The Ubisoft conference is the fourth press conference of this year’s E3 and expectations are for more information and footage of already announced games. However, will they have a few surprises up their sleeves? Aisha Tyler once again presents this year’s conference, with her genuine passion for the industry, charisma and skilful presenting helping to smooth over the sometimes awkward stage presence of developers. Mind you, our money’s on a “tall woman” joke hitting at some point during the show.
First up is a complete and wonderful surprise, a new South Park RPG is in the works, South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Smashing title by the way. Showing in-game footage the reveal trailer hints at a hilarious continuation of the previous game’s story and characters, this time, however, the South Park lad are playing super heroes rather than high fantasy. No release date yet, but colour us excited.
Next up is another surprise, and a new IP at that, For Honor, a medieval melee-combat action game where you choose to be the heroes Viking, Knight, or Samurai in a 4 vs. 4 fight amongst a bustling battlefield. They’ll be multiple modes with different objectives, but the focus is on short, team combat scenarios. Proclamations are made of this being a new genre, we hope they’re referring to a new genre for Ubisoft, because there’s some striking similarities with the likes of Chivalry going on.
Next a new expansion is revealed for The Crew, The Crew: Wildrun, where monster trucks and dirt track vehicles seem to be the focus. Then a new expansion for Trails Fusion is revealed, Trails Fusion: Awesome Level Max, where you are a cat riding a fire breathing unicorn. We’re sold.
A game we’ve been itching to see in action again is up next, The Division, the openworld action RPG revealed two years ago. Gameplay footage was shown of a team planning a raid on NPCs only for another player controlled team to come along. All seems friendly as the two player teams work together to take the NPC crew down, before a brilliant bout of betrayals cascades through the group to leave a lone player with all the loot. It look terrific, and we’ll finally be able to play it next year, first with a Beta, then on March the 8th it sees release.
Annon 2205 is revealed next. The popular PC building management game is now expanded so you can build off-planet on the moon as well as on terra firma.
The latest Just Dance iteration is up next, Just Dance 2016, introduced by “singer” Jason Derule whilst dancers boogie on down behind him. For the first time in the series’ history you won’t need a camera or motion devices to track you, you can instead use your phone, opening the series up to a much large audience. Additionally, a new optional subscription based streaming service can provide new tracks frequently for you to dance to.
Next comes singleplayer reveal footage of Rainbow Six Siege, showing off a story-based campaign and the return of everyone’s favourite multiplayer mode Terrohunt (terrorist hunt), allowing up to four players to team up and take out terrorist with the same permadeath consequences for mistakes. It was also revealed that everything is destructible, adding new ways to breach buildings and kill unsuspecting enemies. You can play the Beta from September the 24th.
Another surprise next as Trackmania Turbo is revealed for consoles. The popular PC title where you can build, share and race your own crazy, gravity defying custom tracks will be bringing that same experience to Xbox One; super-fast pace, ghost cars, online leaderboards, four player split screen, and VR support included.
Next came a new CG trailer for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, giving us all an idea of the trouble we can get up to when that’s released, as well as introducing the female protagonist, Evie Frye’s more psychotic, bloodthirsty side. She is indeed not to be trifled with.
One last reveal remains and once again it is a total surprise. A huge openworld, beautiful visuals, violent military combat, multiple options on how a team can kill their targets: this is Ghost Recon Wildlands.
And that was the Ubisoft press conference. It was another great conference and it delivered far more surprises than we expected too, but no “tall woman” joke, disappointingly. Square Enix are next, like Bethesda this is their first E3 conference, can they reach the high bar set by everyone else so far? We’ll tell you all about it shortly.
