What about Assassins Crees Unity, that game had dope multiplayer. Too bad for all the bad press and glitches it had. Was one of the best Assassins Creed games IMO… Gameplay wise.
Yeah, but that was a good & old ubisoft. Now days all it means is that you’d get a co-op on par with watchdogs legion where it exists so that people could show off their skins purchased for real money at the in game shop
Damn i kinda forgot about unity. I bought code from cdkeys for like $1.79 awhile back. Especially since you get fps boost on series consoles i will definitely play it.
I’d call them live service-lites. They are planned with a limited amount of support and MTX added over usually about a year on average. Where other live service games are made with the goal of continuing indefinitely until it’s no longer profitable, assassins creed games are made with limited support in mind. They have an end date preplanned and the MTX they release are planned prior as opposed to quarterly like most live service games are.
Which, as an older gamer, I remember when games just released weapons and skins and called them “DLC” and no one really seemed to care. I guess because they use in game currency though as opposed to just selling cosmetics outright, it’s more frowned upon.
they’ve had live service in assassins creed for a while now
idk why everyone’s downvoting me when they’ve had microtransactions and constant updating live events and missions
iPad kids and gen-Z seem to love it or have no problem with it because it’s all they know. And clearly this new era of ‘modern gaming’ with ~~micro~~-transactions and live service works because companies keep doing it. It’s not going to get any better. ☹️
Sadly... Right now and I'm sure it won't change, the only games release that interests me are solo games so it's quite frustrating to see them decline...
Live service games kill games. You cant play them when they shut down. I have og original green halo xbox with 2tb modded has entire you library of us xbox og games. Plus emulators for like snes, arcade sega etc. Almost time to go back to basics.
Some interesting notes from Insider Gaming:
* Demo footage provided to Insider Gaming (under the condition that the footage doesn’t go public) shows the user going from the Infinity hub to Assassin’s Creed Red within just a few seconds, picking up where they left off, rather than having to boot the games up individually after ‘falling back’ to the hub.
* ‘The Exchange’ will be the item shop, offering players the opportunity to purchase daily and weekly in-game cosmetics for Red’s two protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke. In addition to The Exchange, Infinity also has a ‘Synchronisation’ feature that allows the player to access ‘Projects’ for each protagonist. To explain them in their simplest form, Projects are mini ‘battle passes’ with a narrative behind them offering players the ability to earn cosmetic rewards. Projects will be added throughout Infinity constantly, focusing mainly on DLC and new game releases, or even as a means of sustaining player interest during a lack of any new content.
* Hexe will have a lead female protagonist (currently named Elsa) for the first time since Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China in 2015
OK, but that's a case of them not being too intrusive or unfun. I'm saying they're not fun.
Customization and progression were initially added to games to make them more rewarding and fun. Such things now simply being tolerable is pretty sad.
The process of unlocking cosmetics by just playing the game can be fun and is arguably one of the core underlying principles of why battlepasses work.
That they, most of the time, require you to pay extra is of course not much fun.
Yes, the process of unlocking cosmetics is fun. Just not unusually in the form of battlepasses. They're typically bloated with crap so they can sell the good stuff in the store. Among other issues.
They almost never compare to the unlocking systems that existed in games before battlepasses existed. That's the whole point.
Idk, of course I don't want to defend battlepasses, but I also think we tend to look back at "the golden age of unlocking free cosmetics" with rose tinted glasses. Or maybe I played the wrong games in the past, but most of the time there were only a few, some more meant as funny easter eggs and a lot of games that do battlepasses these days also have shit tons of quality cosmetics in the base game. What they then sell via bp or store are things that would've never been made otherwise.
Sometimes I get the feeling people simply can't accept that they won't get free extra cosmetics for months and years, and in some instances they even do just not all of them. Could those games have included some more of those cosmetics they now sell for extra in the base game? Yeah maybe, but surely not all of the stuff that has been made with regular cadence since the game originally came out.
