Ubisoft Message Board older than one year ago

It's the same old story with a totally South Park twist. The elves versus the humans. Stan and Kyle versus Cartman. While sitting in a demo room on the E3 showfloor last week, I was shown a portion of the upcoming South Park RPG game. The Obsidian developers controlling the demo showed off how combat would play out. And it involved a lot of gassy children. Ladies and gentlemen: it's a South Park game, after all. You play as the dragonborn new kid, who has to pick an allegiance at the beginning of the game, either to Stan and Kyle or to the incredibly insulting Cartman. The main mechanic in the turn-based battling seems to be a flatulence-centric move that works well as either attacks or to break down barriers so that you can progress to other areas and battle arenas. The first time we see the new kid pulling this move, he uses it like a molotov, throwing it like a bomb for an area of effect. As the developers lead him around the school cafeteria and up through a ventilation shaft they've gained access to thanks to slingshotting it open and alien probing their way up there, the new kid intermittently uses the toot-bombs and literal flaming bags of poop against his enemies. They get to a mini-boss sequence in which the boss, Stan, calls his dear dog-friend Sparky to his side. We see everything from these kids amplifying their broken wind with lighters to spraying fire extinguishers to slamming a hammer down on each other's heads. They use fireworks and have somewhat fancier, magic-like moves like lightning volts and a "hammer storm" with a similar, electrified effect. The new kid can eat a chipotle burrito to gain mana for extra gas-related moves. After the boss fight against Stan, the new kid rescues the Fair Maiden Red and gets a friend request from her on Facebook. Interactions with NPCs that you meet later down the line will work similarly, and you can consider them a part of your crew once you help them in sidequests like this. At the end of the demo, after our developers have chosen to go against Cartman and fight him in a boss battle that is basically the gassy equivalent of the magic-locked battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore, the group of kids realize they have a bigger problem than just each other. The Stick of Truth is gone, but its location seems to point to some other kid. Enter Clyde, the real villain. He's got a pile of mysterious, toxic barrels of green stuff that can raise an army of the dead. He tries it out on his dead cat and, voila, up rises Nazi cat. There's nothing this game won't touch. And that's appropriate. Because this is a god damn South Park game. South Park: The Stick of Truth will be out this holiday season for the PS3, 360, and PC.

A portion of a Venturebeat interview with Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot.

GamesBeat: A few years ago, you brought Rayman back with great success. Earlier this year, you decided to postpone the latest entry to get in line with the launch of the new platforms. Do you still stand behind that decision? There seemed to be some bad PR, some bad feeling surrounding that choice at the time.

Guillemot: I’d probably participate more in that discussion. What happened was that we saw the Wii U was not going to sell enough of those games. The game is going to be fantastic, and we didn’t want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn’t sell well enough. We decided that we had to come out on enough machines that players can try it out on any one that they have, and give more time to both improve the game on the Wii U and create versions for the other consoles.

I think it was the right decision for gamers and for the team. My role is to make sure that the team is happy with the quality of the work they do and the reach they can have. The quality is there now, because they had more time. They’ve expanded the possibilities of the game. It’s much bigger content-wise. We have new bosses in key levels and so on. The experience is much more complete. I think it will be one of the best games we’ve ever done.

Sometimes we have to go against the urge to get to market too fast. We have to make sure we give enough time and resources to our creators to they can reach the potential in their games. This time, they were very close to excellence, but not quite there.

GamesBeat: Can you tell us more about Beyond Good & Evil? There was some sort of teaser page up today, some image.

Guillemot: That wasn’t meant to be a tease. It was just part of our promotion in the run-up to E3 – homaging some of the characters from our past. I think that was maybe misinterpreted.

I think the first game was exceptional, and people remember the experience they had, so they would like to see it again. We had a period where we had a demo that went out before it was quite ready, so everybody saw something that appealed to them. That’s why I think they keep expecting something. But I can’t say much more than that.

Full interview here
Link

Lots of moving parts and distinct disciplines go into making a single video game. There’s level design and AI programming and physics simulation and art direction and writing and on and on. Messing any one of those things up could turn a game into just another big pile of crap. So, it makes sense that Ubisoft creative director Jason Vanderberghe—who’s worked on Red Steel 2, Far Cry 3 and loads of other games—gives the answer that he does when Gamasutra asked him to sum up game design in six seconds.

