Net bookings were up 14% from last year to €392.1 million ($458.1 million) and sales were up 21% to €398.5 million ($465.6 million). Sure, numbers-wise, things look fine enough, even if Ubisoft gave a few interesting specifics. That's a lot! Anyway, that's the atmosphere going into Ubisoft's Q2 earnings report today, and it certainly felt like the company was playing defense. Over the last few earnings calls, Ubisoft has expressed a desire to move away from its commitment to release between three and four AAA titles each fiscal year and stated a strong interest in more free-to-play games. Then there's the more minor matter of the free-to-play question, which seems to have ruffled public and investor feathers. Ghost Recon Frontline got announced earlier this month, but its beta was delayed not a week after that announcement.įor the most part, we're not clear exactly why all these delays are happening, though a Kotaku report from July looked into what's going on with Skull & Bones specifically: reportedly a development mess where no one seemed to know what kind of game they were making and the team was burning out.

There's Riders Republic's many delays, Far Cry 6 that got pushed an entire fiscal year, Avatar, the endless treadmill of Skull & Bones delays, and the Prince of Persia remake, multiple times. There was Rainbow Six Extraction, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and Watch Dogs: Legion delayed back in 2019, and then Extraction delayed again after that. Ubisoft has been delaying multiple games, repeatedly, on an annual basis, for some time now. This was reinvigorated in light of similar allegations at Activision Blizzard and accusations that Ubisoft hadn't done enough in the past year to fix the company's culture.

Even as Ubisoft released several well-received, blockbuster games in the last few years, the French-Canadian company has nonetheless been having a time of it.įirst, and most importantly, there have been ongoing allegations of toxic work culture, leadership, and sexual harassment at the studio first publicized last year.

Prince of persia ghost of the past