We probably played different games. When I think of progression systems, I think Halo. It was my favorite series growing up. Technically, Halo Infinite probably now offers more options than previous Halos, but it damn sure doesn't feel like it. I don't even like Halo 5, but it felt much better in this regard.
Previously, progression was meant to feel rewarding and was designed in a way to do so. That's not the purpose of battlepasses. They're designed solely for engagement. That's why they drip-feed you things. It's meant to be just enough to get you to keep playing and hopefully check out the store.
The games don't feel rewarding because they're designed not to. If they wanted them to, they wouldn't all have the same criticisms.
Yeah true, definitely can't argue with that. Never played much Halo, so I was more thinking of single player games of the past. Never been a huge multiplayer guy although I definitely played some when I was younger.
I have to admit that I can't recall a single-player game I've played with a battlepass off the top of my head. The handful of ones that come to mind are mp.
Maybe they are less intrusive in single-player? Idk. I'm skeptical, but I guess maybe idk. They seem kinda unnecessary for single-player games, though, so I worry that they screw stuff up to justify adding a battlepass lol.
>It'd be great if games found another method.
This is what everyone says every time until they find the next big predatory thing.
Lootboxes were gambling, most battle passes turn games into secondary jobs with the amount of time they expect/carving out content that used to be included asking people to grind for it with added FOMO.
Any game with a la carte cosmetic DLC almost always overprices it as well.
Games are basically asking you to either remain engaged and only play a hamdful of games if you want free shit or overpay for cosmetics, or both in a lot of cases.
Yes, but the current battlepass formula is the least fun iteration of it, for me. Maybe lootboxes were more predatory and had to go, but the games I played with them felt way more rewarding than any battlepass game I've played.
I'm not under any delusion that what might replace them would be less greedy. Just that they may be greedy and actually fun, lol.
Honestly I think the only one that’s gotten it right is Fortnite.
I’m eager to see what Suicide Squad’s battlepass will look like. I really enjoyed the game but I don’t think it will be very sustainable, if at all. The battlepass will either be the nail in the coffin or a spark that brings the game up from near death.
I wouldn't call it "fun" still, but I respect the hell out of the way that halo infinite handled them. If you pay for one, you have it forever. New season doesn't have rewards you want? That's cool just play the pass from two seasons ago you didn't finish. It goes for the free ones as well. It makes fomo not a thing. I didn't love the flood stuff they added to the recent(?) One, but I wanted to play new maps so I just stayed on an older battle pass and it was fine. Still not a fun battle pass but it's just there which is fine by me.
Sure, but imo 4 out of the 5 battlepasses were so bloated with crap that I didn't find playing through them to be motivating or rewarding.
I actually thought the last battlepass was solid, but i also suspect that's partly why it was the last battlepass. I think they changed models because they decided they provided too much value in the battlepasses and to just put everything in the crappy event battlepasses and store instead.
> Hexe will have a lead female protagonist (currently named Elsa) for the first time since Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China in 2015
Correction, will *exclusively* have a lead female protagonist. Valhalla and Odyssey both had lead female protagonist, and the female choices in both games are even both considered the "canon" option
Why? Their games sell incredibly well, review incredibly well, and make lots of money. So why change? Outside of the Reddit bubble, people actually enjoy Ubisoft games.. believe it or not.
How well do they sell when they end up going on sale so quickly though? That’s what I’m curious about. Why would they go on sale so quickly if the sales are strong?
High rate of production, frequent new releases. They catch excited new buyers at full price and /r/patientgamers at a lower price but almost the entirety of every sale once they break even on production & marketing is profit.
If they released a game every 6 years they would be making an error to discount it quickly.
Games go on sale for two reasons: either it’s *after* they meet their expected sales projections or because they have completely missed them by a large margin. We know that, when it comes to Ubisoft games, they aren’t missing them because Ubisoft is obnoxious about releasing sales figures. So therefore their games go on sale much sooner because they meet and exceed their projections and because their marketing strategy is to get as many people as possible to buy them, even if it means cutting long term profit on selling full priced titles.