We’re hearing reports that Ubisoft’s reps are encouraging PC gamers to sign a petition, this one, if they want to see Ubi’s spectacular looking post-apocalyptic shooter, Tom Clancy’s The Division, on PC. Frankly, we’d quite like to see the game on PC, because the E3 reveal (see that below) was so strong. This seems a bit of a weird way to go about asking for it, though.

Enough of this dance of justification. Just bring it to PC, Ubi.(more…)

Ubisoft is committed to making a new Assassin's Creed game every year and is determined not to see the series collapse from franchise fatigue. How? "We are making sure the teams who are creating the different iterations have enough time—two years, three years, so that they can take risk and they can change the concept enough so that it can be appealing and fresh," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told me this week during E3. He said Ubisoft currently has three Assassin's Creed games in development. He didn't say anything about them, but it's easy to make some safe guesses. Presumably the count of three refers to 1) this year's game, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, 2) next year's game (Assassin's Creed V? Assassin's Creed Brotherhood II?), which should be well into development now and, 3) unless he was referring to a mobile spin-off or something, 2015's Assassin's Creed. Guillemot: "Our job is to make sure the teams have enough power, enough energy and enough time to take the necessary steps to create a high quality game." "Really, what we see is that we can have the capacity to regularly come with innovation," Guillemot told me. "That is, for me, the formula: if you can really change the game on a regular basis and bring in innovation your fans want a product very regularly. Our job is to make sure the teams have enough power, enough energy and enough time to take the necessary steps to create a high quality game." Historically, these games have been made by multiple teams and by rotating teams, with different groups within Ubisoft Montreal leading the development of the games' campaigns, while satellite studios make everything from multiplayer to specific side missions. Ubisoft is releasing Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag this year which does, in fact, appear to be quite different from last year's ACIII. Last year's game was a a game mostly set on land with a focus on a new, conflicted half-British/half-Native-American assassin. This year's is set largely across the islands of the Caribbean sea with a focus on a new assassin who still often behaves more like a pirate. Last year's game had some naval combat. This year's game is essentially an open-world sailing/exploration adventure. ACIII may have had its flaws and it's impossible to say how good ACIV will be, but it's at least clear that the latter is no rush job, is brimming with ideas and content and that, yes, somehow, Ubisoft really is able to make a gargantuan new AC every year. Pretty impressive. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. Top image via artist Cameron Stewart's site.

About seven minutes of Watch Dogs gets shown at this PlayStation-hosted preview of Ubisoft’s upcoming hacker stealth game. Driving, combat and security subversion are all on display here, alone with a quick look at how mobile app will connect to the console version of the game. Makes sense, no?

In this most recent Watch_Dogs gameplay demo, we witnessed the wide variety of tools that Aiden has in his arsenal, all expressed through gameplay.

Whether it be by driving in a stealthily way to try and evade assailants, by assisting a friend in escaping a sticky situation, or by blacking out parts of the city to give him tactical advantage, we were able to see all the agency we’ll have while exploring the great city of Chicago.

Now, we’ve seen how Aiden lends a helping hand to a friend, but who’s helping him? Who’s helping you, the player, when the odds seemed to have been tipped against you? That’s where it becomes interesting. There’s yet another layer of connectivity that will be available to you in Watch_Dogs: Co-op on mobile devices. When you’re calling for help, you are sending a request to friends who are connected to the Watch_Dogs universe through their mobile devices. When that request is accepted, a co-op experience starts and the goal for the two players is to survive from the police by escaping their pursuit. This is just another way Watch_Dogs brings you the full, hyper-connected experience.

We’ll have even more exciting news for you very soon, but for now, you can follow the latest Watch_Dogs updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

In the video above Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag multiplayer game director, Damien Kieken, explains the benefits of Game Lab, a new tool allowing you to create and share their own custom multiplayer match types. Over 200 different parameters can be tweaked through Game Lab, allowing you to limit certain abilities and change scoring in your own custom game type.

