Assassin’s Creed publisher Ubisoft has at least two new Far Cry experiences coming down the road. One will effectively be Far Cry 7, the next mainline game in the hit first-person shooter series. The other is a standalone multiplayer spin-off and likely the company’s latest attempt to create a live-service money-maker around one of its most successful franchises.
Insider Gaming reported on Thursday that the next single-player game in the Far Cry series is internally known as Project Blackbird and that the standalone multiplayer component is internally called Project Maverick. It also says that both were originally born of a single game that was previously under the supervision of Dan Hay, the franchise’s former overseer at Ubisoft Montreal. He left Ubisoft in 2021 and is now working at Blizzard on its unannounced survival game.
While Kotaku can’t corroborate the projects’ origins, it can confirm that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot referenced both of these games in an internal company update last week, according to sources present. Far Cry has often included both co-op and competitive multiplayer, but this would be the first time in the franchise’s history that online multiplayer was packaged into a standalone title. Kotaku can’t yet confirm exactly what it will include, or whether it will have overlap with the story campaign of Far Cry 7.
According to three current and former Ubisoft developers, however, the next mainline game in the series will be switching from its existing Dunia engine to Snowdrop, the engine used for The Division 2 and Ubisoft’s upcoming open-world Star Wars game. They considered this an improvement over the legacy engine, which originally grew out of the CryEngine belonging to Crytek, the studio behind 2004’s very first Far Cry.
Ubisoft has been trying to make a fully multiplayer Far Cry game for many years now, sources have told Kotaku. Those efforts were often either canceled or morphed into other projects, including the single-player-driven Far Cry games that were eventually released. It’s possible the current split is yet another compromise of that nature.
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But the appeal of a robust live-service Far Cry game for Ubisoft is clear. 2015’s Rainbow Six Siege continues to be a huge money maker for the publisher. Meanwhile, Far Cry 5’s arcade content creator never really took off, and Far Cry 6 lacked a competitive mode entirely. The series’ post-launch DLC has also fallen flat compared to the multi-year seasons in Assassin’s Creed.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Ubisoft told Kotaku,“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation.”
And to finish, here’s the least likely Ubisoft game to see released in 2023, or perhaps, ever. Which is incredibly sad.
The original 2003 Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was revelatory. An exceptional game that reinvented how all third-person action games should be played, with its astonishing rewinding time mechanic, and fabulous 3D platforming. Sadly, no one else ever had the sense to copy it, and 20 years later we remain stuck in a mire of action games that endlessly kill us, rather than let us keep going. Oh, and there was that Jake Gyllenyhaal film to rub salt in the wound.
A remake was announced in 2020, with the ambitious release date of January, 2021. Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen, and it was maybe for the best, given just how awful it looked in the trailer above. It was then rather optimistically delayed until just March ‘21, before they seemingly admitted to themselves that it looked like a PS3 game, and kicked it down the road. Later that year Ubisoft said it’d appear in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, then took it from Indian developers Ubisoft Mumbai and gave it to Ubisoft Montreal, before announcing yet another delay last May, without even guessing at a fiscal year.
Come last November, things looked even worse when Ubisoft cancelled all pre-orders and returned everyone’s money. Perhaps a useful lesson on why you probably shouldn’t pre-order games that don’t exist yet. The publisher insists the game isn’t cancelled, but has yet to suggest a new release date, meaning this is unlikely perhaps even in 2024.
But hey, it’ll still probably come out before Beyond Good & Evil 2.
At the start of 2023, Twitch streamer MissMikkaa made headlines for beating Elden Ring’s notorious rot queen, Malenia, Blade of Miquella, with two completely different controllers at the same time. It was a ridiculous feat of dexterity and focus, but would you believe this method of play was how she finished FromSoftware’s latest Soulslike in its entirety? Well, it turns out MissMikkaa has been embarking on what she’s dubbed the “Ultimate Challenge Run” and, now that she’s wrapped up Elden Ring, she’s doing the same thing with Dark Souls Remastered.