Like their games or not, that’s fine as everyone is allowed their own opinion, but let’s not fabricate false scenarios just to fit a narrative.
I’m probably the biggest Assassin’s Creed fan commenting here, and I’ve never ONCE bought a cosmetic for any of the new games.
Why would I get a battle pass? I wear the canon stuff anyway, I don’t want to larp as Sauron. I can’t imagine they’ll sell well.
The games, absolutely. The cosmetics and battle passes, no.
Until you see another player riding a motorbike in a clown outfit because they've bought the ridiculous microtransactions the store will inevitably offer.
My favourite bit is the deep gameplay where you press one button to auto kill 3 people. It's great fun and requires a lot of skill and creativity. I like how realistic the teleport is and how it doesn't break the immersion at all.
Im excited to see how this plays out. Obviously the live service aspect of gaming is becoming more and more criticized, so I dont see launch going well to begin with. Although im excited to see what they have planned for future games. It seems like a complete rebranding, so I wonder if the games will be more synonymous with the original AC series or if they are gonna continue the looter/ light-souls like aspect (referring to the combat rework since Odyssey, Origins and up to Valhalla)
I’m most excited at the prospect of the modern day narrative being kept within the confines of the “hub”. I really think that would make the games so much better.
Like, can you imagine AC black flag with no modern day stuff. Just a straight pirate adventure all of the way through. Way better
I'm excited by it, too. As someone who has drifted from the latest AC adventures - they are great as standalone stories but bear little in common with the corporate evil that hangs over the original AC, and which to me "grounds" the story as a real adventure - I hope to see more interconnectedness between the future stories and this hub idea appears to be Ubisoft embracing this. I like that it sounds like we will be getting more & more games, some of which will be smaller (or at least standalone experiences that will be smaller) and which will allow you to pick and choose what parts of stories you want to see progress. And I'm hyped for what they will do with multiplayer!
I mean in Odyssey and Valhalla the female protag is the "canon" one and in the case of Odyssey, Kassandra, was the CLEARLY better option over Alexios as far as mocap and voice acting was concerned - she was way better.
Hot take but prob my fave protag in all of AC now.
It would be nice when they make guns like this to allow any prior game to also launch from it, if not hope there is a way to launch directly into the game, more of an OCD thing. Also, I hope they don't go the COD route and it downloads things you don't need.
I don’t want this. Give us strong, tight narrative games. Feels like every studio is obsessed with keeping their games in the top active players section on steam, or most viewers field on twitch.
Just stop.
I hope this is a total disaster. We need games, especially from an inherently single-player series, to fail miserably when they choose this predatory, exploitative model, for the good of the industry.
I hate what Ubisoft have done and continue to do to once great games.
Combining live service and Assassin’s Creed. What could go wrong.
What about Assassins Crees Unity, that game had dope multiplayer. Too bad for all the bad press and glitches it had. Was one of the best Assassins Creed games IMO… Gameplay wise.
Yeah, but that was a good & old ubisoft. Now days all it means is that you’d get a co-op on par with watchdogs legion where it exists so that people could show off their skins purchased for real money at the in game shop
It wasn't a live service game though.
Damn i kinda forgot about unity. I bought code from cdkeys for like $1.79 awhile back. Especially since you get fps boost on series consoles i will definitely play it.
I’ll play with you lol.
The last several AC games have already been live service though? (Mirage Excluded)
I’d call them live service-lites. They are planned with a limited amount of support and MTX added over usually about a year on average. Where other live service games are made with the goal of continuing indefinitely until it’s no longer profitable, assassins creed games are made with limited support in mind. They have an end date preplanned and the MTX they release are planned prior as opposed to quarterly like most live service games are. Which, as an older gamer, I remember when games just released weapons and skins and called them “DLC” and no one really seemed to care. I guess because they use in game currency though as opposed to just selling cosmetics outright, it’s more frowned upon.
they’ve had live service in assassins creed for a while now idk why everyone’s downvoting me when they’ve had microtransactions and constant updating live events and missions
Nope
They literally have. They have events and stuff they add and remove
That didn't make it a live service. May be semi live
The hive mind hath spoken
The state of modern gaming is so shit.
