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Ubisoft will pursue a sequel to Far Cry 3, Senior VP of Marketing and Sales Tony Key has announced plainly.

"It's a great brand, and now it's got the recognition it deserves, so we're clearly going to make another one: more on that soon," Key told GameSpot. That recognition comes from combined retail and digital sales to the tune of 6 million as of May, making the game one of Ubisoft's top recent performers alongside Assassin's Creed 3 and Just Dance 4.

A standalone spinoff to Far Cry 3, titled Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, was released back in April. It stars sergeant Rex "Power" Colt, a cyber-commando up against the Omega Force cyborg army in an alternate 2007, ravaged by nuclear war and '80s action movie references. Our review says it "broadens the appeal of its source, thanks to a hilarious, accessible dollop of nostalgia, coated in the mechanics that made Far Cry 3 great."

Surprising absolutely no one, on Friday Ubisoft's Tony Key told Gamespot that the successful, critically acclaimed open-world shooter Far Cry 3 is definitely getting a full-fledged follow-up. Which, naturally, raises all sorts of questions. Ubi's not sharing details—we don't even know for sure that it'll be called Far Cry 4—they just say a new game is coming and that they'll have "more on that soon." So, let's fill in some of the blanks on our own. What would you like to see stay in the next game? What could they get rid of? Off the top of my head, I'd actually love to see them keep a lot of the more tedious stuff—the crafting and hunting—because I liked all of that. They could definitely try to tell a story that's a little bit more consistent in tone, maybe with some characters who aren't unlikeable drips. (I know, I know. "That was the point." Whatever. I'd rather the point be to tell me a story with characters I liked, or at least gave a shit about.) I'd be fascinated to see what they could do with more than one playable character, since the Far Cry series seems well-suited to that sort of thing. I hope they can make co-op missions that take place on the single-player map, and aren't rubbish. I wouldn't mind if they keep the tropical setting, but if they decide to change things up I hope they'll hit something as instantly iconic and distinctive as Far Cry 2's African setting. I'd love to see respawning guard posts, or at least a continuing presence of danger despite player progress, and some more ridiculous abilities—maybe a jetpack?—wouldn't make me mad. And please, guys, add a realism mode with degrading weapons, no HUD, an in-game map and more of that great stuff from Far Cry 2. You don't have to make it mandatory, but I'd love it to be an option. I turn it over to you. What do you think the next Far Cry game will look like? What features do you hope Ubisoft keeps, and what do you hope they get rid of? Have a shot of Jäger, put on some M.I.A. and let us know what you think. Here, I'll save you some time on that middle one: (Source: Gamespot via PC Gamer) http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/15/ubi...

Assassin's Creed 2 will be free to Xbox Live Gold members beginning tomorrow, July 16, until it requiescat en paces at the end of the month. Ezio's debut adventure is the second title in the "Games with Gold" program announced at E3, with the first, Defense Grid: The Awakening, still available for free until later today.

Beyond the free stab-o Italiano, there's also some premium Assassin's Creed content on sale until the end of July. If you end up enjoying Assassin's Creed 2, the other two installments in the Ezio trilogy, Brotherhood (great!) and Revelations (oy, with the tower defense), are $15 apiece.

There's also discounts on the downloadable content packs and the season pass for Assassin's Creed 3. Find pricing details on Major Nelson's site or through the Xbox Marketplace starting tomorrow.

It appears that Watch Dogs will be the first entry in a long-running series, as Ubisoft's senior vice president of sales and marketing has said the company won't begin any projects that can't be turned into franchises.

Steve Hogarty of PCGamesN goes to Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Blacklist preview event for a hands-on. It doesn't work out. "I left the event early to go home to bed, where I slept for 16 hours before slithering off to a hospital. Perhaps I’m part of a Splinter Cell ARG and I’ve been shot with a polonium dart."

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

CVG: We should also include Wii U in the next-gen conversation. How do you reflect on the decision to back the console so early on?