Ubisoft has confirmed reports that Aveline—the bi-racial heroine from Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation— will be jumping from the PlayStation Vita to the PS3 and PS4. The series’ lone female protagonist will be the focus of three missions that will be exclusive to PlayStation platforms. While the news isn’t as exciting as a full-fledged sequel to Liberation, it’s nice to see that Ubisoft hasn’t totally forgotten about Aveline.

So far, there’ve only been the tiniest of glimpses at the multiplayer component for Ubisoft’s upcoming techno/open-world game. Sure, you can hack into other people’s games but how deep does that go? In an official Ubisoft blog post, it’s revealed that players will look like NPCs when they hack into another person’s game but will stay as Aiden Pierce in their own session: In other words, if I hack into your game, I will see you (the “hackee”) as yet another NPC-esque character on my screen. And if you hack into my game, you will continue to be Aiden on your screen, but I will see you, likewise, as a “generic” in-game character. It’s in this way that the team ensures you’re always playing as Aiden, and after seeing it in action, we’re pleased to report that it makes perfect sense. It is in no way disorienting to either player, both of whom continue to live in their own worlds as Aiden Pearce. The post also says that you’ll be able to do things like jack a car and ram into them. You’ll also be able to turn off multiplayer altogether if you want an intrusion-free playthrough. Wouldn’t be very l33t of you though…

The neatest thing about Ubisoft's just-revealed The Division wasn't the graphics (they're fine) or the guns (they shoot stuff) or even the intelligent grenades (they roll around and blow up). It was the way the game works with an iPad. (Or really, any tablet. But let's go with iPad.) At a hands-off demo at Ubisoft's booth yesterday, they mostly just showed us the same demonstration they showed during Ubisoft's press conference, but at the end, they showed off a bit more about the iPad integration. The Division is an online, open-world multiplayer shooter (Ubisoft calls it an "RPG" but from what I've seen of the game they must be thinking of this kind of RPG). A bunch of people can play together, and tackle co-op missions or fight one another. In the demo we saw, a couple of players were running around a post-disaster New York City, trading fire with a team of enemies. In the midst of the firefight, an aerial drone appeared, piloted by another player holding an iPad. The iPad's screen, which during my press booth demo they projected up onto one of the big screens, showed a top-down view of the action that won't be unfamiliar to those who have played Ubisoft's Ghost Recon games. (It's more or less the view from any of the aerial drones you can control in those games.) By tapping his screen, the tablet-holding player was able to tag enemies, which would then highlight them on the other players' HUDs, or even issue buffs to make his teammates stronger and debuffs to lower the armor rating on the opponents. At the end of the demo, the player fired missles down on two enemy soldiers who had been taking cover on a rooftop, wrecking the entire roof and killing the soldiers. It was an interesting take on the sort of "uneven co-op" that's become more popular lately—one player plays the main game and the other takes on a support role that isn't quite as demanding but is still enjoyable. This isn't an entirely new idea, but it does seem to be gaining traction lately. It makes gaming more inclusive, and makes it possible for a roommate, friend or significant other who doesn't necessarily have the same sorts of controller skills participate in the game. The Division is only one of Ubisoft's E3 games to use tablet-augmentation; the publisher has clearly become enamored of the idea. The Crew, their massive, always-online racing game, has a companion app that lets players customize their cars and view the game's map as they drive. Assassin's Creed IV also has a nifty companion app that lets players read the game's map while sailing the high seas (among other things). All of these functions feel like the sorts of features that the Wii U Gamepad can accomplish, which is more or less the case. Ubisoft head Yves Guillemont explained to Stephen yesterday that while they won't be bringing more exclusives to Wii U until the console starts selling better, they learned a lot from the launch games the did create for the two-screened system. "We knew we could learn second-screen with Nintendo," Guillemont said, "so we went full-speed to use this capacity the console was bringing. … What we saw is that, in learning that, we can also use it with the other consoles with [Xbox] Smart Glass, for example, and it’s a good option that is coming to us." The companion apps for ACIV and The Crew seem neat, but I'm much more interested in the way The Division's tablet integration allows another player to join the game in such a real, useful way. Touch screen gaming has brought a legion of new gamers into the fold, and if more hardcore console games can start allowing those newcomers to play along without diluting the experience for veterans, that can only be a good thing.

