Ubisoft pulls into the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this year with some familiar names — and the promise of some surprises.
“The last three years in a row, at our press briefing, we’ve unveiled a major new game,” said Tony Key, the senior vice president of sales and marketing for the publishing and developing giant. “I think that people are expecting that from us now, and we know that they’re expecting that from us now, so we do our best to make sure that we have something fresh for every show, at every E3. For us, it’s a huge opportunity that we don’t want to miss.”
Ubisoft is making its press briefing at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles available live and on-demand on YouTube at 2:45 p.m. Pacific on Monday, June 15.
Sure things in the lineup include:
Above: Ubisoft hopes the new Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will have this effect will have this effect on the holiday games market.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate
This year’s Assassin’s Creed release includes a Victorian setting, a pair of assassins (one of each gender), and a new developer: Ubisoft Quebec. Quebec has been involved previous versions of the game, including as a partner with Ubisoft Montreal. That developer created last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity, which received mixed reviews (we liked it).
Quebec was involved in AC: Brotherhood, AC III, and Freedom Cry. The team created The Tyranny of King Washington DLC for AC III, and also did the companion gaming aspects for AC and Watch Dogs. This will be the first time the group steps out of the shows and into the limelight on a major title.
“Our goal is to innovate within this market. Syndicate has a lot to talk about, in terms of new gameplay elements,” Key said. “It also has the benefit of the experience that was Unity and that iteration of that technology, and that experience is going to make it better this time around.”
Above: Step 1: Create some drop-dead gorgeous scenery.
The scope of what the development team wanted to include in Unity was far broader than could be realized in that game, Key said.
“The Unity experience for us was very, very ambitious. We learned a lot about next-generation development and how our tools worked with the new hardware,” he said. “The Syndicate team could see a year before Unity came out what they would and wouldn’t keep from that product.
“You saw that in AC III when they introduced naval [settings] to the game. It became a huge aspect of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. You’ll get to see what Unity’s influence over Syndicate was, in terms of things that were small or experimental in Unity that become major game mechanics in Syndicate.”
AC: Syndicate will be one of the games people can play at Ubisoft’s uPlay Lounge at the show. An Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Playtest Road Show will also start with a Los Angeles appearance for E3; to sign up for the June 17 visit, fans can email playtestroadshow@ubisoft.com with their name, age, and a brief summary of their AC game experience.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate releases in fall for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Rainbow Six: Siege
Ubisoft Montreal, meanwhile, has turned its attention to the latest in the publisher’s squad-based first person shooter series. Rainbox Six: Siege offers teams of counter-terrorist operatives from around the world. Ubisoft recently revealed the FBI-SWAT Unit, the American team.
Key says the marketing for series like Rainbow Six has gotten more sophisticated as the market itself has fragmented.
“Everyone has a different appetite for how much they play video games,” he said. “They’re not all behaving the way they do for any consistent reason. The marketing of big, recurring brands has become very segmented. We have a lot of people talking to a lot of different groups. It’s very sophisticated.”
Players who buy every version of a series want to know the fine details about what the next chapter will include and what it will look like, he said. In some ways, the marketing team just waits for this group to reach out and ask what they want to know.