YG: I would say that it didn't do as well as we expected. But if Nintendo comes with good brands this year and takes advantage of the yen, then maybe they have a chance to have a machine that has high quality games and at a reasonable price.

Because we believe a lot in the second screen and the touch possibilities, the fact that you have a different way to play. We learned a lot in doing that and we are already reusing that knowledge using companion apps on tablets, telephones and so on.

What I see is we will be able to use a lot more of those devices on the big games we will create. The companion is going to step-by-step become another device to play that will be adapted to a larger audience and still be very interesting to gamers.

You will be able to play with friends from outside of home and still have a big impact on what's happening in the game. We will see a big increase in terms of that possibility over the next few years.

CVG: Can the full Wii U experience be recreated on other platforms using those companion apps?

YG: You can do a lot. What the Nintendo GamePad has is the speed of communication between the two devices, but if you manage to cope with higher latency [on other devices] you can still do many things. So you don't want players to have to react too fast... it's complementary to the experience.

So when we add all of those possibilities, plus graphics and AI, we think that the [next-gen] games will be of a fantastic quality and give us a chance to deliver something different from what you had in the old generation.

A portion of a SPOnG interview with Ubisoft's Laurent Malville...

SPOnG: With this renewed approach, and particularly with the new Sam Fisher performance capture... do you see Blacklist as something of a refresh, or reassertion, of what Splinter Cell is as a franchise?

Laurent Malville: It’s a good question. How would I describe it? I’m on the design side, so I’m really more attached to the mechanics. Generally, I would say that to move the series forward and have Blacklist be the biggest Splinter Cell ever made, we needed to do some work on our storytelling for sure. That’s why we invested in the performance capture facility.

I would say it’s a refresh of sorts, yes. Although not necessarily a reboot, because there are elements of Conviction - and previous games in the series - that will return here and will be familiar to fans. In terms of design and gameplay, this refresh boiled down to player choice. The player is in charge. Sam is the leader of Fourth Echelon, and the player should feel the exact same way when playing this game.

We've played Splinter Cell Blacklist's co-op mode. So is it any good?

If you're getting a distinct Sid Meier's Pirates! gameplay mechanics vibe after watching this Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag trailer... good! Pirates! is an amazing game. But since Meier is busy with other things, we're more than happy to have Ubisoft set a course for adventure.

No matter what you thought about Assassin’s Creed III, most people agreed that the naval combat sequences were the best features of the game. This new gameplay trailer for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag shows the upgrades coming to the ship-sailing experience and how you’ll take Edward Kenway deep into the 17th Century Caribbean.

The following comes from a GamesIndustry interview with Yves Guillemot, Chairman and CEO of Ubisoft.

- ZombiU was not even close to profitable
- no plans (or even desire) for a sequel
- ZombiU's performance lead to Ubisoft's change of position on Rayman Legends

"We must find a way to ensure the creativity of those games could have a big enough audience. We hope it will take off. At the moment, we've said 'let's do through Christmas and see where we are from there.'"

Link

Trackmania 2 Valley is available now on Steam, and is 10 percent off ($17.99) this weekend. The game features a 65-track solo campaign as well as new rally-style handling.

The racing game is the latest of the Trackmania 2 titles on Steam, the others being Canyon and Stadium. Valley's three-player and five-player packs are also discounted to $44.99 and $71.99 this weekend, respectively.

The updated and portable version of Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame will leap onto the App Store, Google Play and Amazon on July 25. However, the sands of time have worn away the two from the title, so it's just Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the Flame now.

Announced in April, the game freshens up the graphics and sound of classic platformer Price of Persia 2, with the option of virtual buttons or gesture-based controls. Ubisoft Pune, responsible for Prince of Persia Classic HD, handled development duties on the sequel. The game is priced at $2.99.

The updated and portable version of Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame will leap onto the App Store, Google Play and Amazon on July 25. However, the sands of time have worn away the two from the title, so it's just: Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the Flame now.

