's Gate, Yeah that too,
<v Speaker 3>I was trying to think of the school one I
<v Speaker 3>think it's expelled is what?
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, the one last year? Yeah. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>A lot of really interesting narrative focused games in a
<v Speaker 3>lot of different directions, and this one kind of fits
<v Speaker 3>that bill where this is I think the top level,
<v Speaker 3>the least spoilery version of this that I can do,
<v Speaker 3>and I will endeavor to not disclose any amount of
<v Speaker 3>like substantial spoilers. But this is a game that's a
<v Speaker 3>puzzle box where like the unfolding of it is part
<v Speaker 3>of the enjoyment of it. So take that, you know,
<v Speaker 3>with what you will. It is very much Ankle doing
<v Speaker 3>a Sam Barlow or Inkle doing a like a Root
<v Speaker 3>Trees Are Dead Return of the Oberdin type game. They
<v Speaker 3>even cite those games as big influences for TR forty nine,
<v Speaker 3>which is you wake up in a damp, dark basement
<v Speaker 3>with a machine in front of you, and your only
<v Speaker 3>inputs are to input things on the machine, which takes
<v Speaker 3>two letters and two numbers and then finds an entry
<v Speaker 3>first said combination, and from there, guided by a handler
<v Speaker 3>who's coming in over the voice intercom the radio intercom,
<v Speaker 3>you kind of just have to figure out what's going
<v Speaker 3>on and why you're here, what you're doing, what this
<v Speaker 3>machine does, why the thing you're doing is importan, and
<v Speaker 3>who the handler is. It's a mystery box game in
<v Speaker 3>a lot of ways.
<v Speaker 1>I think.
<v Speaker 3>There's a degree to which the unfolding of that mystery
<v Speaker 3>is important. And I say that because normally, with like say,
<v Speaker 3>say a Sam Barlow game is an easy example her story.
<v Speaker 3>You go into it with an idea that because the
<v Speaker 3>framework around you, you're watching what is obviously a police
<v Speaker 3>interview on an old computer, you can kind of start
<v Speaker 3>to elicit some Okay, there's like something that happened here,
<v Speaker 3>there was an event that I am searching for. There,
<v Speaker 3>there's a reason why this story is being told me
<v Speaker 3>through this medium. Telling lies is the same way where
<v Speaker 3>you're looking through somebody else's laptop and you're like, oh,
<v Speaker 3>this is very probing. This is you're investigating, but like
<v Speaker 3>in a way that you're not supposed to be, Like
<v Speaker 3>you would be worried if you got caught sort of thing.
<v Speaker 3>So telling lies like builds that and immortality gives you
<v Speaker 3>the sort of film archive presentation. So you're going, okay,
<v Speaker 3>this is about scanning through things, but like the edges
<v Speaker 3>that other people didn't get to see because they got
<v Speaker 3>to see the finished film but not you know, what
<v Speaker 3>happens before and after the snap.
<v Speaker 1>Bar and all that.
<v Speaker 3>So all that being said, what you kind of draw
<v Speaker 3>out of TR forty nine is you have this very
<v Speaker 3>mechanical machine, this very like it is built for a task,
<v Speaker 3>and so you don't really have a lot of emotion
<v Speaker 3>to build around it. You don't have a lot of
<v Speaker 3>intent to build around it. And discovering the intent of
<v Speaker 3>the machine is part of the game. Like even the
<v Speaker 3>person who's speaking to you like really obfuscates for a while,
<v Speaker 3>like he implies that he knows what it does, but
<v Speaker 3>that you don't need to know what it does. You
<v Speaker 3>just need to keep operating it, keep doing what you're doing.
<v Speaker 3>So what you end up doing, and that's a very
<v Speaker 3>long obfuscated way of saying, you're putting stuff in and
<v Speaker 3>you're seeing what comes out. You're trying to elicit meaning
<v Speaker 3>from it. So maybe if you discover that, I'm going
<v Speaker 3>to make up some examples so that way I don't
<v Speaker 3>spoil any actual solutions, but just dis cover that a
<v Speaker 3>certain author is in this machine. Maybe you figured out
<v Speaker 3>taxonomically what like how to find more works by them
<v Speaker 3>in the machine. This is actually something you should figure
<v Speaker 3>out while playing the game. So but maybe you start
<v Speaker 3>to understand better like, Okay, there are authors in here,
<v Speaker 3>there are books, what kind of books? What are the
<v Speaker 3>books saying? How are they relating to each other? And
<v Speaker 3>then as you dig in, some information will start to
<v Speaker 3>be offfiscated and you'll have to clear it up by
<v Speaker 3>uncovering more information from footnotes, from people who built the machine,
<v Speaker 3>people who have operated the machine in the past, and
<v Speaker 3>that's how you start to uncover everything about what TR
<v Speaker 3>forty nine actually is.
<v Speaker 2>Eric, Is it a someone I've been playing this game too?
<v Speaker 2>Is it a spoiler to say, like mechanically how you
<v Speaker 2>interact with this machine?
<v Speaker 3>Because I feel like, yes, like I said you, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>so I've played it with I played it with a mouse,
<v Speaker 3>and they have said that it's steam Deck Optimize, like
<v Speaker 3>built for steam Deck, even though it's not verified just yet.
<v Speaker 3>It just came out today as of this recording, so
<v Speaker 3>it's it is like steam Deck built. But the idea
<v Speaker 3>is that you can use touch screen or a controller
<v Speaker 3>or a mouse or whatever, but you kind of move
<v Speaker 3>these wheels around and punch in like two letters two numbers,
<v Speaker 3>and that is your like functional input into this machine.
<v Speaker 3>There's also a speaker button for talking to your handler,
<v Speaker 3>but broadly that is kind of how you're inputting.
<v Speaker 1>Is that kind of what you're getting at?
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, because I was it was going to lead
<v Speaker 2>into my point of sort of my annoyance.
<v Speaker 1>With this game.
<v Speaker 2>So I've put a couple of hours into this too.
<v Speaker 2>And this is a game that is very much up
<v Speaker 2>my alley. It's someone that loves you know, her story,
<v Speaker 2>root trees, that kind of stuff. But I think, like
<v Speaker 2>I'm having a hard time still wrapping my head around
<v Speaker 2>how this game works. A lot of it comes from
<v Speaker 2>what you mentioned, Eric of the Handler, sort of like
<v Speaker 2>intentional only sort of like offuscating your true purpose here,
<v Speaker 2>which to me, actually it kind of gets annoying just
<v Speaker 2>from a narrative standpoint where it's like like so your
<v Speaker 2>protagonist will constantly kind of ask like, hey, what are
<v Speaker 2>we doing or why are we doing this? And then
<v Speaker 2>he'll every now and then it'll be like it's because
<v Speaker 2>of Blake, Blake Blake, but it'll give like he'll give
<v Speaker 2>like the veguus answer possible. But this is also a
<v Speaker 2>person that you can freely call any time, kind of
<v Speaker 2>like almost like metal gear Codec style.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 2>And I just never understood why. I was like why
<v Speaker 2>she kind of like put up with it where I'm
<v Speaker 2>just like, can you just tell me what we're doing places,
<v Speaker 2>or at least just tell me explain like the base
<v Speaker 2>premise for me, because this the characters don't kind of
<v Speaker 2>like players surrogate of like, hey, what even is this
<v Speaker 2>weird machine?
<v Speaker 3>Like this doesn't look like why why am I here?
<v Speaker 3>Like like why did I wake up down here?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Yeah, and it's like where am I?
<v Speaker 2>And I think for me the player looking at this machine,
<v Speaker 2>I was, I'm still having I still haven't fully grass
<v Speaker 2>how this machine works. This isn't like any machine I've
<v Speaker 2>ever seen before. And I think where it's kind of
<v Speaker 2>lose me. Is that unlike something like root Trees or
<v Speaker 2>like her Story where it's like, oh, it's you're just
<v Speaker 2>it's a search engine. I understand that. I know how
<v Speaker 2>that works. I just need to understand what I'm what
<v Speaker 2>I'm trying to find, But I know functionally how this
<v Speaker 2>thing works. Where I look at this, I'm like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't even know what I'm Like when I was first
<v Speaker 2>of all like the numbers and stuff like what am
<v Speaker 2>I even supposed to do with this? And I'm waiting
<v Speaker 2>for like the TATORI to pop up like okay, give
<v Speaker 2>me the basic like what do these numbers mean? Like
<v Speaker 2>what am I even? And then it doesn't really do that,
<v Speaker 2>so you do have to kind of stump, like really
<v Speaker 2>just stumble and wait for kind of like conversations to
<v Speaker 2>pop up where they might illuminate like this is what
<v Speaker 2>you're supposed to do, but it's also I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if it's dependent on like you have
<v Speaker 2>to find enough things before they start saying, hey, here's
<v Speaker 2>how this, here's an important thing. You should know about
<v Speaker 2>how this works, so that you're not just punching numbers
<v Speaker 2>in and letters blindly and just going, I don't know
<v Speaker 2>what this is gonna do. I guess this is what
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing.
