It is not going well at Ubisoft lately. The gaming giant coincidentally shuttered its Halifax division shortly after it unionized. The company claimed it was all part of an overall restructuring which, okay, maybe. Regardless, it seemed to portend problems. And now we see more evidence with the announcement of six outright cancelled games, and numerous delays.
Ubisoft’s track record has been spotty recently. High profile franchises like “Far Cry,” “Splinter Cell,” and “Assassin’s Creed” have grown fairly stale, and “Star Wars: Outlaws” woefully underperformed in sales. We don’t know what the path moving forward for the company is, but it apparently will not involve the remake of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” That’s the only officially confirmed title we know of that was cancelled. Reports indicate other unnamed games comprised of a mobile title and at least three new intellectual properties.
In addition to this, seven other upcoming games have been delayed to, “ensure enhanced quality benchmarks are fully met.” That’s something that sounds good in practice; after all Ubisoft has been extremely guilty of pushing games out with terrible bugs in them upon release. They may not be at the level of Bethesda, but go back and read about the “Assassin’s Creed Unity” release if you need a reminder.
The team working on the Prince of Persia remake took the social media to release a statement
The title was originally announced back in 2020 but reportedly had been in development for at least two years prior. So, we’re talking about the cancellation of a game that was around 8 years in the making. What’s more, that original Sands of Time game was a very well regarded action-platformer when it came out. The gameplay mechanics brought the franchise back into the mainstream, led to a full on trilogy, and a major motion picture.
We have no idea what’s going on at Ubisoft but clearly the company is trying to sort out where its future goes from here. The cancellation of new IP’s is never a good sign, possibly showing the company’s reluctance to embrace new ideas and double down on pre-existing ones. If only the sands of time flowed backwards as easily in real life as they did for the titular prince.