Announced in April, the game freshens up the graphics and sound of classic platformer Price of Persia 2, with the option of virtual buttons or gesture-based controls. Ubisoft Pune, responsible for Prince of Persia Classic HD, handled development duties on the sequel. The game is priced at $2.99.

Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb confirmed this morning that Assassin's Creed 2 is the next free title in the Xbox "Games With Gold" Program. That means the Italiano assassino romp will be available for all those gratis stabs and requiescat en paces on July 16.

Announced during Microsoft's E3 press conference, the "Games with Gold" program highlighted Assassin's Creed 2 and Halo 3 on stage. After a little clarification, it turned out those two titles wouldn't be the first two games due in July. Defense Grid: The Awakening is currently free, with Ezio's exploits up next. There is no announced window for Halo 3 going free at this time.

You know the drill. Publisher hacked. User details compromised. Payment details safe. Systems taken offline in the meantime. Change your Ubisoft passwords. Change the passwords of anything you use the same passwords for. Modern life is rubbish.

GameFly is conducting a sale on select Ubisoft PC game downloads, tied to coupon code GFDJUN20. Far Cry 3 is $20, Trials Evolution Gold Edition is $8 and Assassin's Creed 3 is under $11.

I know the TrackMania games are known for being speedy, but this is making a mockery of everything I know about game development, as well as the laws of time and space. It was only last Friday that TrackMania 2: Stadium was released, and now they’ve announced the release date of TrackMania 2: Valley. It is coming out on July 4th, 2013. The new addition has 65 new tracks for the new rally style handling mode, and all the building blocks you’d expect from one of their games. Just, you know, next week rather than a few months from now.(more…)

Ubisoft's standalone and neon-loving throwback, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, has surpassed 500,000 total units sold on XBLA, PSN and PC, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry International. While Guillemot neglected to break down how Blood Dragon's sales were spread by platform, he did specifically call out boosted Far Cry 3 sales on PC as a result of Blood Dragon's favorable reception.

Blood Dragon's critical and commercial success as a companion product is something that Ubisoft will investigate, Guillemot said, so it's possible that Ubisoft may try and use this formula again in the future. Watch Dogs: Pound Puppies, yes?