<v Speaker 3>The game does eventually start to basically tell you what
<v Speaker 3>the thing is that you're looking for and what the
<v Speaker 3>task is that you are trying to accomplish, which that
<v Speaker 3>being said at that point, yeah, yeah, that being said,
<v Speaker 3>I think the biggest hurdle for this, again speaking back
<v Speaker 3>to what I was saying about the Barlow stuff and
<v Speaker 3>what you were just talking about, is that those games
<v Speaker 3>told mysteries within familiar implementations, whereas here we are trying
<v Speaker 3>to understand how to operate the machine while we are
<v Speaker 3>trying to discover what the purpose of the machine is.
<v Speaker 3>And I think you do eventually get a sense of
<v Speaker 3>like like an early thing you have to solve is
<v Speaker 3>just what is in this machine? Like what does this
<v Speaker 3>machine ultimately collect? What does it have within itself? And
<v Speaker 3>what am I searching through when I do that? And
<v Speaker 3>I think you get that answer within probably about the
<v Speaker 3>first thirty minutes or so.
<v Speaker 2>I get it feels like it feels like learning how
<v Speaker 2>to drive. And I'm like in like I'm riding on
<v Speaker 2>an instructor and I'm like, I've never seen a car.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how the car works. Can you show
<v Speaker 2>me how to car works? And they're like, don't worry
<v Speaker 2>about it, just start driving. You're like, well, maybe I
<v Speaker 2>need to know how to turn the car. You need
<v Speaker 2>to tell me how the car work. And you're being
<v Speaker 2>like a weirdly vague about like, well, you know the
<v Speaker 2>wheel makes the car move, like you told me that
<v Speaker 2>like five minutes after I've was telling you have this
<v Speaker 2>even like where these buttons Like I don't. It's just like,
<v Speaker 2>can you just tell me, just like give me the
<v Speaker 2>basic thing, like how do I make this go? And
<v Speaker 2>then we can get into like where we're going and
<v Speaker 2>what I should be a.
<v Speaker 3>Well, yeah, so you want to talk about the car analogy? Okay,
<v Speaker 3>so you understand functionally how the machine operates right, Like,
<v Speaker 3>you know how to input and receive an output with
<v Speaker 3>the machine that means.
<v Speaker 2>The fare's minimum. I think, I think I do.
<v Speaker 3>So you understand how to drive the car, because to
<v Speaker 3>drive a car, all you have to do is you
<v Speaker 3>have to understand what the inputs are and what the
<v Speaker 3>expected result is. Sure, Yeah, the interesting thing and I
<v Speaker 3>think where this is hitting some friction. I've talked to
<v Speaker 3>other people who've played this early. There are a lot
<v Speaker 3>of hot reviews out there. I'm also one of the
<v Speaker 3>hot reviews. I would say this is a pretty pretty
<v Speaker 3>fascinating game, especially if like you're hearing me talk about this,
<v Speaker 3>and the idea of what if you could hide a
<v Speaker 3>mystery inside a library card catalog like just perks your
<v Speaker 3>ears up like that. You should probably check this game out. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>you understand how the car works. What you don't know
<v Speaker 3>yet is the destination or even if you're on a
<v Speaker 3>road right now, like what the format of the thing is,
<v Speaker 3>what the implied intended end goal destination is, and how
<v Speaker 3>to get from point A to point B, like what
<v Speaker 3>the markers are along the way, And that is kind
<v Speaker 3>of the interesting thing to try and decipher through the
<v Speaker 3>lens of this machine is to say, how do I
<v Speaker 3>get this information out of there? And how do I
<v Speaker 3>make it make sense to me? Like how do I
<v Speaker 3>interpret it as something that will be useful for me
<v Speaker 3>to solve further mysteries? And I think to your point,
<v Speaker 3>I also I think if I was going to put
<v Speaker 3>knocks against this game, I do think the narration is
<v Speaker 3>part of it, because I think the narration is very
<v Speaker 3>well done. It's very good. It's moody, it's tense, it
<v Speaker 3>happens a lot. It kind of constantly tries to just
<v Speaker 3>build up the same beats over and over again. There's
<v Speaker 3>mystery in here. You need to discover something. What am
<v Speaker 3>I supposed to do that's not for you to know?
<v Speaker 3>Just keep doing it. It like kind of builds up the
<v Speaker 3>first few times it works while you're like, oh, this
<v Speaker 3>machine has things in it that maybe I'm not supposed
<v Speaker 3>to uncover or maybe the person on the other side
<v Speaker 3>of the phone doesn't want me to uncover it. But
<v Speaker 3>then you have that conversation again and again and again
<v Speaker 3>and again, and it's like it loses impact the further
<v Speaker 3>it goes. I know a few times I would be
<v Speaker 3>in the middle of like trying to suss something out
<v Speaker 3>or figure something out, or I'd have my pen and
<v Speaker 3>paper out and I'd be trying to do actual literal
<v Speaker 3>math equations to figure some stuff out, and then the
<v Speaker 3>intercom would be lighting up, like I'm here to talk
<v Speaker 3>to you about why you're doing something important, but I
<v Speaker 3>can't tell you what it is. And I'm like, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>I get it, I get it. Let me focus please.
<v Speaker 2>They have a bad habit of also it'll be like
<v Speaker 2>one conversation that's broken up.
<v Speaker 1>Over multiple calls.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, which I'm a little annoyed by where there'll start
<v Speaker 2>like a sentence about like, hey, this is where we're
<v Speaker 2>gonna get eco week for lunch. This is an example,
<v Speaker 2>like what do you want for lunch? I'm gonna get
<v Speaker 2>a hamburger you know a place, and then they'll stop
<v Speaker 2>talking and you're like, oh, I guess that's the end
<v Speaker 2>of it. And then I'll be like call again, and
<v Speaker 2>then they'll be like, I know a place called mcdennick,
<v Speaker 2>McDonald's or whatever. You're like, why isn't it just one call?
<v Speaker 2>Why don't calling you back to continue this line of thought?
<v Speaker 2>Like it should just be one continuous things. I kind
<v Speaker 2>of want to just focus on the thing, but I
<v Speaker 2>keep thinking it's got this is like a new information
<v Speaker 2>you're gonna give me.
<v Speaker 3>I also noticed at least one instance, and granted I
<v Speaker 3>might have gotten into some information before I should have,
<v Speaker 3>but I got into at least one instance of a
<v Speaker 3>character remarking upon a revelation to something that I should
<v Speaker 3>have already known by information that I'd already seen. And
<v Speaker 3>maybe then there's just a disconnect between player and player
<v Speaker 3>character where player character is assumed to have not inferred
<v Speaker 3>that information but as the player have, Like there's always
<v Speaker 3>that that sort of possible disconnect. But that's why usually
<v Speaker 3>in other mystery games, you're usually like disambiguated from from
<v Speaker 3>being an actual like character character and a lot of
<v Speaker 3>the stuff, or or at least like you don't have
<v Speaker 3>a present role in the mystery. If that, I know,
<v Speaker 3>I'm getting into like a lot of weird, heady philosophical
<v Speaker 3>stuff with this. But like when you play her story,
<v Speaker 3>I know, right, so when we play her story, which
<v Speaker 3>is like, again, the easiest comparison to this game, I
<v Speaker 3>think this is the most like one to one of
<v Speaker 3>similar game style is her story. Yeah, you are a character,
<v Speaker 3>and that is important at some point, But you being
<v Speaker 3>a character does not mean that you are having voice
<v Speaker 3>conversations with other people or having to project character into
<v Speaker 3>the space. You being a character ends up just kind
<v Speaker 3>of being background for what ultimately ends up happening. Same
<v Speaker 3>with the other two games that the Barlow's done, or
<v Speaker 3>like Root Trees or Over a Din. You have a character,
<v Speaker 3>but that character doesn't exactly have to like take the
<v Speaker 3>stage at all. And so that's that's like a weird
<v Speaker 3>wrinkle in TR forty nine that does alter the way
<v Speaker 3>some of the mysteries and discoveries play out, where the
<v Speaker 3>character being present and having these speaking lines back and
<v Speaker 3>forth and having internal character development throughout the course of
<v Speaker 3>the game does then shift how those revelations feel like
<v Speaker 3>they play out a little bit, and sometimes for the better,
<v Speaker 3>and sometimes they do hit those hitches. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 3>think I need to I was thinking about when or
<v Speaker 3>if I'll go back to it. I think if I
<v Speaker 3>do go back, I think I have to start over.
<v Speaker 3>So I think I got to the point I would
<v Speaker 3>not start out. I promise you you don't want to
<v Speaker 3>start over because you're just gonna because I would essentially
<v Speaker 3>say starting over is what you'd be doing no matter what,
<v Speaker 3>because you're still going back with largely the same knowledge
<v Speaker 3>that you have.
<v Speaker 1>And so if you go back in right now, I.
<v Speaker 2>Just feel like I'm so far in, like I've gotten
<v Speaker 2>down so many rabbit holes, but I don't know how
<v Speaker 2>I got there.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, so I'd say just go.
<v Speaker 3>Back and start revisiting the information that way.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, no, because I don't know what notes
<v Speaker 2>to take. I don't know what matters yet, you know
<v Speaker 2>what I mean. I just found it, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>I don't even you know, It's like I solve the problem,
<v Speaker 2>but I don't know how I did it. So I
<v Speaker 2>feel like I don't haven't learned enough about it, you know.
<v Speaker 2>So it's a little frustrating, and I'm like, I don't.
<v Speaker 2>I guess I found that is this important? Which I'm
<v Speaker 2>fine with, like I don't know if it's important. Like
<v Speaker 2>I said, I like Sam Barlow stuff, but like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know something about this one.