MissMikkaa
Challenge runs aren’t new within the FromSoft community. Kotaku has reported on plenty of wild ones, from using a drawing tablet to playing with an electronic saxophone. MissMikkaa’s, however, is probably the most intense challenge run I’ve seen in a minute as she plays two copies of the FromSoft game simultaneously with two different types of controller inputs: a DDR-compatible dance pad and a PlayStation 5 DualSense. This is the basis for her “Ultimate Challenge Run.” As MissMikkaa specifies in her livestream overlays, the goal is to “kill bosses on the same try on both game instances” using the two different controllers. Kotaku caught up with MissMikkaa to pick her brain about playing FromSoft games in such a peculiar and difficult manner.
This Takes Lots Of Focus To Pull Off
Image: FromSoftware
MissMikkaa explained the process of setting up the “Ultimate Challenge Run,” including the model of the dance pad she’s using. After getting the dance pad hooked up to her PC, she used the software remapper JoyToKey to synch the pad’s movement arrows to the WASD keys, with the other buttons performing actions like attacking, dodging, healing, and the like. The dance pad has a limited number of buttons, though, so she would sometimes have to “create specific profiles for certain bosses or scenarios” to switch between before encounters like the one with Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy. But aside from fine-tuning the dance pad’s keybindings, this “Ultimate Challenge Run” challenged MissMikkaa in many other ways.
“In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble focusing on playing two games at once. It’s not an easy task trying to position your character, attack, dodge, and heal twice as much as what you’re used to,” MissMikkaa tells Kotaku. “There were a few days where I was feeling mentally fatigued from the amount of work my brain was doing, but the further I got in the run the more used to it I became. Physically it wasn’t much different from the previous runs I had done, luckily I was already used to 6-hour dance pad sessions. Midway through this run there were definitely a few moments of smooth sailing, but towards the end, things definitely got much harder and that was also partially used as a motivator to get me through.”
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Focus was difficult to maintain during the entire run, MissMikkaa says. Playing a FromSoft game, whether that’s Bloodborne or Sekiro, can already seem like an insurmountable challenge requiring tons of concentration. These are punishing games, after all! Adding a second layer on top—that is, playing another instance of the same game but with a separate controller simultaneously—increases both the level of difficulty you’ll face when playing and the focus required. Gravity killed her, a lot, because she “lost track of [her] character’s position and instead focused more on attacking and dodging.” But navigation got better as time went on.
The Bosses Were Equally Challenging
MissMikkaa
As you might expect with a FromSoft game, the bosses were a particular sore spot for this “Ultimate Challenge Run.” MissMikkaa says she died some 198 times to Malenia and her long sword alone. It doesn’t compare to the level 1 dance pad run she did back in October, in which she died over 500 times to the goddess, but she still points to Malenia as a true test.
“Malenia was by far the hardest boss in this run,” MissMikkaa admits. “She is a true test of skill and experience in most challenge runs. It was a lot of trial and error to kill Malenia both in regards to figuring out what build I wanted to use and just trying to survive when I got two waterfowl dances at the same time. But besides the obvious answer, I had a lot of trouble with Margit due to falling out of the arena. I was also struggling a lot with Mohg, specifically with his second phase transition since I didn’t use any in-game items like Mohg’s Shackle or Purifying Crystal Tear.”
That she prevented herself from using specific equipment also added to the difficulty. MissMikkaa says she not only tried to “not use any weapons or Ashes of War that would be considered too ‘OP’,” but she also couldn’t summon anyone or use any of the spirit ashes in battle.
It was just her, the enemies in front of her, and her two controller inputs. That’s it. In addition to these self-imposed limitations, MissMikkaa explains that she relegated herself to certain kinds of character builds, starting with a strength-focused one in the beginning before switching to an arcane one for the late game. Thankfully her gear of choice—bleed weapons such as the Great Stars great hammer and high-defense armor like the Bull-Goat set—helped ease the restrictions a little bit by letting her “outpoise [a boss’] poise damage in order to hit them through their attacks.” She’s tanky. And of course, because she’s playing two copies of the same game, she’s forced to have equipment parity between her two characters.
Giving Up On This Was Never In The Cards
Image: FromSoftware
Regardless of how challenging this “Ultimate Challenge Run” has been for MissMikkaa, she promises that she “never once thought about giving up.” The difficulty is a big reason why she was so motivated to finish the challenge. She found herself adapting to the process after every livestream and, once she got to Malenia, who is already an optional endgame boss, MissMikkaa said she was “pretty confident” that she could beat the queen of rot alongside many of the game’s other brutal enemies.