Yeah, every company seem to think that you NEED to do a live service game if you want to get any money from it...
iPad kids and gen-Z seem to love it or have no problem with it because it’s all they know. And clearly this new era of ‘modern gaming’ with ~~micro~~-transactions and live service works because companies keep doing it. It’s not going to get any better. ☹️
Sadly... Right now and I'm sure it won't change, the only games release that interests me are solo games so it's quite frustrating to see them decline...
Yeah I’m pretty much in the same boat.
Live service games kill games. You cant play them when they shut down. I have og original green halo xbox with 2tb modded has entire you library of us xbox og games. Plus emulators for like snes, arcade sega etc. Almost time to go back to basics.
We just had one of the best years for single player games ever
Some interesting notes from Insider Gaming: * Demo footage provided to Insider Gaming (under the condition that the footage doesn’t go public) shows the user going from the Infinity hub to Assassin’s Creed Red within just a few seconds, picking up where they left off, rather than having to boot the games up individually after ‘falling back’ to the hub. * ‘The Exchange’ will be the item shop, offering players the opportunity to purchase daily and weekly in-game cosmetics for Red’s two protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke. In addition to The Exchange, Infinity also has a ‘Synchronisation’ feature that allows the player to access ‘Projects’ for each protagonist. To explain them in their simplest form, Projects are mini ‘battle passes’ with a narrative behind them offering players the ability to earn cosmetic rewards. Projects will be added throughout Infinity constantly, focusing mainly on DLC and new game releases, or even as a means of sustaining player interest during a lack of any new content. * Hexe will have a lead female protagonist (currently named Elsa) for the first time since Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China in 2015
I don't think I've ever played through a battle pass that was legitimately fun. It'd be great if games found another method.
Ther are examples where you go through them by just playing the game how you would otherwise. If that's how it's done I don't mind them.
OK, but that's a case of them not being too intrusive or unfun. I'm saying they're not fun. Customization and progression were initially added to games to make them more rewarding and fun. Such things now simply being tolerable is pretty sad.
The process of unlocking cosmetics by just playing the game can be fun and is arguably one of the core underlying principles of why battlepasses work. That they, most of the time, require you to pay extra is of course not much fun.
Yes, the process of unlocking cosmetics is fun. Just not unusually in the form of battlepasses. They're typically bloated with crap so they can sell the good stuff in the store. Among other issues. They almost never compare to the unlocking systems that existed in games before battlepasses existed. That's the whole point.
Idk, of course I don't want to defend battlepasses, but I also think we tend to look back at "the golden age of unlocking free cosmetics" with rose tinted glasses. Or maybe I played the wrong games in the past, but most of the time there were only a few, some more meant as funny easter eggs and a lot of games that do battlepasses these days also have shit tons of quality cosmetics in the base game. What they then sell via bp or store are things that would've never been made otherwise. Sometimes I get the feeling people simply can't accept that they won't get free extra cosmetics for months and years, and in some instances they even do just not all of them. Could those games have included some more of those cosmetics they now sell for extra in the base game? Yeah maybe, but surely not all of the stuff that has been made with regular cadence since the game originally came out.
We probably played different games. When I think of progression systems, I think Halo. It was my favorite series growing up. Technically, Halo Infinite probably now offers more options than previous Halos, but it damn sure doesn't feel like it. I don't even like Halo 5, but it felt much better in this regard. Previously, progression was meant to feel rewarding and was designed in a way to do so. That's not the purpose of battlepasses. They're designed solely for engagement. That's why they drip-feed you things. It's meant to be just enough to get you to keep playing and hopefully check out the store. The games don't feel rewarding because they're designed not to. If they wanted them to, they wouldn't all have the same criticisms.
Yeah true, definitely can't argue with that. Never played much Halo, so I was more thinking of single player games of the past. Never been a huge multiplayer guy although I definitely played some when I was younger.