<v Speaker 1>It's like annoying me.
<v Speaker 2>Because I guess because I'm still feel like I'm trying
<v Speaker 2>to grasps just like the sort of like foundationally what
<v Speaker 2>am I doing? And like when I look at the
<v Speaker 2>little book when it's like you need to match the
<v Speaker 2>things with the things.
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, oh yeah, Yet we should probably mention that
<v Speaker 3>that is a core mechanic that is not immediately apparent
<v Speaker 3>but does become apparent, is that you start like matching
<v Speaker 3>the names of things with catalog in tries, and that
<v Speaker 3>becomes a pretty important part as you go deeper in.
<v Speaker 3>And that is sort of the Obradin mechanic in there
<v Speaker 3>is that you are you will do that and then
<v Speaker 3>if you get it. It does not have the same
<v Speaker 3>thing as root trees or Obradin where you have to
<v Speaker 3>get a certain number right. So that way like it
<v Speaker 3>can kind of you can kind of brute force some
<v Speaker 3>stuff in this game if you ultimately need to, where
<v Speaker 3>if you're like I think I know what this is,
<v Speaker 3>but I don't know for sure, you can kind of
<v Speaker 3>just run through a bunch of different options and brute
<v Speaker 3>force your way there, and the game will be like
<v Speaker 3>you got it, good job, and you won't have to
<v Speaker 3>do the get three right the way that Obradin or
<v Speaker 3>root trees did. That sort of obfuscates and gets around
<v Speaker 3>the sort of player brute force method, which I personally
<v Speaker 3>was kind of back and forth on because I did
<v Speaker 3>brute Force a few entries that I was like, I've
<v Speaker 3>got a rough idea, but I'm not one hundred percent sure,
<v Speaker 3>so I'm just going to run through like the four
<v Speaker 3>that I think might be right. And then when I
<v Speaker 3>got to the third one, it was like, oh, that's
<v Speaker 3>the right one. Okay, that's and now I have context
<v Speaker 3>for where that fits, and I can all the other three.
<v Speaker 2>I guess I was saying start over is my understanding
<v Speaker 2>and my it is so messy and sort of scattered
<v Speaker 2>brain that I almost want to just like clean slight,
<v Speaker 2>go in, reframe, and then just more see if I
<v Speaker 2>can more intentionally create a thread back to that stuff.
<v Speaker 2>But at least I feel like I have a better
<v Speaker 2>understanding of how the roots two things work instead of
<v Speaker 2>just instead of just purely finding my chance and not
<v Speaker 2>understanding how I got there in the first place.
<v Speaker 1>Does that make sense? Oh?
<v Speaker 3>I mean, like literally, I still have not gotten the
<v Speaker 3>true ending of this game, because there's stuff that I
<v Speaker 3>have not discovered. I've only seen two different because there's
<v Speaker 3>different endings. I've seen two different credit roles, but I
<v Speaker 3>still haven't found what I would consider the golden end
<v Speaker 3>or whatever you.
<v Speaker 1>Want to call it. Do you know what the is like?
<v Speaker 3>Do you I have a mild hint of what it
<v Speaker 3>might entail, but I'm trying to figure out the method
<v Speaker 3>in which i can access that, is what I will say.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just wondering if it would like, if it's a
<v Speaker 2>thing we'll like, you'll know it if you see it.
<v Speaker 1>A little bit.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, there's a point in this game where, once
<v Speaker 3>you have learned what the most critical information is to
<v Speaker 3>see an ending, like your character will outright tell you.
<v Speaker 3>We'll just say like, I've got everything I need, I
<v Speaker 3>can finish this now, and they will say that aloud,
<v Speaker 3>And so you have that as a barometer at least,
<v Speaker 3>But otherwise it's I find it really fascinating TR forty
<v Speaker 3>nine as a narrative experiment into what these sorts of
<v Speaker 3>games can be. And I do think it's a little
<v Speaker 3>bit more obfuscated and weird to move around in compared
<v Speaker 3>to some other games of its ilk, but I find
<v Speaker 3>I really like that, and it does some really clever
<v Speaker 3>things with some of those things. So I would say,
<v Speaker 3>if you get stuck, for you, Marcus, or for the
<v Speaker 3>folks at home, examine your information. Look at the details
<v Speaker 3>of what you have examine, especially how they are being
<v Speaker 3>defined by the machine. That will help. That will do
<v Speaker 3>a lot to get you somewhere, because even just understanding
<v Speaker 3>the taxonomy of the machine does so much for you
<v Speaker 3>in this game. But also, as I some good advice
<v Speaker 3>I once got when I was getting started in this
<v Speaker 3>industry was that all stories have people at the center,
<v Speaker 3>and I find that often applies to solving mysteries as well.
<v Speaker 3>Is that ultimately understanding the people and how they relate
<v Speaker 3>to each other will then ultimately lead to truth, will
<v Speaker 3>lead to what the thing is that you're trying to do.
<v Speaker 3>So the people will help, will be your guiding north
<v Speaker 3>stars and all this. So going back examining who are
<v Speaker 3>these people, who is involved, who is doing what, when
<v Speaker 3>are they doing what? That sort of thing will help
<v Speaker 3>a lot. Will will kind of paint the broader picture
<v Speaker 3>for you. And take notes, take notes. This is I
<v Speaker 3>love a game that gets me to pull out pen
<v Speaker 3>and paper and start writing crazy like a I was
<v Speaker 3>looking for just a moment ago. I have a Pepe
<v Speaker 3>Sylvia noteboard that just looks like scribblings of letters and
<v Speaker 3>numbers all over it. That makes sense to me, makes
<v Speaker 3>sense to nobody else. I showed it to somebody who
<v Speaker 3>was thinking about playing this game because they're like, what
<v Speaker 3>do your notes look like? And they were like, does
<v Speaker 3>that make sense to you? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it makes sense to me. It probably doesn't make sense
<v Speaker 3>to you, but but it will. You'll understand it better
<v Speaker 3>once you're playing. So take notes, take it slow. This
<v Speaker 3>is a very cozy game. It's cold outside for those
<v Speaker 3>of us in the colder climates. Uh, this is Get
<v Speaker 3>some tea.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah yeah down previously yeah yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>We're the same.
<v Speaker 3>Get some tea, some coffee, a warm drink, sit by
<v Speaker 3>the fire. Pull this up on your Steam deck. I
<v Speaker 3>think you'll have a good time if you enjoy a
<v Speaker 3>good puzzle.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, that's a good pitch.
<v Speaker 2>I'll go back to I'm gonna back. I want to
<v Speaker 2>like it, and yeah, I just have to. And I
<v Speaker 2>admit that some of the friction is probably like on
<v Speaker 2>my end, but there are some of that's the game too.
<v Speaker 2>But I do, like I said, I love these kind
<v Speaker 2>of games and it does tick what that part of
<v Speaker 2>my brand. It's like ooh, looking for things in a
<v Speaker 2>machine like this mystery, So yeah, I want to give
<v Speaker 2>it another shots. It's there's something there, but man, it's
<v Speaker 2>just from the beginning, I was like, what what is this?
<v Speaker 1>What am I even doing right now? Well? Cool, Well
<v Speaker 1>that's going to do it for what we've been playing
<v Speaker 1>this week. We're going to take a quick break and
<v Speaker 1>then come back and talk through all this ub Soft news.
<v Speaker 1>We've got a lot to get into, our thoughts on
<v Speaker 1>the company as a whole and as it pertains to
<v Speaker 1>this really big story. So we'll see you on the
<v Speaker 1>other side. Welcome back to the Game Informer show. We're
<v Speaker 1>going to be diving into all of the ub Soft
<v Speaker 1>news that dropped earlier this week. We're going to be
<v Speaker 1>getting into what you be Soft has announced is a
<v Speaker 1>quote major organizational, operational and portfolio reset to reclaim creative
<v Speaker 1>leadership and restore sustain growth end quote. Marcus, you have been,
<v Speaker 1>you know, working on this story for us this week,
<v Speaker 1>covering the news. I know, I think we're all pretty
<v Speaker 1>on top of what's happening. It's a big it's a
<v Speaker 1>big story. It's kind of the continuation of, you know,
<v Speaker 1>a larger effort by Ubisoft to kind of find its footing.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, there's there are huge changes here. I guess
<v Speaker 1>before we get into the meat and potatoes of it, Eric,
<v Speaker 1>what do you think? What do you think about all
<v Speaker 1>this stuff that's kind of happening here.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's it's difficult to to really like put
<v Speaker 3>it all into perspective because today feels like another step
<v Speaker 3>up the ladder of what's been happening for a while
<v Speaker 3>with Ubisoft. There have been headlines for a while. I
<v Speaker 3>mean even last week they were there were layoffs announced
<v Speaker 3>incoming from Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm. And that's just
<v Speaker 3>like one segment of a broader series of Ubisoft pushing
<v Speaker 3>things back, layoffs, restructurings, and I feel like Ubisoft has
<v Speaker 3>always kind of been fighting with the giants in a
<v Speaker 3>lot of ways. I often think back to the days
<v Speaker 3>of the Vivendi possible takeover and things like that. But
<v Speaker 3>this really seems pretty dire in a lot of ways,
<v Speaker 3>especially for the people on the ground at different studios
<v Speaker 3>who you know, we're all thinking about here today. It's
<v Speaker 3>never easy to be in that position, but it's really
<v Speaker 3>it's a pretty big shake up to say that was
<v Speaker 3>six games are being outright canceled, seven are being delayed.
