2014 was an eventful year, especially marking the release period of a new generation of consoles – the Xbox One and PS4. This year also saw the release of one of the biggest flops from the development studio Ubisoft, which many fans had awaited with great hope. Do you still remember Assassins Creed Unity?
Which game is being referred to? This refers to Assassins Creed Unity, the game that was released on November 11, 2014, for the then next-gen consoles. The game still lingers in the memory of many, but not in a positive way.
Devastating bugs and errors, as well as poor optimizations, caused uproar and discontent in the community, even though the game was supposed to offer many innovations and an exciting setting in the French Revolution. Despite the new console generation or a powerful gaming PC, playing this game was not an easy endeavor. Thus, it quickly slipped for many fans of the series into the category of games that one should better not touch.
Unity was considered one of the most anticipated titles in its series
Why did Assassins Creed Unity become a flop? To understand why Assassins Creed Unity flopped, one must go back to the beginnings of development. Ubisoft began developing Unity in 2010 with a team led by Alex Amancio and James Therien. At that time, it was supposed to be one of the first titles to utilize the new hardware of the then next-gen consoles.
The setting was the French Revolution, and a new engine was developed for the graphics to create more realistic moments. There was also no shortage of new features, and the team designed a parkour system to give fans even more freedom in movement.
Although these aspects seemed very appealing at first glance, the team faced a major challenge, which was the specifications of the new consoles. According to James Therien, they did not know how powerful the consoles would be, and thus the teams behind Unity worked without a direct benchmark for the performance of the next-gen.
The game was still unknown at that time, and no one except Ubisoft knew about it until leaks on March 19, 2014, reached the gaming site Kotaku (via kotaku.com) and revealed some images along with the title.
After the leak, Ubisoft confirmed the game and also released the trailer for Unity at E3. Fans were ecstatic, and pre-orders skyrocketed despite the approaching release in October.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan until the gaming site GameSpot (via gamespot.com) released videos a few days before the release demonstrating massive bugs in the game:
- Problems with frame rate
- Significant delays in menus
- NPCs that disappeared and reappeared
- Deficiencies in collision detection
- Faceless characters
This led Ubisoft to delay the release by a few days and even gift players the first DLC. Despite the delay and many patches afterward, the game is still in a desolate state today and marks a point for Ubisoft where the development of their games should take a new direction.
One might think that Ubisoft developed Unity for a platform that at the time was not powerful enough.
What were the titles after Unity? After Unity, in 2015, came the title Assassins Creed Syndicate, which was not quite as modest. Then came titles like Origins and Odyssey (via wikipedia.com) with larger maps and new settings that enjoyed a longer development time. Valhalla, which feels like a Dark Souls, also excited players. Thus, no further game from the Ubisoft franchise overshadowed Unity.
What do you think of Assassins Creed Unity? Did you also celebrate the game at release and were you then disappointed? Or did you prefer to stay away from it? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
Assassins Creed Unity was not the only flop that Ubisoft has to show: 3 reasons why Ghost Recon Breakpoint flopped – Ubisoft speaks frankly