There are always those places that you can't walk through without quickening your pace, without gripping some makeshift weapon in your pocket. You know—the "bad part of town" that your local news loves to spew crime statistics about. All it takes is some shadowy figure trailing behind you late at night for all pretenses of good faith to melt away. You'll get suspicious, maybe even scared. With nothing to go off of other than appearances, there's a danger of making poor calls based on limited information—calls which are unfair to someone. What if you could tell more about a person at a glance? Their name, their income, their occupation, and some random factoid—like maybe that they frequent fetish sites? Maybe it'd be useful, maybe it'd make you safer. My guess is always having that extra information would predispose anyone to make bad calls based on information which may not fully speak for someone's character. I know this, and yet information is disgustingly seductive. I'd probably want to see it anyway, if I could. And in the open world game Watch Dogs, the protagonist and super hacker Aiden Pierce can indulge me: he sees all this stuff at a glance while roaming Chicago. More than that, I can see a percentage that denotes the likelihood that someone will commit a crime. If that information gives you a Minority Report vibe, you're on the money: Watch Dogs gives you a person's stats in the hopes that it will help you prevent crimes (Watch Dogs: get it?). This power troubles me a bit, if it wasn't obvious. What does a criminal "look" like? Is that even a thing? My gut says no, and yet I could see myself judging potential perps based on completely bullshit superficial information. But that 'bullshit information' can frame the way I look at crime...if I even notice it. In real life, people can watch a crime unfold in front of them and depending on the gender or race involved, they won't think twice of it: Like I said, poor calls based on limited information. Still, a vigilante with an information fetish is a powerful thing indeed—Aiden is capable of taking control of entire areas of town by uploading viruses, which can then grant him access to any of the digital devices hosted on the network in that area. Does that sound outlandish, being able to just...take control of an area using technology? The concept of controlling a territory is not new, but in this case Dominic Guay, senior producer on the title, reminded me the mechanic in Watch Dogs mirrors real-life tech used by the police. I saw Aiden try to upload a virus to take control of a crime-heavy slum during a hands-off free-roaming demo at E3 a couple of weeks ago. Watching it happen was something else: Aiden can go in guns blazing, sure—and he has a special "focus bar" that he can use to slow action down, allowing him to react in the heat of the moment—but he can launch a furtive assault. This is where hacking comes in handy. Aiden can hack into phones to get access codes, he can hack into a number of things in his environment to catch a guard's attention (but not too many, else they'll get suspicious!), and can hack things like lifts to help him get around. It's stuff we've seen before, but if you needed reminding, here it is: it's all very elegant: it's all very elegant—and not just in the way the game lets you choose how to move forward. The environment itself looks believable, it wasn't just a collection of chest high barriers conveniently placed just where you need them. What is acceptable in the name of saving lives? How far can one go before crossing a line? Controlling an area makes it easier to wander with confidence, waiting for your chance to dole out your brand of vigilante justice. Justice doesn't only mean keeping an eye on potential criminals. The flip side of seeing how likely it is that someone will commit a crime is seeing how likely it is that a character will become a victim. A woman walking on the sidewalk has a different victim percentage than a woman walking alone down a shady alleyway. Here, it becomes obvious just how uncomfortable and weird it is to watch out for crimes—sure, maybe there's a creep waiting for her at the end of that alleyway. But, uh, you kind of have to stalk her to know that in the first place. There's no shortage of potential sketchiness, really. There was another instance where I saw Aiden hack into the home of a single mother—you can hear the baby wailing. But if you're in her house, there seem to be only two options: be a voyeur, or steal from her bank account. What is acceptable in the name of saving lives? How far can one go before crossing a line? It's a potent question in a post-9/11 world, a fact that's not helped by the recent revelation that the NSA and the FBI engaged in a massive, secret data-mining operation called PRISM. It's the type of moral ambiguity worth lauding, as it asks the player to seriously consider whether or not Aiden is a "good guy." No easy answers here, although I can see the obsessive tendencies we get as we play a game working against us—what can we say about Aiden as he becomes more powerful and gets sucked further and further into the vigilante thing? Is it really about justice or is it simply a self-serving power fantasy masquerading as something else? Either way, the information you have at your disposal is great—and it's not just some ridiculous video game power, either. The in-game technology that tells you information about people is based on technology that actually exists. "I can tell you how it works in real life, and that's what we're trying to reproduce: basically, the system does the facial recognition on people around using the cameras, it tracks their personal information, their criminal records, if someone has a restraining order on someone else, their patterns of behavior—for example, if there's a place that's known where there's a lot of crime happening and there's a guy standing there for four hours then it'll flag it as a potential criminal," Guay explained. "This is what a lot of cops do in real life." Is it really about justice or is it simply a self-serving power fantasy masquerading as something else? As someone that lives in a high-crime ghetto—someone who would be flagged by this system by virtue of existing in a particular area of town—this makes me pause. The thing we're missing—as players who only have to deal with the numbers—is context and context is important in real life. What we see is a man who is X% likely to commit a crime. Not the factors pressuring people in the poor parts of town to take up a life of crime in the first place. Gentrification and how it makes it difficult to survive, lack of education—that sort of thing. I don't mention this because I want people to have pity for criminals, but rather to put Aiden's "power" into perspective. Sure, Aiden can look at the statistics, and he can intervene—but in a limited way that ignores the bigger picture. They say that information is power; I won't deny that (although romanticizing breaches of privacy at this particular moment feels kind of gross). But maybe statistics aren't everything. I saw about thirty minutes of Watch Dog's free roam during E3. It was all hands-off.