<v Speaker 3>It makes you wonder what the roadmap ahead that they're
<v Speaker 3>talking about even looks like when they say that they've
<v Speaker 3>rethought their next three year roadmap, what do the next
<v Speaker 3>three years look like if thirteen total games are affected
<v Speaker 3>by this massive shit?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's interesting because, uh the press release uh that
<v Speaker 1>that you'd be seff put out says you know that
<v Speaker 1>that it's canceled six discontinued, six games that do not
<v Speaker 1>meet uh like their their quality standards. And that includes
<v Speaker 1>the Prince of Persia, the Stands of Time remake, as
<v Speaker 1>well as four unannounced titles, including three new ips and
<v Speaker 1>I think the I think the wording is a little funny.
<v Speaker 1>And then it says ani mobile title. I'm not sure
<v Speaker 1>where we're getting six. They've only listed five they listened
<v Speaker 1>Prince of Persia and then four unannounced titles, but they
<v Speaker 1>say there are six discontinued.
<v Speaker 2>I was wondering that too. I almost wonder like, is
<v Speaker 2>the that six to one and announced the game that
<v Speaker 2>they just did it name and that doesn't fall in
<v Speaker 2>a sprier or they're just weird math. But yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know, but we'll say five to six games are
<v Speaker 2>no longer it's it's six, and then there's probably at
<v Speaker 2>least something in there that was not announced, was not formalized,
<v Speaker 2>was just something that was somewhere and they said, no,
<v Speaker 2>never mind, cut it. This is not the first time
<v Speaker 2>Ubisoft has done that where they announced that they had
<v Speaker 2>been working on something by canceling.
<v Speaker 3>It, it has happened. But I do want to highlight
<v Speaker 3>this from a statement that went out as part of
<v Speaker 3>this their press release, in two paragraphs, they say, against
<v Speaker 3>this backdrop, today's announcement introduces a radically new value creation
<v Speaker 3>model colon a more gamer centric organization structured around creative genres,
<v Speaker 3>relying on integrated business units, with faster, decentralized decision making
<v Speaker 3>and a greater ability to quickly adapt to players expectations.
<v Speaker 3>This transformation will be supported by a right sized and
<v Speaker 3>more agile organization delivering improved structural efficiencies over time. We'll
<v Speaker 3>talk about what that means in the second because this
<v Speaker 3>does also mean a large structural change for what Ubisoft
<v Speaker 3>looks like. The second paragraph is probably the more important
<v Speaker 3>one to note for the folks at home. The new
<v Speaker 3>operating model will further empower the execution of the group's
<v Speaker 3>strategy centered on open world adventures and GaAs native experiences.
<v Speaker 3>That's games as a service, native experiences supported by targeted investments,
<v Speaker 3>deeper specialization and cutting edge technology, including accelerated investments behind
<v Speaker 3>player facing generative AI. So this is Ubisoft saying this
<v Speaker 3>is what our way forward is. We are looking at
<v Speaker 3>open world adventure games, open world adventures, whatever that may mean,
<v Speaker 3>games as a service, and they are putting some chips
<v Speaker 3>down on jen AI. So that is the statement coming
<v Speaker 3>out of this camp, which.
<v Speaker 1>Is not new news.
<v Speaker 2>Like they've they've been pretty front facing with supporting AI,
<v Speaker 2>and even if they weren't, like this, it plays in say,
<v Speaker 2>there's sort of like their strategy, like Ubisoft is all
<v Speaker 2>been a we will put our hands into anything and
<v Speaker 2>see what sticks, like like whether it's we will be
<v Speaker 2>day one on every console launch regardless of the platform,
<v Speaker 2>or hey, NFTs are taking off, let's try.
<v Speaker 1>That, like they will.
<v Speaker 2>They are rarely picky about the businesses that they decide
<v Speaker 2>to kind of like wade into. So like hearing them
<v Speaker 2>be like, yeah, we're doing AI, it's like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>of course you would. You guys kind of do everything
<v Speaker 2>anything that pops up.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it kind of gives desperation for me a little bit,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, we can get into that they've kind of
<v Speaker 1>denoted like five creative houses that a lot of this
<v Speaker 1>is kind of getting wrapped into. You you mentioned the
<v Speaker 1>gamer centric approach eric that they they're talking about, and
<v Speaker 1>in the press release we get a little more detail.
<v Speaker 1>I'll quote quote Each creative house will be organized around
<v Speaker 1>a distinct creative genre and designed to concentrate deep expertise
<v Speaker 1>and specific types of player experiences. Each creative house will
<v Speaker 1>be responsible for fully owning the gamer relationship, developing must
<v Speaker 1>play experiences for specific audiences, and engaging player communities earlier
<v Speaker 1>and constantly throughout the development process. It goes on to
<v Speaker 1>say that Creative House one is Vantage Studios, focused on
<v Speaker 1>scaling and extending Ubisoft's largest and established franchises to turn
<v Speaker 1>them into annual billionaire brands. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>For those that don't know, Dvantage is that new subsidiary
<v Speaker 2>that they formed last year. Like they basically form a
<v Speaker 2>company within a company and a sort of it's now
<v Speaker 2>managing the Assassin's Creed, Rainbow six and Farcry franchise.
<v Speaker 1>Yes it is.
<v Speaker 3>It is also a cross venture with a heavy investment
<v Speaker 3>from ten cents.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's kind of where a lot of that direction
<v Speaker 3>came from. Was they spun out. They said, we're going
<v Speaker 3>to make Vantage Studios, We're going to put Assassin's Creed,
<v Speaker 3>Far Cry, Rainbow six kind of the Golden Geese, I
<v Speaker 3>think Mini would say of Ubisoft, and then also ten
<v Speaker 3>Cent is going to get heavily invested to it. I'm
<v Speaker 3>looking for the exact amount. It looks like three point
<v Speaker 3>eight billion heroes from a November twenty first, twenty twenty
<v Speaker 3>five press release, I want to say was you know,
<v Speaker 3>you can quote me if you want in the original thought,
<v Speaker 3>but I think it was like ten percent of the
<v Speaker 3>company ten sent is invested in. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 3>That was that was the enterprise value of it. The
<v Speaker 3>cash investment from Tencent was one point one six billion,
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, that's a lot of money.
<v Speaker 1>And I think that.
<v Speaker 3>Is already an interesting thing when you consider the previous
<v Speaker 3>statement about the focus on open world adventures and games
<v Speaker 3>of service, those are kind of the the banner bearers
<v Speaker 3>for those things, right. Assassin's Creed is what you would
<v Speaker 3>think of when you think of an open world adventure game,
<v Speaker 3>especially from Moviesoft, and then Rainbow six uh is obviously
<v Speaker 3>probably their most dominant games as a service title at
<v Speaker 3>this point with Siege. Yeah, they have a new mobile
<v Speaker 3>game coming out next month, like Rainbow six Mobile gets
<v Speaker 3>a global launch like early February.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's the fifth. Muh. Creative House two is
<v Speaker 1>dedicated to competitive and cooperative shooter experiences, including brands like
<v Speaker 1>The Division, Ghost, Recon, and splinter Cell. Creative House three.
<v Speaker 2>Design that's the shoot shooting studio. These other four don't
<v Speaker 2>have names, which is not ironic for the creative studios
<v Speaker 2>that they have the least creative names.
<v Speaker 1>It does mirror.
<v Speaker 3>I mean you look at Square and they have like
<v Speaker 3>Creative Business Unit, Yeah, something like that.
<v Speaker 2>Nintendo R and.
<v Speaker 1>D Coom similarly has some internal stuff like that. Yeah. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>CH three is designed to operate a roster of select
<v Speaker 1>sharp live experiences brands including for Honor the Crew, Writers, Republic, Brawlhalla,
<v Speaker 1>Skull and Bones. No's they this is this actually Riders Republic.
<v Speaker 1>I bought that recently on Steam after I'd played it
<v Speaker 1>on console when it first came out. Ye form. You
<v Speaker 1>know the downhill biking in that game really solid.
<v Speaker 2>Former Best Dorks winners from that game.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this is a studio that's had to handle a
<v Speaker 3>lot of I think scrutiny from from the outside our
<v Speaker 3>our own statements included. And and that's because Skull and
<v Speaker 3>Bones took years to come out. Brawhalla. By all accounts,
<v Speaker 3>bra Hala is still running and going, and weirdly enough,
<v Speaker 3>I've seen like a weird resurgence in for honor, like
<v Speaker 3>on shorts and tiktoks and stuff recently, which is weirding
<v Speaker 3>me out. I think, like the the crowd is coming
<v Speaker 3>around and for honor. But yeah, it's this is kind
<v Speaker 3>of the live service games that aren't Tom Clancy games,
<v Speaker 3>is how I would define this.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, not Tom Clancy's presents. Creative House four is dedicated
<v Speaker 1>to immersive fantasy worlds and narrative driven universes, brands including Anno,
<v Speaker 1>Might and Magic ray Man, Prince of Persia, and Beyond
<v Speaker 1>Good and Evil.