“The easiest part of this run was keeping myself motivated throughout,” MissMikkaa explains. “It was a fun challenge and I enjoyed every aspect of learning and mastering it. I love finding new ways to challenge myself, especially in Elden Ring. This idea was not really seriously considered at first, but when I found myself with an extra capture card in my streaming PC I started thinking to myself, ‘What would happen if I played two games at once?’ At first, I was unsure if the challenge was even possible to begin with, and so were the people around me. But I was kind of curious to see how far I could go. I’ve got to say…I’ve never had so many people coming in and questioning my sanity as I have during this run.”
I mean, I’m questioning MissMikkaa’s sanity, too. It’s hard enough stepping into a FromSoft boss arena on just one platform. Doing that twice, at the same time, with one of your controllers being essentially a slipper bath mat, and still walking away victorious makes me both envious of her skills and stoked about her accomplishment. Talk about “getting good.”
MissMikkaa tells us she finished Elden Ring around January 8, performing an All Remembrances playthrough which requires you beat a FromSoft game by defeating all the bosses that drop consumable “boss souls.” Since then, she’s been bouncing between games on Twitch, like Forspoken and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, while embarking on another “Ultimate Challenge Run” in Dark Souls Remastered. At some point, she said she wants to play through Elden Ring with “a real guitar,” with actions like attacking and healing tied to full chords instead of just individual strings. Lord help her.
It’s right there in the Bible—ask, and it will be given to you. It’s also right there on gaming Twitter, where the small gaming podcast Super Pod Saga posed an innocent question on January 15 and people showed up to respond in droves: “What is the most useless piece of video game knowledge you know?”
Apparently, there are a lot of people that think a lot of useless thoughts about video games. Who knew? In the week and a half since posting, Super Pod Saga received over ten thousand responses to their tweet. But a lot of it, I’d say, isn’t necessarily useless, but essential.
Take this response about action-adventure series Devil May Cry, for example: “Dante and Vergil have an insane healing factor that essentially heals as the damage is being done, so no wounds or scars. Due to this, they’re likely uncircumcised.”
Tell me honestly. What was I supposed to do if I had never read that? Never know whether or not Dante and Vergil are circumcised? Be forced to wander the Earth, alone forever in my confusion? Can you even imagine that?
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Or what about this: “In Xenoblade 3, all characters in the game’s files are listed with a number for gender. Zero is male, One is female; however, the character Juniper is listed as two. Furthermore, in Xenoblade 2, the character Roc’s gender is listed as four. Thus, there are at least five genders in Xenoblade.” I mean, that’s just inspirational.
Ah, the breeze of womanhood! Dinosaurs!
Kotaku staffers have been holding onto their own niche video game info, too. I know this, because I begged them to tell me in pursuit of self-actualization.
“The li’l fire breathing dinosaur from Super Mario World is named after the singer in Nine Inch Nails,” social media editor Jeb Biggart told me. “That feels pretty useless.”
Yes, great stuff. More, give me more.
“In the Halo 2 level Quarantine, Flood [parasitic creatures] can be seen driving around in Warthogs/tanks/etc. This is the only time in the series where they do this, and it’s really weird,” staff writer Zack Zwiezen said.
“The music in NES Back to the Future, a terribly obnoxious, grating repetitive theme that bears no immediately apparent resemblance to anything is actually a wildly sped up version of the hit song from the movie, ‘The Power of Love’ by Huey Lewis and the News,” said managing editor Carolyn Petit. “Perhaps because they programmed the music, but then found out they didn’t have the rights to the song, so they just sped it way up. I do not know the reason for this.”
Thank you all. My power grows. My mind expands. My trivia senses are tingling.
Now, what’s your favorite bit of random video game knowledge? Let it out, it’s for my health.
Reports indicate that a bug in Grand Theft Auto V Online is putting PC gamers’ gameplay—and even, potentially, hardware—at risk.
