Nah the hilarious thing is that Ubisoft has some games that are awesome. Steep has incredible mountain design and general design flow to the game, Ghost Recon Breakpoint and Wildlands both look really fun especially with the first person mod. Without all the stupid nonsense attached Riders Republic is a multiplayer playground for a potentially awesome experience. The Far Cry series can often feel like a sports game franchise in that it is hard to point to a single release or moment Far Cry has been The Best Big New Thing, but it is undeniably a very solid series in terms of open world FPS action. I mean the fact that Far Cry Primal exists and is a decent game really speaks to how much potential there is in Ubisoft’s craftsmanship, they just ruin their own games by having them be associated with the company Ubisoft.

In general the physical open world design of many Ubisoft games is extravagant, gorgeous and intimidating in extent (though ultimately the “map janitor” style design undermines the physical beauty of Ubisoft’s alternate worlds… which I imagine is another higher level choice forced upon game designers working for Ubisoft).

What makes it hilarious is that the apparent value of a company like Ubisoft is that it makes the value of game ideas and projects under its umbrella more valuable, more polished and more likely to be purchased by customers… and yet I can say with certainty there are 5 or so Ubisoft games I would spend $10+ no question if I woke up tomorrow and they were no longer owned by Ubisoft and were owned by an indie developer.

Literally the only reason I haven’t bought quite a few games from Ubisoft is Ubisoft, they reduce the value of their own games by being associated with them, I cannot understate this enough.

I believe Ubisoft probably quantitatively makes the value of IPs under its company name less valuable to people, if the function of a business is to bring value that can be turned into profit Ubisoft is an anti-business. It takes in raw materials and makes them less valuable on the marketplace after it has processed those raw materials for a high production cost.

Prince of Persia sands of time, Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman, Splinter Cell, etc. They were very prolific back when they and the rest of the industry understood that you couldn’t just bet all your money on a single title all the time, you had to have some dog-shit movie tie-ins and terrible Barbie games to keep the lights on.

There are alternatives like Manor Lords that can scratch that itch. Ones that aren’t by a predatory, anti-consumer company and aren’t infected with Denuvo malware.