Transformers director Michael Bay is developing a feature film version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon with an eye towards directing the screen adaptation of Ubisoft's third-person tactical shooter.

Ubisoft's tactical shooter series Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon is going Hollywood. And it's doing that with movie direct Michael Bay of Armageddon and Transformers fame. "Having one of Hollywood’s boldest feature film directors attached to bringing Ghost Recon to the big screen is a dream come true for us," said Jean-Julien Baronnet, chief executive officer, Ubisoft Motion Pictures in an official statement. "And with Warner Bros. unmatched track record of successfully producing, marketing and distributing big movies from the industry’s top talents," Baronnet added, "we think this project has huge potential." Ubisoft did not specify whether or not the movie would be based on a specific Ghost Recon game. Often, video games get planned movie versions that don't quite pan out. However, with one of Hollywood's most successful directors attached, a Ghost Recon film could very well happen. For better, worse, or too many explosions. To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

Sure, you may think you know who "won" yesterday's E3 press conference throwdown. But there's only one way to know for sure: A reader poll. And so I turn it over to you, fine readers: how would you rate yesterday's press conferences, and this morning's Nintendo Direct?

Showcasing the new musical map, the trailer features Rayman and co. running, jumping, and punching in rhythm.

Oh dear, did someone forget to put all their product managers in the same room at any point? Ubisoft have managed to announced both The Crew and The Division on the same day – confusionpocalypse is surely inevitable. Presumably The Local Ombudsman Committee is being saved for tomorrow.

If it helps you to keep track of which one’s which, The Division is prefixed with ‘Tom Clancy’s’ and is an RPGy thingy about shooting people, while The Crew has no prefix and is about driving across America. And sounds absolutely brilliant in concept. ROAD TRIP!(more…)

Edward Kenway hacked through buccaneers, survived a 21-gun naval bombardment, and tiptoed through flaming wreckage to get back to his ship and escape pursuit. But in the end, he was brought down by that most dreaded foe: The crash of a live demo. The abrupt end to this Assassin's Creed: Black Flag notwithstanding at all, this game looked well deserving of a swashbuckler's reputation. After all, who wouldn't want to play a pirate trained by assassins?