The bug is allegedly allowing cheaters and modders to hijack, edit, or corrupt PC gamers account information. Some players report having all of their gameplay and account data erased, while others have said that their in-game currency has been stolen. Worse, the bug allegedly allows for “partial remote code execution,” which could allow malicious users to edit players PC files. While GTA’s publisher, Rockstar Games, hasn’t officially commented on the situation yet, many commentators have encouraged PC players to refrain from playing the game until we all have a better picture of what’s going on.
News of the troubles first started popping up in various pockets of the internet over the weekend, with one particular observer, the twitter account Tez2 (which regularly updates about Rockstar news), posting extensively about the exploit. Complaints also exploded in Rockstar’s official support forums.
“Gta online on pc is currently unplayable due to severe exploits, this needs to be fixed,” one user posted.
“Scared to play online,” another commented. “Please fix this rockstar, I really like this game.”
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Another merely said: “GET YOUR *** TOGETHER ROCKSTAR!”
Meanwhile, a subreddit devoted to the game has called for players to avoid the game until further notice. “As we’ve learned it is not safe to play the game on PC right now due to a very dangerous exploit that has just come to light,” reads a pinned post shared in the subreddit. “We need to mass-report this to Rockstar so they can’t ignore it.”
On the same subreddit, users have expressed frustration that Rockstar hasn’t addressed—or even confirmed—the security issue yet: “Absolutely the most unforgivable element of this. R* is more concerned with bad press than telling people the extent to which their game has been breached and what danger it poses to their personal information,” commented one user. “It really makes me think the worst, if they can’t even come out and say X is safe for now.”
Tez2, which has been monitoring the situation, has written that “Rockstar is aware [of the problem] and have been logging any affected account before the first mod menu started abusing the new exploits.” However, the company itself hasn’t published an official statement on the issue yet.
BleepingComputer has reported that the vulnerability associated with the exploit has already accrued an official CVE designation and is being tracked as CVE-2023-24059. The CVE describes the bug as allowing a hacker to “achieve partial remote code execution or modify files on a PC.” There aren’t a whole lot of details available about how the exploit is supposed to work, however.
Gizmodo reached out to Rockstar for comment on the apparent security problems but have not heard back. We will update this story if they respond.
If the bug does turn out to be real, it would be far from the first bit of security trouble that Rockstar has been through lately. Last year, a cybercriminal managed to compromise the gaming giant’s systems and proceeded to steal (and later leak) source code to the upcoming GTA 6.
Late last week, Square Enix announced that its beleaguered2020 live-service game, Marvel’s Avengers, will no longer receive new content or major updates after March 31. And all official support for the game will end on September 30, 2023, with digital sales ending on that date too. While you’ll still be able to play it offline and online with friends after these dates, it’s effectively game over for the troubled online action game. Yet, even in death, developer Crystal Dynamics just confirmed that the character of Spider-Man will remain exclusive to the PS4 and PS5 versions.
This saga began when, shortly ahead of the release of Marvel’s Avengers, Crystal Dynamics announced that Spider-Man would be added to the game at a later date. However, the famous web-slinger would not be coming to the Xbox or PC versions. Instead, only PS4 (and later PS5) players would have access to the character. It took longer than expected, but eventually, in November 2021 Spider-Man popped up in the PlayStation versions. At the time fans theorized that it was because Spider-Man was owned by Sony and therefore Spidey was only on PlayStation. (That isn’t the case, as Sony merely owns film rights to the character.) But since then, the famous superhero has appeared in Midnight Suns across all platforms. So it’s not like Spider-Man can only exist on PlayStation consoles.
And yet, Crystal Dynamics confirmed in a blog post on January 20 that Spider-Man will still notbe coming to Xbox or PC. What a shame! Even as the failed live-service game dies, none of Spidey’s corporate overlords can agree to let him swing free across all platforms for the few Avengers players out there still enjoying the game.
Marvel / PlayStation
Kotaku contacted Marvel, PlayStation, Square Enix, Embracer Group, and Crystal Dynamics for comment, but didn’t hear back before publication.
I already know people in the comments or quote retweets will claim Sony completely owns Spider-Man (it doesn’t) or that Sony can’t legally allow the character to appear on other platforms (it can). Yet he’s in Midnight Suns, a game released on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. He’s in mobile games released across iOS, Android, and PC, too.