<v Speaker 2>Beyond Beyond Good and Evil Too, by the way, survived
<v Speaker 2>the cancelation spree, which I found very interesting.
<v Speaker 3>Dude, do we have confirmation that was one of the
<v Speaker 3>games that survived it because they haven't named it yet, right, No,
<v Speaker 3>it's it's been known as Beyond Good and Evil Too
<v Speaker 3>officially for no no, No, I mean I mean like within
<v Speaker 3>because they have said that the Prince of Persia remake
<v Speaker 3>was part of the cancelations, but they haven't said whether
<v Speaker 3>Beyond Good and Evil too was part of either one
<v Speaker 3>of the buckets, right, I assume not because they said
<v Speaker 3>the other ones were unannounced. Okay, So I was like, okay,
<v Speaker 3>so Beyond Good and Evil two would be exempt. Sorry, y'all,
<v Speaker 3>this this news is literally like hot off the presses.
<v Speaker 3>So we are working with with what we're learning right now.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but I just found that so fast, like man,
<v Speaker 2>Prince could not It did not pass the did not
<v Speaker 2>pass the test. But I guess Beyond Good and Evil
<v Speaker 2>to still talking a lot somewhere.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you're right.
<v Speaker 3>Uh yeah, they do say discontinued six games. These include
<v Speaker 3>Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time remake, as well
<v Speaker 3>as four unannounced titles.
<v Speaker 1>There.
<v Speaker 3>There is a floating there is a floating and tree
<v Speaker 3>in there.
<v Speaker 1>They have one floating manna that.
<v Speaker 3>Man floating how many cards in hand?
<v Speaker 1>Be soft? I think they just couldn't let Jason Gordon
<v Speaker 1>leve it down. What's the name, Joseph Gordon Levinseph? Jason?
<v Speaker 1>I called him, Wow, great joke. Creative House five is
<v Speaker 1>focused on reclaiming position and casual and family friendly games.
<v Speaker 1>Brands include Just Dance, Idle, Minor, Tycoon, Catch App, Hungry Shark, Invincible,
<v Speaker 1>Guarding the Globe, and has Bro.
<v Speaker 2>You Can't Kill.
<v Speaker 3>I was about to say you just don't probably the
<v Speaker 3>biggest money maker there, but uno a real close second.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not even being facetious.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows?
<v Speaker 2>Huge, huge, got it got a bunch of wrestlers through
<v Speaker 2>the pandemics.
<v Speaker 1>I think you knows.
<v Speaker 2>Still really a big anchor.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. The press release goes on to say, quote. In addition,
<v Speaker 1>there are four new ips currently in development, including March
<v Speaker 1>of Giants. Ubisoft will communicate on their respective creative home
<v Speaker 1>at a later stage. Each creative benefit.
<v Speaker 2>Oh oh, I'm sorry, real quick, March of Giants. I
<v Speaker 2>had to look this up and I was like, what
<v Speaker 2>is March of Giants? Have known about this? Apparently this
<v Speaker 2>was a mobia that was originally being developed by Amazon
<v Speaker 2>Games until last month when Ubi Salt announce it had
<v Speaker 2>acquired the game from Amazon. So now they're going to
<v Speaker 2>finish it. But it is like this upcoming, like just
<v Speaker 2>this Mobia that has a Steam page and everything. I
<v Speaker 2>was like, I have not heard of this ever. I
<v Speaker 2>was wondering, you guys have ever heard of March of Giants?
<v Speaker 3>I am a MOBI boy and I had not really
<v Speaker 3>heard of March of Giants. I probably wrote it off
<v Speaker 3>in my head because it had Amazon attached to it.
<v Speaker 1>But uh, I don't.
<v Speaker 3>Know if like, like it's the Moba Iron's kind of cold,
<v Speaker 3>Isn't it like like there's that that genre solidified a
<v Speaker 3>while ago, Like everybody went into one of two buckets
<v Speaker 3>and that is where they have remained.
<v Speaker 2>Remember what I said before about Ubisoft trying everything. Have
<v Speaker 2>they tried a Moba yet? Is this their first one?
<v Speaker 1>Oh?
<v Speaker 3>They probably have? Hold on, I'm going to look this
<v Speaker 3>up because now I'm curious.
<v Speaker 2>I was going to say, like, have they ever have
<v Speaker 2>they tried their own mobi and were like, ah, we
<v Speaker 2>should just buy this one that's over.
<v Speaker 1>Here, there's March of Giants.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know a lot of this does not feel
<v Speaker 3>you know, obviously, it's it's the forward facing pr is
<v Speaker 3>going to try to be like we're trying to position
<v Speaker 3>our creative houses for the best possible success moving forward.
<v Speaker 3>I think for everybody reading this from the outside, it's
<v Speaker 3>really hard. Did not see this as pretty dire news
<v Speaker 3>coming out of Ubisoft to not see this as I
<v Speaker 3>don't think a healthy company has to this like like
<v Speaker 3>significantly shift itself if something is not worrisome somewhere in
<v Speaker 3>the pipeline.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, they've had some high profile kind of like
<v Speaker 2>underperforming Triple A releases, like like Star Wars Outlaws apparently
<v Speaker 2>didn't hit the mark. I think Avatar two from what
<v Speaker 2>I remember, Avatar front sas of Pandora, I think maybe some.
<v Speaker 2>I think Assassin's creat Shadows did pretty well for them.
<v Speaker 2>It felt like that was like the first kind of
<v Speaker 2>like I don't hit I guess in a while for them.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean this is a company that a year
<v Speaker 2>year and a half ago there were like very heavy
<v Speaker 2>rumors that they were going to go private because of
<v Speaker 2>just the state of things, and I think even the
<v Speaker 2>Gymo family had to like make a statement about that
<v Speaker 2>or they like either go private or just be purchased
<v Speaker 2>by someone like that. Those are like it seemed like
<v Speaker 2>that was like kind of like the riding on the
<v Speaker 2>wall for Ruby Saw for like the last almost two
<v Speaker 2>years now. But yeah, they've been kind of in the
<v Speaker 2>middle of this giant restructurings over the last year at least,
<v Speaker 2>and has resulted in some studio layoffs, like we mentioned before.
<v Speaker 2>And I just don't I don't know if they're like
<v Speaker 2>like in their wording they're trying to like simplify sort
<v Speaker 2>of their their like work pipeline because they have so
<v Speaker 2>many studios all over the place working on everything at
<v Speaker 2>all times. Uh, And it just I don't know, maybe
<v Speaker 2>they're like they're trying to like because of all the
<v Speaker 2>kind of like the misses with some of their Triple
<v Speaker 2>A stuff, at least financially, it seems like they're like
<v Speaker 2>they're trying to bet or like trying to find more
<v Speaker 2>sure bets and kind of like doubling down on like
<v Speaker 2>you know, the franchise that they know will make the
<v Speaker 2>money and then sort of like you know, like they
<v Speaker 2>say Games of Service and then I guess using AI
<v Speaker 2>to try to you know, saved some money here and
<v Speaker 2>here and maybe like streamline the pipeline even more. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I I don't know. It's it's they're in a weird
<v Speaker 2>place right now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's uh, I mean they've just I think Assassin's
<v Speaker 1>Creed Shadows was you know, uh, it was a fine game.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I think it you know that came out
<v Speaker 1>last year, but last February almost a year ago. Yeah, yeah, sold,
<v Speaker 1>well yeah, yeah sold, fine, Yeah, I don't know, it's
<v Speaker 1>you know, I'm trying to think of other other releases
<v Speaker 1>that have done well for them recently.
<v Speaker 2>Uh yeah, I'm trying to think. It almost feels like
<v Speaker 2>their output hasn't been as frequent as it normally is
<v Speaker 2>because what else, like outside of their annual stuff like
<v Speaker 2>Assassin's Creed and there was just the last.
<v Speaker 1>Year, what else?
<v Speaker 3>I mean there was Star Wars Outlaws was a big
<v Speaker 3>one years and and and aforementioned like Frontiers of Pandora.
<v Speaker 2>Which they've done big expansions for both of those games
<v Speaker 2>in the last year or so. Yeah, uh do this.
<v Speaker 1>You know they need to put out a new Trials game.
<v Speaker 1>They need to publish a new Trials game.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's that studio was also hit else, if I
<v Speaker 2>remember correctly.
<v Speaker 3>I was going to say, like, I feel there's enough
<v Speaker 3>studios and properties here that maybe what ends up happening
<v Speaker 3>doesn't look too dissimilar from when Square Knicks was divesting
<v Speaker 3>of its Western studios. Sure, when it started, you know,
<v Speaker 3>dumping things like you know what ultimately led to Io
<v Speaker 3>breaking off and going independent, what ultimately led to Crystal
<v Speaker 3>Dynamics being split off and several other companies that went
<v Speaker 3>under the umbrella of Embracer. I I personally feel like
<v Speaker 3>that could be eat something here, especially because they're identifying
<v Speaker 3>certain properties in their list but not other ones. I
<v Speaker 3>feel like track Mania is still under them, right, It's
<v Speaker 3>is that under.
<v Speaker 2>Or I'm still under them? I know I don't keep
<v Speaker 2>up with track.
<v Speaker 1>Mania, but I like track Media. Track Media was crazy.