At this point, there may be no hands-off preview I'm less willing to trust than an Assassin's Creed demo. Last year, Assassin's Creed III just looked so good, so full of potential... and the final product was a mess. So when I went and watched a big chunk of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag in action, I did so with a massive grain of salt clutched in each hand. I was sorely disappointed by Assassin's Creed III. The game was a jumbled disaster, and almost entirely unfun for me. And yet when I saw it running at press events and last year's E3, it looked *crag*ing amazing. So, here we go again. Will ACIV manage to address some, or even any of the problems its predecessor had? It's not yet clear. The game I saw looked pretty damned cool. It's easily the biggest departure from the core AC formula yet. A vast open sea, a pirate ship at your command, and all kinds of Far Cry 3-like jungles and ruins to explore, in addition to the urban parkour stab-fest that the series is known for. Does that mean that this new game will remedy Assassin's Creed III's problems? Or does it mean that it'll just replace those problems with a whole new set of problems? I can't yet say. Late last week, I stopped by Ubisoft's San Francisco HQ to watch ACIV in action, The walkthrough I saw was the same behind-closed-doors demo being shown at E3, but not the one that will be shown during their press conference. The demo was designed to give a sense of the open world, and the seamless way that it all flows together. Seamless. Did you notice how I used that word? That is Ubisoft's favorite word, when talking about Assassin's Creed IV. The demo I saw, narrated by the game's head writer Darby McDevitt, had the protagonist Edward Kenway (father of ACIII's Hatham Kenway and grandfather of Connor) captaining his ship the Jackdaw across the wide blue Caribbean Sea. He was attacking and boarding enemy ships, swinging down from ship riggings to engage in swashbuckling derring-do, diving off of the ship to stealthily infiltrate an enemy island outposts, and peering through a spyglass into a torrential storm. And yep, there was nary a loading screen in sight. In other words, I saw a demonstration of all of the stuff Ubisoft told Stephen about in March. It looked about as they described it to him. In other words, it looked impressive. But I've been down this road too many times, and I remain skeptical of a lot of what Ubisoft is showing. I'll remain skeptical right up until I play Assassin's Creed IV. Here's what I saw, condensed into helpful bullet-points to help with your E3 news-digestion. The core conflict of the story, according to McDevitt, is that Kenway doesn't adhere to the Assassin's creed as strongly as past protagonists. The idea here is that he's a bad boy rogue who Doesn't Play By The Rules. Awesome! I never get sick of that character archetype. Okay, I kind of get sick of that character archetype.That was about as much story as I got. The demo I saw was entirely side-mission stuff; I didn't get any kind of a sense of Kenway, his personality, or the main storyline of the game. This demo was much more about the open-world sea and how it all works.The overworld map is quite large - the majority of this world is connected, except for some cities and the larger jungle islands. That's a significant departure from past games, which felt more like an unconnected chain of large hub areas. This is more of an open-world game with a single, all-encompassing map. On that map, there appears to be a lot to do: whaling activities, naval forts, plantation raids, and all kinds of other side-activites. Noted sidequest-addict Stephen Totilo should be a happy camper.Okay, so, hype warning: The comparison I'm about to make might cause you to become very excited, but when you read it, just think back to how disappointed you felt when you first realized that ACIII just wasn't very good. Okay. Ready? The overworld navigation feels like a current-gen, M-rated version of Wind Waker. There, I said it. But it does! Assassin's Creed: Wind Waker.In the demo, Kenway took an assassination mission, which you can accept by activating a point on the map just like in previous games. He was in a small, colorful portside town, and his target was some guy in the town. He tracked him down, and the dude started running. Because if there's one thing we've learned from Assassin's Creed, it's that they always run. Here, McDevitt got quite explicit about how in ACIV, chase sequences won't be anywhere near as stringent as they were in ACIII. You won't fail for making a single mistake, and the chases can go down in a multitude of different ways. He was very clearly referring to that horrid final chase sequence in Assassin's Creed III better known as the worst thing I played in 2012.Case in point: Kenway chased his target down a dock (and man, was I having flashbacks), but McDevitt made it clear that Kenway could catch the guy before he made it to his ship, or leap from the docks onto the ship and fight the guy on the decks, or any other possible scenario. Instead, the dude reached his ship unmolested and Kenway hooked a left and hops onto his ship, the Jackdaw.The chase at this point became a boat-chase, and it was Kenway's job to either board his target's ship and kill the guy, or just sink the ship.It will be very interesting to see if any other outlet's demos from E3 contain any variants from what I saw. If they can actually demonstrate that this chase could play out in more than one way, I'll be interested. At the moment, I'm not convinced this whole thing wasn't canned.The Jackdaw eventually caught up with the target's ship, and they got into a pitched sea battle. It was pretty sweet, in the same way that the naval battles in ACIII were pretty sweet. Aiming seems to have been refined from ACIII, and it's possible to aim at ships directly in front of the Jackdaw. It also appears possible to fire faster. That said, it's more or less the same naval combat as in ACIII. Not a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.At this point in the demo, with cannons firing and masts exploding, McDevitt explained that the smoke we were seeing was the sort of next-gen effect we could expect from the game. Next-gen cannon smoke! I got them to clarify that the version we saw was running on a PC, but that it was a PC that was more or less identical to a PS4.When I asked later about what the differences between the current-gen and next-gen versions of the game would be, McDevitt told me that the games would be identical content-wise, but that the next-gen versions would have more elaborate effects, like the smoke they'd showed. Weather effects, too, will be more elaborate, and there will be more variety to the environments. I asked about performance, since a big advantage the PC versions of past Creed games has been that they run at around 60 frames per second instead of 30. McDevitt wasn't sure, but a Ubisoft PR rep later told me that the console versions run at 30 FPS. Back to the game. The Jackdaw equipped chain cannonballs to disable the enemy ship without sinking it, which would allow Kenway to "recruit" the ship later and add it to his fleet. With his target's ship disabled, it was time for Assassin's Creed IV to show off its coolest trick: Raiding enemy ships in real time.The Jackdaw pulled within a highlighted circle around the disabled ship, and with the press of a button, Kenway's crew began to leap across the gap and attack the enemy crew. It was full-on pirate shit; Kenway himself climbed into the rigging of