So it’s totally doable to have Spidey show up on other consoles if the people pulling the strings, cutting the deals, and making the contracts can agree to it. But apparently nobody cares enough about Avengers and its community to muster one last gesture of goodwill for players and let the web-slingin’ hero show up on Xbox and PC. If you want to play the complete version of the game after support ends in September, it seems you’ll have to own a PlayStation. Say it with me once again: Console-exclusive DLC sucks.
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Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot faced tough questions from some exhausted and fed-up staff about recent missteps and future plans in a company-wide Q&A session on Wednesday. The meeting comes just a week after the Assassin’s Creed publisher announced new cancellations, delays, and cost-cutting measures, and told employees “the ball is in your court” to help get the $3 billion company back on track.
“The ball is now in our court—for years it has been in your court so why did you mishandle the ball so badly so we, the workers, have to fix it for you?” read one upvoted question on a list submitted in advance through corporate communication channels and viewed by Kotaku. It was a reference to a now infamous email Guillemot sent to staff last week that appeared to shift blame for the publisher’s recent mistakes and hold lower-level employees accountable for fixing the situation.
Guillemot opened the meeting by apologizing. “I heard your feedback and I’m sorry this was perceived that way,” Guillemot said, according to sources present who were not authorized to speak to press. “When saying ‘the ball is in your court’ to deliver our lineup on time and at the expected level of quality, I wanted to convey the idea that more than ever I need your talent and energy to make it happen. This is a collective journey that starts of course with myself and with the leadership team to create the conditions for all of us to succeed together.”
While that clarification resonated with some developers, others who spoke with Kotaku still feel management is out of touch and found little in the meeting to reassure them. The hour-long affair was filled with industry buzzwords and business jargon and light on specifics. Chief financial officer Frederick Duguet said they needed to reduce costs and increase productivity. Chief people officer Anika Grant rejected a recent proposal for four-day work weeks and said requested raises to keep up with inflation were off the table amid the current financial struggles. None of the executives directly addressed the recent call for a strike over working conditions at the company’s Paris studio.
Guillemot remained vague about the potential for layoffs as well. “It’s not about doing more with less, but finding ways to do things differently across the company,” Guillemot said at one point.
The meeting comes after a particularly poor 2022 for the global publisher which included no marquee blockbuster as several projects were delayed, trapped in development hell, or shipped and failed to find an audience. “It appears that management is out of touch with games saying that we need to adapt to an evolving industry,”?” read one of the questions for the meeting that received hundreds of upvotes. “Why are we chasing trends instead of setting them?”
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Those trends could include the company’s 2021 misadventure with NFTs or its partnership with the now-defunct Google Stadia streaming service. It could also describe the publisher’s recent race to ship multiple free-to-play spin-offs of existing franchises and a crowded slate of battle royale and hero-based shooters. Some of these, like Hyper Scape and Roller Champions, have already launched and struggled to find audiences. Others like The Division Heartland were announced a while ago and have yet to actually come out.
Ghost Recon: Frontlineis another example. Revealed in 2021, it looked like a rip-off of Call of Duty Warzone but with some new gameplay twists. Internal testing reportedly revealed that it did indeed play like a Call of Duty Warzone rip-off and Ubisoft decided to can it last summer along with three other projects, leaving Ghost Recon fans scratching their heads and developers disillusioned.
In today’s meeting, Guillemot spoke of doubling down on Ubisoft’s core franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, andits Tom Clancy games, including Rainbow Six Siege, whose potential the CEO compared to Riot Games’ Valorant. Some see it as a retreat not just from chasing trends but from experimentation as well. “We need to acknowledge that the trends are for mega brands,” said Marie-Sophie de Waubert, senior vice president of studio operations, when asked about why the company didn’t pursue more varied, smaller games like Anno 1800.
One big criticism of Ubisoft in recent years has been the lack of variation between sequels and an over-reliance on an open-world blueprint that bleeds over from franchise to franchise. When pressed about the lack of inventiveness, Guillemot pointed to Far Cry 6 as a “good quality” game that was still considered “not innovative enough.” It remains unclear how Ubisoft will juggle the budget demands and production complexity of its big blockbusters with creative risks going forward.
