Ubisoft listed the games it plans to release in the 2023-2024 fiscal year during an emergency investor call earlier today. It gives fans an idea of which big releases are on their way for the second half of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, including at least one Ubisoft icon and other big franchises.
Ubisoft went through something of a rough patch during the first part of its current fiscal year, which began in April 2022 and runs until this March. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Just Dance 2023 underperformed, according to a recent press release, and the company responded by canceling three unannounced games. Ubisoft has also announced further delays to Skull and Bones, whose troubled development is stretching into its tenth year.
Ubisoft held today’s investor call to ease concerns about the company’s financial future. While the company did not give exact dates for the upcoming games, Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora are both on track for a mid-to-late 2023 or early 2024 release. Ubisoft likewise plans to launch Skull and Bones somewhere during this period, assuming no further setbacks occur. The publisher also stated that it still has several more unannounced games in the pipeline, “including one big one,” though Ubisoft did not indicate what those might be.
Set in 9th century Iraq, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a deliberate throwback to the original Assassin’s Creed. While separated from the original game’s events by hundreds of miles and at least three centuries, it depicts a version of the Assassins that’s much closer to how they appeared in the 2007 game. Assassin’s Creed Mirage trades the recent games’ large open-world environments and RPG mechanics for a more linear, story-focused experience reminiscent of the original.
Meanwhile, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an open-world action-adventure game in the universe of James Cameron’s Avatar films. Players will take control of a Na’vi and explore a never-before-seen region of Pandora called the Western Frontier. Developers haven’t revealed much about Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but it will see players defend the Western Frontier from the series antagonist, the Resources Development Administration. Massive Entertainment announced Frontiers of Pandora in 2017 but missed the original 2022 release window.
Finally, Ubisoft Singapore started work on the pirate-themed action-adventure game Skull and Bones in 2013. Originally intended as an expansion for Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Skull and Bones underwent multiple changes in scope and vision and exceeded its budget numerous times. The game’s latest shift in direction came in 2020, with the current version of Skull and Bones being a tactical naval combat game set in the Indian Ocean during the 1600s.
Source: IGN