Imagine it’s 2023 and you buy an Ubisoft game (bad enough) day 1, heck imagine buying any Ubisoft game day 1. There isn’t another company in the industry that games depreciate faster, in a month the gold ultra deluxe edition with be £19.99. Garbage company, love to see ACM get ragged on by the critics. 

I've been thinking about creating crawler agglomerating reviews with a focus on computing a mean bias by reviewers and producing an adjusted overall score, kind of the same way it's done with political pollsters with the likes of Project 538. Not just for games but also for movies, there's the same kind of bias on different levels with movies, sometimes it's biased against financing entities, producers, main actors, 

I think a site like this can have potential since Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes don't go this route and are seen with increasing disconnect between reviewers and users. However I don't know what is the legality of crawling and agglomerate reviews like this, I think it should be considered fair use but idk.

I think I prefer the open world Assassin's Creed but I like Angelus would love to also see a return to classic formula but one which is improved upon. AC Mirage WAS a DLC for Valhalla turned into a full game so I don't think it can be used to say "classic AC will fail" because it hasn't had the full effort of a full fledged title put into it from the beginning.

Having said that, I think my issue with recent AC is more the tone than the design, it's called Assassin's Creed but the Assassin's barely feel like they are apart of the world anymore, there is barely any focus on the creed or guild, it's more following mercenaries or fighters in their conflicts with the assassin's popping their heads in from the side-lines like "hey we're still here, help us out"

And also I will say even if open world is preferable, it can still be a lot better, I really disliked Valhalla's world.

I can't really comment on Mirage's true quality without playing it myself, but it seemed fine mechanically based on their Summer showcase demo. Maybe the parkour isn't quite up to snuff with Unity, but it at least looked on par with the other classic formula AC games to me, in that demo. 

All I can really comment on at this point is the reviews, and looking at the review summaries for the lowest scored reviews, it definitely seems like quite alot are saying that the classic AC formula feels dated at this point. Maybe they could have made iterative improvements upon the classic AC formula, but for instance for those stating the combat in Mirage feels ass, I'm not really sure if there is anything Ubisoft could have done to satisfy them. There isn't much you can do to improve the same old counterattack based AC combat that the classic games always had without making the combat no longer feel like classic AC, Ubisoft has already tried so much to improve it back before they abandoned the classic formula the first time, from cooler counterattack animations to loads of new gadgets that could be employed during combat. If all the improvements they made to the classic AC combat in Syndicate couldn't get critics to like classic AC combat, there just isn't any way to get those critics to like classic AC combat in the modern era. 

I get the feeling that even if Ubisoft had given Mirage another year of development and given it Unity style parkour and other improvements, the maximum score the game could have possibly gotten would be maybe an 82, which is still lower than Origins and Odyssey reviewed and only about tied with the rather rushed Valhalla. There are just too many critics out there who don't like the classic AC formula anymore and will never like it again.

Ultimately I think Ubisoft is best off sticking to RPG's for their main games and remakes for the classic AC fans. And it seems like that is exactly what they have planned moving forward, with rumors of AC1 and AC4 remakes being in development within the last 2 years, and leaks stating that the next 2 mainline games, Red and Hexe, are RPG's. 

AC would have been so much better if it didn't have the modern day bullshit as well, it's such a mess since Desmond's story and they clearly don't know what the hell they're doing with it. I always imagine an AC series which had no modern day stuff or magical stuff and just focused on Assassin's and Templars conflict throughout history...I don't know what purpose the modern day stuff even serves anymore.

Basic premise but you don't need magic to tell a good story from a basic good vs evil conflict story.

I'd like to see a remake of the Ezio Trilogy as one big game in the style of the open-world entries. 

I mean, an 82 would basically be around the average for modern AC.

• Black Flag - 85
• Unity - 71
• Syndicate - 77
• Origins - 85
• Odyssey - 84
• Valhalla - 83

Ubisoft titles in general lately struggle to go above 85. So high 70s, low 80s is basically the Ubisoft average in recent history, Lol.

Why I think Avatar and Star Wars will hit low 80s as well. Ubisoft's last title over 85 was Rayman Legends.