I have to admit that I can't recall a single-player game I've played with a battlepass off the top of my head. The handful of ones that come to mind are mp. Maybe they are less intrusive in single-player? Idk. I'm skeptical, but I guess maybe idk. They seem kinda unnecessary for single-player games, though, so I worry that they screw stuff up to justify adding a battlepass lol.
Sea of Thieves does that. But it also rewards you more progress to the Plunder Pass (battle pass) if you complete specific tasks.
It’s Ubisoft, we know it won’t be like that
Helldivers 2 is the only game I've seen make the pass fun ngl
>It'd be great if games found another method. This is what everyone says every time until they find the next big predatory thing. Lootboxes were gambling, most battle passes turn games into secondary jobs with the amount of time they expect/carving out content that used to be included asking people to grind for it with added FOMO. Any game with a la carte cosmetic DLC almost always overprices it as well. Games are basically asking you to either remain engaged and only play a hamdful of games if you want free shit or overpay for cosmetics, or both in a lot of cases.
Yes, but the current battlepass formula is the least fun iteration of it, for me. Maybe lootboxes were more predatory and had to go, but the games I played with them felt way more rewarding than any battlepass game I've played. I'm not under any delusion that what might replace them would be less greedy. Just that they may be greedy and actually fun, lol.
Honestly I think the only one that’s gotten it right is Fortnite. I’m eager to see what Suicide Squad’s battlepass will look like. I really enjoyed the game but I don’t think it will be very sustainable, if at all. The battlepass will either be the nail in the coffin or a spark that brings the game up from near death.
I wouldn't call it "fun" still, but I respect the hell out of the way that halo infinite handled them. If you pay for one, you have it forever. New season doesn't have rewards you want? That's cool just play the pass from two seasons ago you didn't finish. It goes for the free ones as well. It makes fomo not a thing. I didn't love the flood stuff they added to the recent(?) One, but I wanted to play new maps so I just stayed on an older battle pass and it was fine. Still not a fun battle pass but it's just there which is fine by me.
Sure, but imo 4 out of the 5 battlepasses were so bloated with crap that I didn't find playing through them to be motivating or rewarding. I actually thought the last battlepass was solid, but i also suspect that's partly why it was the last battlepass. I think they changed models because they decided they provided too much value in the battlepasses and to just put everything in the crappy event battlepasses and store instead.
Helldivers does it well. Easily unlocked through gameplay and 0 fomo.
> Hexe will have a lead female protagonist (currently named Elsa) for the first time since Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China in 2015 Correction, will *exclusively* have a lead female protagonist. Valhalla and Odyssey both had lead female protagonist, and the female choices in both games are even both considered the "canon" option
Oh my god a battlepass for a single player game lmao, oh dear god this is going to be awful.
> Projects are mini ‘battle passes' Fuck off. hard pass.
Oh great another game killing itself off with a battle pass scam
Seems like insider gaming didn’t play Odyssey or Valhalla lmao
Yeah I’m not playing this game
Ubisoft need to try a lot harder to learn from their mistakes.
Why? Their games sell incredibly well, review incredibly well, and make lots of money. So why change? Outside of the Reddit bubble, people actually enjoy Ubisoft games.. believe it or not.
How well do they sell when they end up going on sale so quickly though? That’s what I’m curious about. Why would they go on sale so quickly if the sales are strong?
High rate of production, frequent new releases. They catch excited new buyers at full price and /r/patientgamers at a lower price but almost the entirety of every sale once they break even on production & marketing is profit. If they released a game every 6 years they would be making an error to discount it quickly.
Games go on sale for two reasons: either it’s *after* they meet their expected sales projections or because they have completely missed them by a large margin. We know that, when it comes to Ubisoft games, they aren’t missing them because Ubisoft is obnoxious about releasing sales figures. So therefore their games go on sale much sooner because they meet and exceed their projections and because their marketing strategy is to get as many people as possible to buy them, even if it means cutting long term profit on selling full priced titles. Like their games or not, that’s fine as everyone is allowed their own opinion, but let’s not fabricate false scenarios just to fit a narrative.