<v Speaker 2>I would just love the note, like in terms of
<v Speaker 2>like if you take inventory real quick, do you guys
<v Speaker 2>remember what else they have in the pipeline that they've announced,
<v Speaker 2>just to get an idea of what's coming in the
<v Speaker 2>next few years, because we know they have.
<v Speaker 1>Somewhere I believe, I don't know. I'm sorry, that's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure how public like all of this has
<v Speaker 1>been stated. I'm pretty sure they've they've publicly commented on it.
<v Speaker 1>But like, I think there's some like division stuff happening.
<v Speaker 2>There's division that was announced. Yeah, then there's also the
<v Speaker 2>division Resurgence, which is like a separate thing. I forget
<v Speaker 2>the scale of that one. Is it a mobile thing
<v Speaker 2>or it's like a it's another division game that it's
<v Speaker 2>a Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So I pulled up a list of the currently announced
<v Speaker 3>but unreleased Ubisoft games, and the list stands at Heroes
<v Speaker 3>of Mighten Magic Olden Era that's supposed to do an
<v Speaker 3>early access this year, as well as Maiden Magic Fates,
<v Speaker 3>which is a mobile version. We have several Assassin's Creed
<v Speaker 3>projects there. There's the code name Hex and code name Invictus,
<v Speaker 3>as well as Assassin's Creed Jade, which that one was
<v Speaker 3>a mobile title, I believe, Yeah, obviously, like you said, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>by the way.
<v Speaker 2>That's the one I'm excited about that's supposed to be
<v Speaker 2>a kind of like Slavic, kind of like Witchcraft one
<v Speaker 2>that it's if they keep up with the annual thing,
<v Speaker 2>that's probably gonna come out this year or at least
<v Speaker 2>get a full reveal this year, because I think that's
<v Speaker 2>the next one on docket.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, obviously, like you said, Beyond Good and Evil two,
<v Speaker 3>which has been in ovens since time immemorial, March of Giants,
<v Speaker 3>which just recently came under the umbrella Morbid Metal. I
<v Speaker 3>don't know what that one is, no clue, no idea
<v Speaker 3>what that is.
<v Speaker 1>Zero.
<v Speaker 3>I'll do some research here in a second and the
<v Speaker 3>Division three in the Splinter Cell remake. So that's still
<v Speaker 3>like you think about what they were talking about earlier,
<v Speaker 3>especially with the Vantage Studios, they're big properties. That's several
<v Speaker 3>Tom Clancy games, that's several Assassin's Cree games. Right, nothing
<v Speaker 3>really on the docket for far Cry. I feel like
<v Speaker 3>Farcre has been fairly quiet for a few years now.
<v Speaker 2>We're due for a Far Cry announcement like that. Feels
<v Speaker 2>like that has to happen this year.
<v Speaker 3>But also just a lot of focus on a few
<v Speaker 3>franchises and then seemingly just kind of tossing one up
<v Speaker 3>out of the earth every now and then just to
<v Speaker 3>kind of see like, hey, this still doing all right.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, they also have other stuff that's been cooking
<v Speaker 3>as well. A new ono came out last year. I
<v Speaker 3>know the Strategy heads do enjoy a good ano. Just
<v Speaker 3>dance continues to persist through through the eons, through the eras.
<v Speaker 3>But then otherwise a lot of their stuff is here's
<v Speaker 3>here's X Defiant, Here's Skull and Bones, which took forever
<v Speaker 3>to come out. Here's a couple of Prince of Persia games.
<v Speaker 3>They had they had lost Crown and Rogue Prince of Persia,
<v Speaker 3>the latter one being developed by Evil Empire. Uh, there's
<v Speaker 3>there's just a lot of stuff hitting the fan and
<v Speaker 3>seeing the sticks to the wall, and maybe this is
<v Speaker 3>the illustrative moment of Ubisoft has been trying to figure
<v Speaker 3>out what works for it and what doesn't, which is
<v Speaker 3>a bummer too because I remember Lost Crown was really good.
<v Speaker 3>A lot of people came out of it really liking
<v Speaker 3>that game.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let's talk about Prince of Persia. Actually for a bit,
<v Speaker 2>the series has kind of been like like the remake
<v Speaker 2>is kind of like maybe the biggest news story like
<v Speaker 2>that getting canceled out of this this development, like like
<v Speaker 2>as a Prince of Persia fan, it was it's been
<v Speaker 2>like simultaneously exciting and like frustrating because you know, for
<v Speaker 2>the longest time that series was completely dormant, and then
<v Speaker 2>boom they start coming out with like really three new
<v Speaker 2>game announcements between the Sands of Time remake, Lost Crown,
<v Speaker 2>and the Rogue Prince of Persia. You know, we get
<v Speaker 2>Lost Crown, phenomenal game like in my top ten that year,
<v Speaker 2>and then not terribly long after it comes out and
<v Speaker 2>gets this wave of praise they disband the studio that
<v Speaker 2>made it and just sort of like dispersed them to
<v Speaker 2>other projects within Ubisoft, but effectively mean I was like, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I guess we're not getting a sequel to that game,
<v Speaker 2>which is unfortunate, so okay. And then of course you
<v Speaker 2>get the rogue Prince of Persia, which is, like you mentioned, Eric,
<v Speaker 2>developed by a Death Cell's team. That game, you know,
<v Speaker 2>comes gets out an early axis, is kind of under
<v Speaker 2>the radar for a lot of its early access life,
<v Speaker 2>and then came out in one point zero last year,
<v Speaker 2>and even then was still kind of under the radar.
<v Speaker 2>I'm really curious how that game has sold overall. I
<v Speaker 2>feel like if it did like Gangbusters, zoe Soft would
<v Speaker 2>have been out there and been on look at this,
<v Speaker 2>look at this Prince of Persia game doing really well.
<v Speaker 2>I just have no sense of like where that game
<v Speaker 2>even stands with Ubisoft, like if they're happy with it.
<v Speaker 2>It just seems like the redheaded step child of the
<v Speaker 2>Prince of Persia series, which is unfortunate because it's a
<v Speaker 2>really fun game. I really liked what I've played of it.
<v Speaker 2>And then you get this remake that was announced around
<v Speaker 2>the time that Eric and I joined Game four or Eric,
<v Speaker 2>excuse me, Alex and I joined Game in Former.
<v Speaker 1>Like it's we're two different people, Marcus every time. Every time, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>at least I did it the other way. I do.
<v Speaker 1>I do appreciate that I do. Yeah, Alex, we've worked
<v Speaker 1>together almost six years, Marcus.
<v Speaker 2>We've been working together as long as that Prince of
<v Speaker 2>Persia remaker. We've outlasted it somehow.
<v Speaker 1>Somehow we died at one point, we did. We died
<v Speaker 1>and came back and hey we were the time, you know,
<v Speaker 1>yeah ye.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, like they you know, that thing was announced
<v Speaker 2>and for those that know, like like the whole trajectory
<v Speaker 2>with that remake is is fascinating because it was announced
<v Speaker 2>in September twenty twenty and it was originally given to
<v Speaker 2>Ubisou's Indian studios, like it was like in Moon Mumbai
<v Speaker 2>and Pune. I'm not sure how you pronounced the city there,
<v Speaker 2>but they were at the time built as like new
<v Speaker 2>studios and it was this was like their first big project.
<v Speaker 2>And then it's wild to think that the game was
<v Speaker 2>originally announced to come out the following year in twenty
<v Speaker 2>twenty one, because and at the time you were like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that makes sense. You know, it's a remake, They've probably
<v Speaker 2>been working it for a while. They have a template
<v Speaker 2>to work with, so it shouldn't probably shouldn't take that
<v Speaker 2>long to put together. And this is at the start
<v Speaker 2>of the new generation too. And I don't know if
<v Speaker 2>you guys remember, but they released that first trailer and
<v Speaker 2>then a lot of fans poop poo dicks. They thought
<v Speaker 2>the graphics didn't look amazing or at least what they
<v Speaker 2>should be for a remake. So then I don't know
<v Speaker 2>if they I think they explicitly said it. For that reason,
<v Speaker 2>they delayed it, and it was originally supposed to be
<v Speaker 2>like a brief delay, and then a few months later
<v Speaker 2>it got delayed indefinitely, so now had no release window,
<v Speaker 2>and then it went quiet for a while, and then
<v Speaker 2>it was in twenty twenty two that it would be
<v Speaker 2>Soft announced that they had taken development from Mumbai and
<v Speaker 2>transferred it to Ubisoft Montreal, which is kind of like
<v Speaker 2>the like like the big Ubisoft studio and also the
<v Speaker 2>studio that originally developed The Sands of Time. So you're like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>maybe it's like a metrod Prime four situation, like we're
<v Speaker 2>giving it back to the team that made the old
<v Speaker 2>one to really get it back on track, and then
<v Speaker 2>it was just radio silence for the most part for
<v Speaker 2>another couple of years, and then it was Ubisoft four
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty four that out of nowhere we got a
<v Speaker 2>new Prince of Persia remake teaser that announced the twenty
<v Speaker 2>twenty six launch window. So, you know, still a long way,
<v Speaker 2>but it was like, Okay, at least this game seems
<v Speaker 2>to be happening. That's that's cool. And then I think,
<v Speaker 2>as far as I know, the last update was last
<v Speaker 2>summer June, when they, like Prince of Pergel twitter account
<v Speaker 2>just kind of put out a post just saying, hey,
<v Speaker 2>we're still working on it, you know, just we're excited
<v Speaker 2>for you to see it, but you know, it's still happening.