Kotaku understands that developers onsome of the recently canceled projects will pivot to helping ship games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, a smaller and more traditional entry in the stealth action series. Originally planned as an Assassin’s Creed Valhalla expansion, Mirage grew into a full-fledged game in part out of the need to plug holes in Ubisoft’s release calendar. Instead it slipped into the fiscal year starting in April 2023, along with Skull and Bones and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Guillemot recently called that lineup and what comes beyond it the best in the company’s history, though if its recent past is any indication, it’s unlikely to go exactly as planned.
Ubisoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – 2002 Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Last year, footage of the next Grand Theft Auto—assumed to be GTA 6—leaked online. While Rockstar quickly tried to erase the videos from the internet and plug the holes in the ship, it was impossible to completely contain such a massive, unprecedented leak. So fans around the world got a very good look at the future of Grand Theft Auto. And now myself and others find it hard to go back to the aging GTA Online.
Late on September 19, 2022, 90 short videos of early gameplay of what would later be confirmed by Rockstar as the next GTA entry leaked online via a hacker. The footage revealed a lot about the next game in the massively popular open-world franchise, including that the series would be returning to Vice City, Florida, a fan-favorite location last seen in GTA: Vice City Stories, the prequel to the beloved PS2 classic, GTA: Vice City. It also gave us a good look at the new protagonists of this next criminal adventure and some of the missions we might experience when GTA 6 is eventually released. Fans even began mapping out the game’s virtual world using the leaks.
Rockstar undoubtedly hates the leak and likely wishes it could rewind time and prevent it from ever happening at all, but it did end up revitalizing the playerbase. For the first time in a long time, there was excitement and energy in the GTA community, which after years of GTA Online updates and poorly received remasters was in a pretty bad place prior to the leak. Even an early, unfinished or unpolished leak of GTA 6 was better than radio silence and glitchy remasters. People were pumped and hyped about the future of Grand Theft Auto in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
But then, once the leaks were scrubbed from the web and it became clear Rockstar wasn’t going to release any official teaser or trailer to capitalize on the moment, all I and other GTA fans could do was go back to GTA Online. And that’s harder to do now that I’ve seen the future.
Rockstar Games
The latest big and free expansion to GTA Online,Los SantosDrug Wars, was released late last year at a really bad time for me to play and cover it for the site. So I just…didn’t play it. For the first time ever in the history of GTA Online, I skipped a new update completely. I’ve still not played it. At first, I blamed my skipping of the latest update on bad timing and a busy schedule due to holidays and end-of-the-year content. But now, weeks removed from all that, with more free time to play stuff, I’ve still not fired up the new update. And I think it’s time to admit to myself that my growing burnout around GTA Online was increased greatly by that small taste of what’s to come. That look at the future of GTA in Florida ruined me.
I could go back and drive around the same highways and streets of Los Santos I’ve been cruising around since 2013. I could fire up the game and check out the newest business and missions connected to it. I could, sure. The thing is, I don’t know if I want to. I mean, eventually, I will play more GTA Online. I sort of have to as it’s part of my job here at Kotaku. Yet, if it wasn’t part of my career there’s a real chance that I might just never play GTA Online again.
To be clear: It’s not because GTA Online is worse today than it was a decade ago—it’s actually much better to play in 2023 than in 2013—but because getting a glimpse of a fresh new world has killed my desire to boot up the same old Los Santos after a decade of GTA Online and GTA V. I mean, just having new songs on the radio will be amazing. I love Queen’s “Radio Ga-Ga” but you can only hear it so many times in 10 years before you’re ready for new tunes, too.
At this point, I’m hoping the wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 and its sunny beaches, palm trees, and new characters isn’t too much longer, because I’m ready to leave Los Santos behind for a tropical vacation to Vice City.
The last few Assassin’s Creed titles have been gigantic games that can easily take over a hundred hours to fully complete, with huge maps crowded with POIs and tons of side quests to distract you from the main story. According to Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the upcoming spin-off, is smaller and more “intimate” because fans grew tired of these giant RPGs. And the devs were more than happy to go in this direction with the latest game in the franchise.