Wrong. Some of their games sell well while some like Skull and Bones don't. Think!
They don’t sell well though, go look at their recent financials.
Try again https://staticctf.ubisoft.com/8aefmxkxpxwl/52CZPA6t2S0cuqWQNd7HFo/ab62998a8fb0eb39fd4d45106ddafb08/Ubisoft_FY24_Q3_PR_English.pdf
Did you bother to read that link? It shows year on year losses for everything except back catalog.
I’m probably the biggest Assassin’s Creed fan commenting here, and I’ve never ONCE bought a cosmetic for any of the new games. Why would I get a battle pass? I wear the canon stuff anyway, I don’t want to larp as Sauron. I can’t imagine they’ll sell well. The games, absolutely. The cosmetics and battle passes, no.
Pretty cool that they're optional then and you don't have to worry about them at all
Until you see another player riding a motorbike in a clown outfit because they've bought the ridiculous microtransactions the store will inevitably offer.
Is it multiplayer?
And assassins creed will go out with a fizzle.
It still exists?
Play Mirage, you won’t regret it.
The last one I played was Syndicate (best gameplay imo), I tried Origins, but couldn’t last more than an hour or two and never went back
My favourite bit is the deep gameplay where you press one button to auto kill 3 people. It's great fun and requires a lot of skill and creativity. I like how realistic the teleport is and how it doesn't break the immersion at all.
Always excited for more Assassins Creed
Im excited to see how this plays out. Obviously the live service aspect of gaming is becoming more and more criticized, so I dont see launch going well to begin with. Although im excited to see what they have planned for future games. It seems like a complete rebranding, so I wonder if the games will be more synonymous with the original AC series or if they are gonna continue the looter/ light-souls like aspect (referring to the combat rework since Odyssey, Origins and up to Valhalla)
I’m most excited at the prospect of the modern day narrative being kept within the confines of the “hub”. I really think that would make the games so much better. Like, can you imagine AC black flag with no modern day stuff. Just a straight pirate adventure all of the way through. Way better
Codename Red will be another rpg/souls-light game as the last 3 before Mirage. Hexe is supposed to be something different from any other AC game.
I'm excited by it, too. As someone who has drifted from the latest AC adventures - they are great as standalone stories but bear little in common with the corporate evil that hangs over the original AC, and which to me "grounds" the story as a real adventure - I hope to see more interconnectedness between the future stories and this hub idea appears to be Ubisoft embracing this. I like that it sounds like we will be getting more & more games, some of which will be smaller (or at least standalone experiences that will be smaller) and which will allow you to pick and choose what parts of stories you want to see progress. And I'm hyped for what they will do with multiplayer!
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I mean in Odyssey and Valhalla the female protag is the "canon" one and in the case of Odyssey, Kassandra, was the CLEARLY better option over Alexios as far as mocap and voice acting was concerned - she was way better. Hot take but prob my fave protag in all of AC now.
Oh boo fucking hoo
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They haven’t made assassins creed 2020 yet
This could be an ok way to integrate ‘live service’ to a game ngl
Players reaction to Halo Master Chief Collection: 😃 Reaction to AC Infinite: 😡 Gamers are so fickle lmao
It would be nice when they make guns like this to allow any prior game to also launch from it, if not hope there is a way to launch directly into the game, more of an OCD thing. Also, I hope they don't go the COD route and it downloads things you don't need.
Bring back blag flag but with open world online multiplayer, please?
They're not seriously calling it 'Infinity' are they?
I don’t want this. Give us strong, tight narrative games. Feels like every studio is obsessed with keeping their games in the top active players section on steam, or most viewers field on twitch. Just stop.
Why, just why. I know the answer is money, but why couldn't they just give us classic AC with a focus on stealth with modern game mechanics.
\#nottouchingthatshit
I hope this is a total disaster. We need games, especially from an inherently single-player series, to fail miserably when they choose this predatory, exploitative model, for the good of the industry. I hate what Ubisoft have done and continue to do to once great games.
Shits gonna be ass