TORONTO — Ubisoft’s highly anticipated game released this week, with fans praising the game’s open world for letting players tackle the exact same mission in any order they please.
“It’s all about giving players choices to feel like they are really in control of the narrative,” Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said. “There are twenty seven towers in the game for the player to fortify and add to the map, and what’s so fun is that every player can choose to do the same mindless chore over and over at completely their own pace. In fact, there’s nothing stopping you from just going straight to the final boss fight, in which you have to clear out a tower and then fortify a base, but this time maybe there’s a guy there with a lot of health.”
The game’s lead developer Gene Abbott said the game’s open world capabilities took a long time to perfect.
“Games like this are really tricky to balance, but I think we found the perfect recipe to make it work,” Abbott said. “As you clear out more bases of the same four enemies in slightly different camo, you gain more abilities and weapons, but we add a couple enemies and give them a little more health. It’s all to make sure that it never feels like you’re getting more powerful, but the game also never gets more challenging as it goes on. Other game studios had written off this level of futility as impossible, but I’m proud to say Ubisoft’s team finally cracked the code.”
Players have also appreciated the level of unprecedented autonomy the game provides them.
“It’s just so crazy that I’m allowed to play the game any way I want,” Twitch streamer HaloCrash said. “I’ll be off in the jungle fortifying a base when an NPC calls me and tells me he needs me to fortify a base ten yards away, but I don’t have to go there yet if I don’t want to. I can go fortify a base on the complete other side of the map, or just hang out doing side quests where I fortify bases. It’s really putting power in the hands of players.”
At press time, Ubisoft already announced their next project, which was revealed to be just one long, interrupted trailing mission.