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that the 2 remakes we've heard rumors of are AC1 and AC4, when Ezio was clearly the most popular classic AC protagonist. Maybe it's a case of them being scared to remake the Ezio trilogy games because they are so beloved they fear they will be accused of ruining them by remaking them.

The AC1 remake rumor was that it was being made with reused assets from AC Mirage and would be a stopgap game between Mirage and Red to give Ubisoft more time to finish Red, but more recently we haven't anything about the AC1 remake and the most recently leak (from a very reputable leaker), states that Red is releasing next year, so clearly AC1 remake will no longer act as a stopgap between Mirage and Red. Maybe AC1 remake was either cancelled or restarted from the ground up instead of relying on recycled assets and gameplay from Mirage. 

As for AC4 remake, we heard about it more recently, supposedly Ubisoft Singapore (the Skull and Bones devs) are making it and it is only in early development and won't release for probably 3-4 more years.

Ryuu, we only know the surface of the deal.  Just know that ABK will be part of MS gaming is about all we know but if you believe merging a company as big as ABK is just that simple you are getting ahead of yourself.  There is a lot that goes into the acquisition and details we will never know.  If Bobby wanted to he could pretty much negotiate whatever position he wants and also who he reports to.  

The main point I am stating is that your use of the term Termination is vastly wrong.  Bobby will leave as I stated because its time for him to retire and he saw this huge money grabbing opportunity to do so because MS was thirsty.  Your statements make it appear as if Bobby is just going to walk into the office one day and bam, Phil is going to tell him his time is up.  That is not going to happen.  Instead as I stated, Bobby has already negotiated his retirement and he will leave when he feel like it.  He isn't going to be terminated.  He will be making a lot of decisions before and after the sale and if he so chooses, he can stay on doing whatever he has negotiated until he is ready to go.

As for being a PR disaster, I actually disagree with this.  PR stuff on the level that he has faced is pretty much small potatoes.  One thing is a constant, especially in high level C positions, if you pretty much just keep your mouth shut, gamers have a pretty short attention span and move on to something else.  None of that stuff actually going to really mean anything.

As for Bobby as CEO not making the decisions that has put the company where its at.  I believe you are letting your bias cloud your vision.  There are no decisions that get done without the CEO approval.  All C level execs report to Bobby and for a company that is not as diversified as MS, that means he does make and approve just about everything that goes on in the company.  Having sat through multiple C level exec meetings, all projects, direction of the company and day to day business deals, acquisitions you name it are discussed and approved or denied by the CEO.  Like I said, just because you do not like the guy do not get it twisted that he runs the company.  He is not managing the grunt level details but all major decisions and directions goes pass him before getting done.

You forgot Rogue which got a 73 I believe.

I think it's pretty telling that out of all those AC games from the last decade, the RPG ones overall got the highest scores with only Black Flag able to match them out of the classic formula games (and it was only able to do so because it shook up the classic formula so much by adding in all of the naval stuff with naval combat and whaling and such).

I personally think that both Syndicate and Black Flag were underreviewed by critics, as well as Odyssey and Origins, the critic averages for the rest feel about right to me.

Trust me, I like the classic AC formula games, always have (my ranking for the series has Black Flag and Syndicate both in the top 5), but the fact of the matter is that critics don't seem to like the classic AC formula any longer, and Syndicate selling like half the copies that previous classic formula AC games sold also suggest that the majority of gamers were getting bored of them as well. Ubisoft made the right call deciding to evolve the series to the RPG formula, as evidenced by the immediate upturn in both reviews and sales in the wake of 3 classic AC formula games in a row underperforming (AC Rogue, AC Unity, and AC Syndicate). 

Sales went up from 5.5m in 2 years on Syndicate to 10m+ on all 3 RPG AC games. Reviews went up from an average of about 75 on those 3 classic formula games (Unity, Rogue, and Syndicate) to an average of about 84 on the RPG games. Ubisoft made the right call, it's backed up by numbers. Ubisoft's best bet moving forward would seem to be sticking with RPG for brand new games and graphics/QoL update only remakes for the classic fans.