the Jackdaw and, using his musket, picked off a few enemy riflemen. He then ran out onto a rigging and leapt from the Jackdaw's mast onto the deck of the enemy ship, taking down a couple of enemy soldiers as he landed.Okay. So you know I'm skeptical about this game. But that shit was pretty cool. Things to keep in mind: I wasn't playing this, and it's a fair bet that the controls will be dodgy as hell. It'll probably be difficult to pull off that kind of move with any frequency. It is very easy to imagine a nightmare single-player mission that involves taking an enemy ship and easily devolves into maddening, frustrating bullshit. WIth that said: What I saw more or less ticked every box in the "What I want from a pirate game" card.After landing on the deck, Kenway got into some standard-looking AC combat and eventually killed his target. Of note: He was fighting with two swords, which was neat. Kenway's men then sacked the ship and adopted a few of the crew, who had surrendered, into Kenway's own crew. The ship was then sent off to be repaired and added to Kenway's fleet.Shortly later in the demo, Kenway found a treasure map that worked like a map in Red Dead Redemption; it gave a location and some sense of where the treasure is located, along with a drawing of a landmark. It was time to go get some treasure. Kenway then had to make his way through the ocean, navigating his way to the location marked on the map. Navigation was made much easier with the help of a nifty companion app that will turn your iPad or other tablet into a map that updates in real-time with the game. Since ACIV is coming to Wii U, it looks more or less as though the companion app gives any tablet the same functionality as the Wii U controller. And given how much of a nuisance the map in Assassin's Creed games tends to be, it'll be nice to have the map open on a second screen.At this point, the Jackdaw entered a storm, which had a pretty serious-business look to it. At one point, Kenway spied a water-spout through his telescope, and watched as the reverse-tornado destroyed and sank a distant ship. It was pretty bitchin', though again, it did have that feel of a "canned E3 demo event" to it.After navigating the storm, the Jackdaw pulled up to a tropical island, upon which lay the buried treasure. In a single move, Kenway let go of the wheel and dove over the side of the ship, swimming to shore. So, yes, this was seamless.We then watched a stealth sequence in which Kenway took on British soldiers guarding the camp, making his way to the treasure.So, how can I put this… generally speaking, stealth in Assassin's Creed games sucks. Did this demo give me any hope that they'll finally make these games fun? Not really. Not saying it can't happen, just saying I'm unconvinced.Kenway pulled off all of the moves that we saw Connor pull off in Assassin's Creed III. Cover was contextual, so he crouched in the bushes when he got near. He hid around a corner, but wasn't stuck to it. He popped out of cover when the guy controlling him pushed the stick forward. But there's still no "crouch" button, no way to put Kenway into stealth-mode. No helpful way to get a sense of the enemies around you.During the demo and afterward when I spoke with him, McDevitt made repeated assurances that stealth has been improved in this game. The controls haven't been changed—sorry, no crouch or "sneak" button—but the levels and the enemy AI have been. Levels are, he said, laid out to better facilitate stealth. And when enemies spot you, it'll be easier to confuse them and double back, and you won't wind up with a yakety-sax chase sequence quite as quickly. Okay.Here's something that will reassure those annoyed by ACIII's stealth: There will be no missions that will become desynchronized if you get spotted. So, no more controller snappingly frustrating instafail stealth segments. That is indeed progress! Of a sort.Another clear improvement over ACIII—the inventory. No longer will you have to go to an entirely different screen to switch items; it looks like you'll be able to use the d-pad to switch between weapons and tools. You know, like literally any other video game made in the last several years. Again, progress! Of a sort.The stealth segment felt very familiar. I still saw Kenway get spotted by a guard standing below him, and have to quickly scoot out of the guy's line of sight. Watching Kenway sneak about, I still got the sense that this wasn't an empowering stealth game that rewarded creativity, but more an act of following the level design and hoping that the predetermined hiding spots don't betray you. I'm not convinced that stealth in ACIV will be much fun.After Kenway took out all of the guards and reached the treasure (which was an upgrade for his ship, oddly), we hopped forward to another of the side activities that can be undertaken: A fort attack.Fort assaults will happen in a couple of stages. First, the Jackdaw will have to fire mortars at the walls and take out the fort's towers. After that's done, Kenway and his men will attack the fort on foot. In order to claim the fort, Kenway must reach and kill the fort's commander. The whole sequence was very cool, reminiscent of the big fort-attack side-misison in ACIII, but more fluid. The last thing McDevitt showed us was a bit of gameplay in Havana, which is one of the game's major metropolitan areas. (These are the few places that will require a loading break before accessing.) True to Ubisoft's promises, Havana looks for all the world like Florence from Assassin's Creed II, and brings a welcome, sun-dappled architectural variety to the drab colonial cities of ACIII.Kenway took on another assassination mission in Havana, and what followed was vintage Assassin's Creed, for better or for worse. He made his way across rooftops, crept up to an enemy area, killed a few guys with a blowgun, then managed to accidentally sound the alarm. Before long, his target had somehow wound up on the roof with him, and he killed him in a somewhat anticlimactic way.So, a cool beginning to the mission and a weird end, as the game's various AI patterns intersected and something unexpected happened. Sounds about right. I walked out of the Assassin's Creed IV demo with two thoughts. The first one was: "I want to play this game." The second was: "So I can see if it sucks or not." That's more or less where I'm at on the series, at this point. Despite all the criticism I've leveled at recent AC games, I still very much enjoy the series. I like that they're so willing to experiment, I love how obsessed they are with history, and I really dig the big-picture concept. Ubisoft knows how to put together an impressive hands-off demo, and everything they showed looked remarkably cool; more or less everything I'd ask for in a third-person pirate adventure game. But as we know all too well, these guys are able to show a game that looks incredible but significantly under-deliver. It's June, and Black Flag comes out in the fall. McDevitt tells me that as of very recently, they can play through the whole game, but there's still a long way to go before it's ready. No one, not even the developers, can say at this point if the game will come together in time. I'm sure they'd very much like to believe that they will. Their ideas are good, and the core concept of this game—you, your ship, and the open sea—is solid. But I'll have to spend a significant amount of time playing it before I can tell you whether it lives up to that concept, or whether it's yet another ambitious, maddening disappointment. We'll see.