While I’ll be the first to say that modern Assassin’s Creed games have been a lot of fun, I’ll also admit that recent entries in the series like Odyssey and Valhalla have become far too big and bloated. More recent Assassin’s Creed games, starting with Origins, have evolved the franchise from a series of smaller, stealth games set in large cities into a collection of massive open-world RPGs often filled with hundreds of quests, side quests, collectibles, and places to explore. And if you, like me, long for a smaller, more focused Assassin’s Creed, well, we aren’t alone.
In an interview with GamesRadar, Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s creative director Stéphane Boudon explained that while Origins, Odyssey,and Valhalla were all “great games” that let players “live an epic journey” it was clear that those players were longing for something different and smaller.
“Amongst our fans, we started hearing the desire for a character-driven story, focused on the core pillars of the first ACs in a more intimate scale,” explained Boudon. “It resonates with us as well, as developers, and this was the starting point of the project.”
Read More:How Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Creators Snuck In Connections To Older Games
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Boudon also said that while Miragecame about from a “convergence of several inputs” the biggest driver behind the upcoming spin-off’s smaller scale and focus on narrative came from what the community was asking for after years of huge RPGs.
Further, Mirage pays homage to the OG Assassin’s Creed game starring Altair. Mirage is set in a similar part of the world—the Middle East during the 13th century—and features actual assassins and not proto-assassins as seen in recent games.
I think all of this is a great direction to take the franchise. I want to keep playing these games, but after Valhalla, I’m not sure I need yet another 200-hour epic RPG. This could really help mix things up and keep the franchise feeling fresh and fun. I hope this is the start of a new trend where we see a mix of bigger, open-world entries (Valhalla, Origins) and smaller games focused on stealth. The franchise can support this mix and it would help avoid burning out fans who play every new game AKA me.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set to release sometime this year for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
2022 was truly the year of Elden Ring, with FromSoftware’s latest game exploding into the mainstream unlike anything it had previously created. As such, a lot of people played and finished Elden Ring. In fact, according to one set of data, Elden Ring was the most completed game of 2022. But funnily enough, the same source also pegs it as the game players were most likely to abandon before reaching the end.
If you’ve read Kotaku (or any other gaming website) in 2022, you are likely already familiar with Elden Ring, the latest game from Dark Souls creators FromSoftware. And like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Elden Ring is a tough-as-nails action-RPG with a heavy focus on mystery, world-building, and boss fights. However, this time around FromSoftware added a true open world to its popular “Soulslike” formula. The end result? One of 2022’s most acclaimed, best-selling games. The open world in particular helped sway many to try Elden Ring for the first time, letting players avoid harder areas until later and ostensibly making it easier to finish than past FromSoftware adventures. And it seems that design choice paid off.
According to data on HowLongToBeat.com, Elden Ring is 2022’s most completed game, with nearly 6,000 users of the site reporting they have played and finished the massive open-world RPG. That’s an impressive number when you look at the runner-up games on the list. Stray, that adorable futuristic cat game, was completed by nearly 4,000 users. Meanwhile, in third with 2,500 completions, was Game Freak and Nintendo’s Switch hit, Pokemon Legends: Arceus. To see such a big and difficult game top the list is both a sign that Elden Ring is very good and also a hint at the kind of audience that is primarily using HowLongToBeat.com.
Screenshot: Howlongtobeat.com / Kotaku
But perhaps more interesting is that Elden Ring is also the most “retired” game. When users “retire” from a game on Howlongtobeat.com it means they have given up on it, either permanently or temporarily. Now, even though only 261 players officially retired from Elden Ring on the site, that’s still more than double any other game in 2022. Even if the dataset is a bit small and weird (how many people are logging into this site to admit defeat?) it’s still an interesting data point.
This all makes sense to me. Elden Ring was the most talked-about game of 2022, and with that many people playing, it makes sense that a good chunk of them might give up on it. Other data seems to suggest around half the people playing Elden Ring never reached the end. So I buy that Elden Ring could be the most completed game of 2022 while also being the game more people gave up on than anything else.
Some other interesting 2022 data from the site: Turns out Elden Ring is also on the most backlogs, has the most reviews, and is the longest game of 2022. However, Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us Part 1 is the most positively reviewed game, and Diablo Immortal is the worst-reviewed.