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I know it’s popular to hate on Ubisoft online — and I don’t think that people who are frustrated with them are wrong.
They drew tons of deserved negative press when it emerged that they had empowered several terrible people with leadership positions, leading to all kinds of allegations around sexual harassment, intense development crunch, and other nightmarish abuses of power. Their “factory” mentality to video game production has lead to several samey designs over the years, and pushed fans to the point of fatigue with some of their franchises.
And then there’s Skull and Bones, the cursed sequel to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag that took over a decade to come out and probably only released because of closed door deals they made to get tax breaks from the government of Singapore.
None of that is great. But Ubisoft is still a huge gaming company that puts out tons of quality releases across a wide range of genres, and they have some of the best design talent in the industry on their payroll in spite of all the administrative mess.
You don’t need to look any further than 2018’s excellent Far Cry 5 to see many wonderful examples of that game-making experience in action. Set in a fictional version…