<v Speaker 2>It was just like like the slightest sign of life anywhere.
<v Speaker 2>But and it's like, okay, great, And again, I just
<v Speaker 2>as a Sans of Time fan, I was so excited
<v Speaker 2>for this game. I'm not terribly surprised to hear it's canceled,
<v Speaker 2>because it was It's been on the verge of like
<v Speaker 2>cancellation it seems like forever. So my mind was already
<v Speaker 2>kind of in the space of like I'll believe this
<v Speaker 2>game when I see it, Like, if they canceled it today,
<v Speaker 2>it would be disappointing but not surprising. So to see
<v Speaker 2>it finally happen it it it does sting a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more than if it had happened maybe a few
<v Speaker 2>years ago, just because that sign of life. It is
<v Speaker 2>just like I think this might this seems like it's
<v Speaker 2>teetering more towards a like this this might actually come
<v Speaker 2>out Okay, and then it's like, oh, just kidding, because
<v Speaker 2>it was supposed to come out this year, so I
<v Speaker 2>was like, okay, maybe around Summer Games first time we'll
<v Speaker 2>get an update. I think I saw. I didn't check
<v Speaker 2>into this, but I apparently there's some There was some
<v Speaker 2>sort of rumor that they were gonna announce it or
<v Speaker 2>shadow drop it like sometime before March of this year.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, there were rumors going around for a bit, but
<v Speaker 3>I didn't really see too much substantiating them besides just
<v Speaker 3>what you would typically ascribe to, like the rumor mill
<v Speaker 3>of gaming that is just always humming in the background.
<v Speaker 3>But to illustrate your point, like the six year mark
<v Speaker 3>I think is really interesting because I think if we're
<v Speaker 3>gonna mark when Ubisoft started having these struggles. I do
<v Speaker 3>think it's around the time of the pandemic. I think
<v Speaker 3>it's around the time that we moved into there's kind
<v Speaker 3>of a concurrent new generation pandemic where Ubisoft up through
<v Speaker 3>the three sixty, like PS four era was Ride and High,
<v Speaker 3>was doing pretty well. It had kind of become the
<v Speaker 3>dominant company you think about when it comes to Triple
<v Speaker 3>A games, especially the way that they're designed. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>I feel like we have Ubisoft to thank for watchtowerss forever.
<v Speaker 3>But around that time, I do think there was a
<v Speaker 3>noticeable shift in the studio, in it's or in the studio,
<v Speaker 3>in the publisher and its output and how it's studios
<v Speaker 3>were handling things. Projects started getting shifted around, delayed, moved around.
<v Speaker 3>We had stuff that just started falling to the wayside,
<v Speaker 3>like Skull and Bones, like X Defiant, like The Prince
<v Speaker 3>of Persia remake, like Beyond Good and Evil too. And
<v Speaker 3>this is kind of where we're standing at the bottom
<v Speaker 3>of the hill as the landside landslide has been coming
<v Speaker 3>down this whole time.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I was gonna say, like, does all that like
<v Speaker 2>you mentioning all those games that were all in development
<v Speaker 2>concurrently and all had kind of like I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>maybe Less so X Divine, but certainly Prints Uh, Beyond
<v Speaker 2>Good and Evil and Skull and Bones all famously protracted
<v Speaker 2>and troubled development cycles all at the same time. Like
<v Speaker 2>I wonder if, like maybe Ubi Sauces or Ubi Sauce,
<v Speaker 2>Ubi Sauce, would you like some Ubi soft on Obi
<v Speaker 2>Sauce in Newburger But like it seems like maybe their
<v Speaker 2>house just wasn't in order, Like maybe that is why
<v Speaker 2>they they've kind of been restructured, like realized. Like our
<v Speaker 2>development pipelines, at least for some of our major pripe
<v Speaker 2>our studios and projects were kind of like ft, like
<v Speaker 2>we need to find a way to do this better
<v Speaker 2>because like we've had three big projects take forever.
<v Speaker 1>To come out.
<v Speaker 3>I think there was well, sorry to cut you off,
<v Speaker 3>it's just I think there's also a matter of there
<v Speaker 3>were a lot of projects coming out that just seemed
<v Speaker 3>to be staggered out and just trying things. We had
<v Speaker 3>Roller Champions was was in this this realm the roller
<v Speaker 3>der begin and and here's one that's going to really
<v Speaker 3>freak you out. Remember Hyperscape. I remember I played Royal
<v Speaker 3>hyper Escape, I played.
<v Speaker 1>I played a little bit. Yeah, I got a yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, neither of these games are around anymore.
<v Speaker 1>I I same with I think it last that long.
<v Speaker 3>No, A lot of a lot of them suffered pretty
<v Speaker 3>quick turnarounds from launch. I mean, look, that's not unique
<v Speaker 3>to Ubisoft. I mean, you can look at any other
<v Speaker 3>major publisher in the last three or four years and
<v Speaker 3>you'll find a similar graveyard of live service titles.
<v Speaker 1>Like it just happens.
<v Speaker 3>But I think for Ubisoft, if that stuff isn't working,
<v Speaker 3>if the blunderbuss of live service attempts is not working,
<v Speaker 3>and then also the Triple A titles maybe aren't succeeding
<v Speaker 3>at the level that they want them to, that this
<v Speaker 3>could also be a knee jerk reaction to that.
<v Speaker 2>It is weird to hear them doubling down on them, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>because it's like, is like outside of Rainbow succeede what
<v Speaker 2>what I mean?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>They have, But I mean besides that one, do they
<v Speaker 2>have another one that is genuinely doing well for them?
<v Speaker 3>I think a lot of this So I'm gonna I'm
<v Speaker 3>gonna draw a parallel here because there there was a
<v Speaker 3>line that stuck out to me in what Van ay
<v Speaker 3>Con said earlier from the press release. Uh, and it's
<v Speaker 3>something that I'm going to pull from the slide here.
<v Speaker 3>Scaling and extending. This is vantage studios like Ideology laid
<v Speaker 3>out in a slide scaling and extending ubisof's largest and
<v Speaker 3>established franchises to turn them into annual billionaire brands. I
<v Speaker 3>that's that's a big number. That's a really big number.
<v Speaker 3>And the thing it immediately reminded me of was the
<v Speaker 3>way that EA had talked about Battlefield going into the
<v Speaker 3>latest Battlefield release, where they were saying, this is this
<v Speaker 3>is it. We're going to make this game, and it's
<v Speaker 3>that's going to be the game. It's going to make
<v Speaker 3>so much revenue, it's going to do so much. This
<v Speaker 3>is the metric that we have set. And there are
<v Speaker 3>a lot of jokes at times of companies want to
<v Speaker 3>make Fortnite right, because if you make Fortnite, do you
<v Speaker 3>ever have to make another game again? Or can you
<v Speaker 3>just keep making stuff within Fortnite and around Fortnite. Now
<v Speaker 3>you've you've made the golden goose what the modern golden
<v Speaker 3>goose is at least, And so maybe that's the drive
<v Speaker 3>behind all this is to just start putting chips down on.
<v Speaker 3>We're going to make the thing that becomes the modern
<v Speaker 3>service model, the modern Fortnite, the modern Roadblocks, the the
<v Speaker 3>third place online that everybody wants to go to and
<v Speaker 3>spend their time in and especially spend their money in.
<v Speaker 3>But can Ubisoft make that and what does it look like?
<v Speaker 3>That's those are big questions to answer.
<v Speaker 2>It's sad because like, remember, it wasn't even that long ago,
<v Speaker 2>like a decade ago to Dubisoff had that kind of
<v Speaker 2>like I guess their version of like the was it
<v Speaker 2>the a originals, like their little Indian initiative sort of
<v Speaker 2>thing where they had like Child of Child of like
<v Speaker 2>Valiant Hearts, like those smaller like artsy games.
<v Speaker 1>That were like I love yeah, yeah that one. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. It's like they're so far away from that now, unfortunately,
<v Speaker 2>and it's I mean a lot of big publishers are
<v Speaker 2>now just focusing on a few core brands.
<v Speaker 1>But it's it's.
<v Speaker 2>Unfortunate because it really it was not that long ago
<v Speaker 2>that that was kind of like a key part of
<v Speaker 2>their business was those smaller games.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know, Siegees is kind of the outlier and
<v Speaker 1>their live service attempts. You know, it's made it ten years, right,
<v Speaker 1>it's now Rainbow six Siege X as well. They kind
<v Speaker 1>of rebranded it kind of in celebration of that ten
<v Speaker 1>year marker, and it still has I mean, if you
<v Speaker 1>look right now in Steam charts, like on Steam alone,
<v Speaker 1>Rainbow six Siege has fifty thousand players playing right now,
<v Speaker 1>and you know that doesn't even factor in consoles where
<v Speaker 1>the game is actually very big on platforms like Xbox
<v Speaker 1>in particular, there's a lot of people who play there
<v Speaker 1>as well as PlayStation, and I wonder like if they're
<v Speaker 1>just kind of trying to replicate that. But if you remember,
<v Speaker 1>you know, Rainbow six Siege had very had a very
<v Speaker 1>rough launch and was given a lot more charity I
<v Speaker 1>think from the company. Then most games get these days
<v Speaker 1>to kind of right the ship. I don't think you
<v Speaker 1>get a Rainbow six Siege in today's climate because companies
<v Speaker 1>instantly just if it's not hitting the numbers, you know,
<v Speaker 1>a month, then it's like, okay, we're we're sunsetting this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Siege was had the benefit of coming out on
<v Speaker 2>the time before kind of like everyone like like like
<v Speaker 2>the primary pillars of life service kind of had established
<v Speaker 2>themselves and everyone. It kind of picked. This is my
<v Speaker 2>live service game. I'm Destiny too for life. You can't
<v Speaker 2>pull me from this. I'm Fortnite for life. You can't
<v Speaker 2>pull me from this. Like it was still a little
<v Speaker 2>bit of the wild West back then. I mean Fortnite
<v Speaker 2>hadn't even come out yet, nor did PUBG. So it's
<v Speaker 2>like it got it at a good time. Like like
<v Speaker 2>you said, if that, if that happened today, and that
<v Speaker 2>thing would have been dead in like a year if
<v Speaker 2>it was.