Get excited for new gameplay glimpses from Rayman's latest and colorful adventure.

Watch Sam Fisher strike down his enemies in what is probably his biggest Splinter Cell game yet.

We found out a while back that Ubisoft was working to bring their screaming, gap-toothed party animals to broadcast TV. But, today they’ve revealed that the Rabbids Invasion show is being made in partnership with Nickelodeon and will feature interactive elements accessible via Xbox One.

Rocksmith, Ubisoft's real-guitar rhythm game, gets an update this October with Rocksmith 2014.

Ivory Towers and Ubisoft Reflections (the team behind Driver: San Francisco) are working on a next-gen (and PC) racing game called The Crew. It'll be out in 2014. [video courtesy of IGN]

Trials, the high-flying, controller-throwing, maddening moto-cross series from RedLynx, will get a next-generation version called Trials Fusion and a mobile version called Trials Frontier, Ubisoft just announced.

Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment are working on a next-gen, online, open-world RPG called The Division. Set in a realistic, albeit bleak take on the near future, it's a world in which our complex society and systems have broken down. The trailer, perhaps intentionally, looks a lot like that used last year to reveal Watch Dogs. Gameplay footage shown is from a third-person perspective, with fancy map overlays and a highly-detailed city. While Ubisoft says this is an RPG, the gameplay footage shown is almost exclusively action/shooter stuff. To be crude, it looks like a cross between Mass Effect's action and the world of The Last Of Us. It's due on PS4 and Xbox One. UPDATE - While at first it looked to be entirely new IP, that's only half true. While it's a new series, it's bearing the Tom Clancy brand, with the game's full name being Tom Clancy's Division. More to come...

And it still looks amazing. Here's a new trailer, brought to you by the fine folks at Obsidian, Ubisoft, and South Park Digital Studios.

Ubisoft announced that its free-to-play PC action-RPG The Mighty Quest of Epic Loot has entered closed beta ahead of a public release later this year.

More information and signups are available at themightyquest.com, which currently seems to be under a bit of strain due to an influx of visitors. You might want to try that link later.