Clash of Heroes, Capybara's excellent match-three adaptation of Might and Magic strategy, is available now on Android. After coming out on DS in 2009 and moving onto consoles and PC in 2011, Clash of Heroes marched onto iOS earlier this year.

It's taken a little while, but Clash of Heroes continued its journey onto Android, and like the iOS version is priced at $4.99. However, unlike on iOS, the Android version doesn't feature online battling, although local multiplayer is supported.

Clash of Heroes, Capybara's excellent match-three adaptation of Might and Magic strategy, is available now on Android. After coming out on DS in 2009 and moving onto consoles and PC in 2011, Clash of Heroes marched onto iOS earlier this year.

It's taken a little while, but Clash of Heroes continued its journey onto Android, and like the iOS version is priced at $4.99. However, unlike on iOS, the Android version doesn't feature online battling, although local multiplayer is supported.

Leaving no part of the E3 reporter's notebook unused, I've come upon some slightly old (two weeks!), slightly illuminating thoughts from top people at Ubisoft and Sony about their company's games. These are thoughts worth sharing with you. The first is from Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, at the start of an eight minute interview two Mondays ago. We zip through some thoughts about the Assassin's Creed franchise and the future of Ubisoft's Wii U support, but we start with me asking him about the games Ubisoft is showing at E3 and whether he can't help but have a favorite. He says: "I prefer not to say much about that. In fact it's very important that I don't speak much about it, because it changes. You know, in development, at one point the game is fantastic, the team is the best in the world, [but] in the process they cannot perform as well, because they probably were too.. they sold too much [internally] and had problems delivering. I think we try to make sure each team has all the support it needs to create high quality product." Guillemot: "In development, at one point the game is fantastic, the team is the best in the world, [but] in the process they cannot perform as well, because...they had problems delivering." My guess, after the interview is wrapped up, is that Rayman Legends is actually his favorite of Ubi's current crop. That's a fun little bit, but here's something better from Shuhei Yoshida, the head of worldwide studios for PlayStation. He oversees Sony's vast array of game development teams around the world, a roster that rivals Nintendo's in volume and quality. Reporting to Yoshida is Scott Rohde, who oversees the studios in the U.S. Combined, they have everyone from Naughty Dog (The Last of Us) to Guerilla Games (Killzone) to Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo) to Sony's Japan studios (Rain, Puppeteer) to Sucker Punch (Infamous) to Evolution Studios (Driveclub) reporting to one or both of them. And so many more teams than that. So, I ask: "When you're developing games internally, how do you decide what to go for? We need more shooters? We need more racing games? You have a couple of different racing series going on. And you have a couple of different shooters." And he says: "Yeah, what you said is exactly what we don't do. What we do is we look at individual projects. We really want to see some very strong vision from a creator or from the team to have something really strong that they feel they want to make. We start from there for each individual title. "Often times, because we like something new and we like to try out, more than maybe half of them will fail. So we just decide, 'Ok, let's take six months, nine months and do some prototyping and see what works,' and we make a decision, 'Let's not do it, it didn't work out.' Or 'If we change this it could work, so let's extend that period.' Yoshida: "More than maybe half of [our internal game prototypes] will fail." "So we have lots of these early projects that we usually do not talk about in the open. Otherwise if we prematurely announce it everybody asks, 'Where is that game?' [laughs] "That's how we approach it, but because, we feel strongly that not everyone is good at everything, like, because it's creative work, you really have to believe in something so strongly that you go beyond normal terms to try to achieve it. In order for that to happen, the developer has to believe in it really, really strongly. "That's how we believe in that, but we balance it in my level or Scott Rohde's level. We always look at the line-up, the pipeline we have. We always talk with marketing people and [consider] in what region and on what platform the next year and the year after, what kind of people, consumers, demographically or whatnot they are looking to move the platform. [We] try to see where are the holes. Where are we doing too much? Are there too many projects trying to cater to the same audience in the same region? In that case, we discuss whether we move some of the title or, in some cases, these titles are in early stages, and, when we have to make decisions from resources that we have, we cannot do both, which we choose. Then we we look at the platform's overall picture: this game fills in this gap that we have. Yoshida: "Because it's creative work, you really have to believe in something so strongly that you go beyond normal terms to try to achieve it." "We use that overall picture as an additional factor when we make decision and try to balance them all when we cannot do that perfectly, so we always get shouted at by our marketing teams: 'Worldwide studios, you fail! You fail!' [laughs] So we are always told we are not doing this or that." There you have it. A peek inside the psychology of the top man at Ubisoft and one of the top men at PlayStation. That should explain... some things. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo

Huh. It had entirely passed me by that exciting-looking action hacker open-world Ubi-game Watch Dogs has multiplayer. But it does. There’s a video of it happening below. The game features folks hacking, while the victim attempts to fend off the hackery. It’s all looking a bit Assassin’s Creed at this time, which I suppose to be expected.

Go take a look.(more…)

New TrackMania! Hooray! Nadeo’s skid-heavy racing series is the only car game that I’m actively interested in. It leaves the rest revving up on the starting grid in the race to my heart, crashes headfirst into an cruelly-placed gap, then instantly restarts. I still love it. It’s the simplicity of the driving and the complexity of the tracks that grabs me. Something easy to pick up, with plenty of options. I’d be so bold to call it the Street Fighter of racing games, complete with the silly names. This update, which they’ve called TrackMania 2: Stadium (though should be TrackMania 2: Skiddy Hyper Max 12 Torque Shiny Shiny Shiny), has just gone live. Video is below.(more…)

If you thought the annual release schedule for the Assassin's Creed series was tiring, spare a thought for fans of the series who prefer the PC version. Every year, as regular as the series sees a release, the PC version of the game is delayed by a few weeks. And this year is no different. While the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Assassin's Creed IV will be out on October 29, Ubisoft tells The Elder Geek that the PC version has been delayed until "a few weeks after". Which should be a cause for sad faces, but remember, this is the year the series makes a generational split, with fancier versions available on the Xbox One and PS4. Presumably the PC version will be this fancier version, so a delay into November - which is the earliest these next-gen versions would be out alongside the new consoles - isn't so bad. Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Interview with Ash Ismail at E3 2013 [The Elder Geek, via Rock Paper Shotgun]

Ubisoft’s teased Watch Dogs’ multiplayer during the PlayStation 4 event in February and then showed the game’s asymmetrical mobile integration during E3. But the video above is the first true glimpse of what has only been described in words. The clip shows what it'll be like to hunt down another player who's trying to hack you, as well as the other side of that experience when you're trying to stalk someone and invade their playspace.

Maybe you’re on the fence about Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and its whole pirate-centric motif. Well, you should let this latest clip reveal one crucial gameplay element to you: pirates were basically partying all the time. And lead character Edward Kenway can just sit down and have a drink with his fellow salty dogs when they’re chilling on the beach. ACIV director Ashraf Ismail talks through this nearly six-minute look at the game, pointing out how sneaking around will be more difficult and showing off a seamless transition from combat and traversal to ship-vs.-ship combat.

Spartacus Legends, Ubisoft's free-to-play gladiatorial combat game, will launch on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network next week. While the Xbox Live Arcade launch will be worldwide, launch dates for PSN in Europe, Asia and Japan are forthcoming.

The Kung Fu Factory-developed game chose the free-to-play route late last year and is based on the Starz television show. Players manage a stable of fighters and control their progress through each battle in the colosseum - death is permanent.

According to game director Ashraf Ismail, Assassin's Creed IV will be coming to the PC a "few weeks" late. D'aww. At least they'll have some extra time to iron out some bugs, hopefully. That, and the new graphics options. Best not forget those! [via RPS]