<v Speaker 3>It was also like for for all defaults at launch.
<v Speaker 3>I remember playing Siege when it first came out and thinking,
<v Speaker 3>they've got the bones of something good here. And that's
<v Speaker 3>coming from somebody who, like my background is I love
<v Speaker 3>Rainbow six Vegas and Vegas two. Yeah last to me,
<v Speaker 3>and yeah, god what I love to see those brought
<v Speaker 3>back in some way. Those games are excellent, But like
<v Speaker 3>Rainbow six, Siege had the foundation there, and there was
<v Speaker 3>a team that has clearly over the years believed in
<v Speaker 3>what they're doing, believed in the world that they've set up,
<v Speaker 3>believed in in their game type, their way of looking
<v Speaker 3>at what Rainbow six competitive looks like, and it's it's
<v Speaker 3>panned out and it's even survived its own spinoffs. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>Rainbow six Quarantine kind of came and went pretty fast, and.
<v Speaker 2>I forgot about that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this this is now a podcast
<v Speaker 3>segment titled Let's Remember some Ubi Soft Games.
<v Speaker 1>Patriots was on the cover of Game Informer. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>remember reading that, and I mean that eventually, I think
<v Speaker 1>kind of got morphed into what Siege is. But but yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, yeah, it's it's rough and.
<v Speaker 3>It's really difficult, and I think we should reiterate again,
<v Speaker 3>this is going to have tangible effects not just on
<v Speaker 3>the video games that you at home get to play,
<v Speaker 3>but on the people who make those video games. I
<v Speaker 3>think everybody at an Ubisoft studio right now is definitely
<v Speaker 3>looking at this news and being a little bit concerned
<v Speaker 3>with good reason. And so, you know, like our thoughts
<v Speaker 3>are with them because they make this stuff. They make
<v Speaker 3>the stuff that we enjoy and talk about and look at,
<v Speaker 3>and it sucks to see a lot of people and
<v Speaker 3>a lot of talent put into this position where their
<v Speaker 3>future gets murkier now. And like, I don't know, for
<v Speaker 3>me personally, I actually really like the Ubisoft era of
<v Speaker 3>like Xbox three sixty up through the PS four.
<v Speaker 1>I it's weird.
<v Speaker 3>Someone wants asked me or you an Assassin's Creed fan,
<v Speaker 3>and I was like, I'm not sure, but I sure
<v Speaker 3>have played just about all of them, and I'm yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>which I think is the most natural answer to that question.
<v Speaker 3>But I like Assassin's Creed too on any given day,
<v Speaker 3>could be one of my favorite third person action games
<v Speaker 3>of all time. And and I love games like Black Flag.
<v Speaker 3>I was definitely intrigued by the rumors that were going
<v Speaker 3>around of a potential Black Flag rekindling of some kind.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, allegedly that is one of the uh that is
<v Speaker 2>one of the games that is rumored to have been
<v Speaker 2>part of the delay, the internal delay in the story,
<v Speaker 2>but that game has still not been officially announced or confirmed.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but it's I really love those series. I love
<v Speaker 3>far Krai. Farkrai had like one through three, pretty much
<v Speaker 3>a lot of the early far Cries, Rainbow six, we
<v Speaker 3>already talked about like these, they they make games, even
<v Speaker 3>the Division, the Division game that I think was very
<v Speaker 3>ahead of its time in a lot of ways, like
<v Speaker 3>really laid the groundwork for what Tarkov and other games
<v Speaker 3>would become with its dark Zone. So, like, I think
<v Speaker 3>there's a lot of talent and a lot of potential here,
<v Speaker 3>and I don't know what the road forward looks like
<v Speaker 3>now with this massive restructuring and commitment to principles that
<v Speaker 3>might not be conducive to the sorts of exciting ubisav
<v Speaker 3>things that we normally enjoy seeing from them.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm excited for the live service ray Man game
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna get.
<v Speaker 1>Oh God, listen, you want to fix eb Soft, bring
<v Speaker 1>back ray Man, bring back Trials, and give us a
<v Speaker 1>damn new ghost recon game. Get get the Mario and
<v Speaker 1>Rabbits team cooking again soon. Ex Rabbits, I'm telling you,
<v Speaker 1>did that team get split up too? A good question? Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like I don't know. Maybe I might, I
<v Speaker 2>might be confusing a different report, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like weird little things like that. I give me more
<v Speaker 2>of that, Ubisoft, and maybe we'll get another again. It's
<v Speaker 2>a Prince of Persia fan out of this remas gone.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, man, when are we going to get another
<v Speaker 2>Prince game? Because we're not getting a Lost Ground sequel.
<v Speaker 2>It looks like that, So I have no idea what
<v Speaker 2>the future of at least of that franchise.
<v Speaker 1>Is right now. I would not be surprised of that
<v Speaker 1>is put on ice.
<v Speaker 3>The most recent news out of that team, which was
<v Speaker 3>Ubisoft Milan, is that they're hiring for some sort of
<v Speaker 3>triple A RAYMN game. That's that's from a report from VGC.
<v Speaker 3>It looks like they're kind of collaborating with Montpellier on
<v Speaker 3>the future of rain Man. Raymon almost had rain the
<v Speaker 3>rain Man. Yeah, the future of rain Man. Yeah, which,
<v Speaker 3>you know, RAYMN wasn't part of those Sparks of or
<v Speaker 3>Mario and Rabids games. I think at some point was
<v Speaker 3>DLC for Sparks of Hope. But uh yeah, I'd be
<v Speaker 3>curious about that. I do like ray Man. But there's
<v Speaker 3>just so many incredible games that come out of Ubisoft
<v Speaker 3>over the years. Track Mania we talked about earlier. I
<v Speaker 3>love track Media, you know, I would hope that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>the pod listeners Van Aken is holding up ray Man.
<v Speaker 3>Is that Legends and Origins it is? Yeah, Yeah, their day.
<v Speaker 3>It's remember the Legends was a launch title for the
<v Speaker 3>p S four and Xbox One.
<v Speaker 1>Man, that game was.
<v Speaker 2>Incredible at games are great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Oh yeah, I I mean, I think they're kind
<v Speaker 1>of neck and neck. For me, they're both incredible platformers.
<v Speaker 1>I love those games so much. Yeah, well, anything else, guys,
<v Speaker 1>before we wrap up this topic and get out of here.
<v Speaker 2>What's the over under on Ubisoft getting purchased at this
<v Speaker 2>point with this big kind of like slimming down and restructuring.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know about the whole, the whole Wooly Mammoth,
<v Speaker 3>but I do think we can see themselves in my key.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you think they would still IPD for.
<v Speaker 3>Just being bought out, right, That's yeah, That's usually the
<v Speaker 3>way it goes is, you know, pieces get shorn off
<v Speaker 3>and and and sold off and moved around. The bigger
<v Speaker 3>question would be, in my opinion, like who's buying these days?
<v Speaker 3>Who would want to buy? Maybe some of the lesser.
<v Speaker 1>Folks leave and start their own studio, buy back the
<v Speaker 1>the trials, IP give ghost recon to some, they keep
<v Speaker 1>respond they they keep all of Tom Clancy. Yeah, they
<v Speaker 1>keep all the time camp. They clutch on to Tom Clancy.
<v Speaker 2>With the first Yeah, if GIF give a Prince of
<v Speaker 2>Persia to from software, give me a Prince of Persia.
<v Speaker 1>So now we're talking, and now we're talking.
<v Speaker 2>It makes the game easier when you can just rewind
<v Speaker 2>your mistakes.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, all right, well that's going to be the
<v Speaker 1>show for this week. Thank you all for listening. Of course,
<v Speaker 1>be sure to pick up a copy of Game infrom
<v Speaker 1>a magazine. We've got the Double O seven First Light
<v Speaker 1>issue coming to mailboxes soon coming to early digital access
<v Speaker 1>next week for subscribers. That's going to be a great book.
<v Speaker 1>Got a lot of great features in there. And if
<v Speaker 1>you're in a Barnes and Noble, a Books a million
<v Speaker 1>a game stop an international newsstands, you can find our
<v Speaker 1>World of Warcraft issue, which is with a cover story
<v Speaker 1>that I wrote on World of Warcraft Midnight. Got a
<v Speaker 1>lot of great stuff in there as well, including our
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