Ubisoft Forward has come and gone, and what we learned was pretty straightforward. Watch Dogs: Legion and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are still Ubisoft’s main focuses for this year, but the futuristic battle royale Hyper Scape will be ready to play soon as well. Far Cry 6 is also in the works (in case you didn’t catch all the leaks last week), and Ubisoft’s mobile games continue to, well, be mobile games.
Also, if you tuned in primarily to score your free copy of Watch Dogs 2, don’t worry: Ubisoft’s login servers weren’t working for anyone, and the company will issue free copies in the near future. We don’t know how, exactly, but if you stay tuned to the Ubisoft Support Twitter account, we should hear something pretty soon.
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Watch Dogs: Legion
The biggest chunk of Ubisoft Forward was dedicated to Watch Dogs: Legion. This open-world stealth game takes place in a near-future London, where technofascism is on the rise, and ordinary civilian-hackers team up to liberate the city.
Tom’s Guide got to go hands-on with Watch Dogs: Legion last week, so check our preview for more information about the game. The trailers and gameplay segments that Ubisoft showed off were pretty similar to what we got to play.
However, we also got a bit of welcome news from Phil Spencer, head of Xbox. Watch Dogs: Legion will support Microsoft’s Smart Delivery program, so those who buy a copy on Xbox One will get a free upgrade to an Xbox Series X version later this year. The game will come out for current-gen platforms on October 29, with a next-gen version to follow soon after.
Hyper Scape
Ubisoft has teased its futuristic battle royale game Hyper Scape already, but we finally got a full trailer and a deeper technical dive today. This multiplayer shooter stars a diverse assortment of heroes who compete against each other a digital battlefield called Crown Rush.
The pitch is this: A few years from now, the real world is inhospitably dreary, which means that people choose to spend most of their time in a colorful, lively datascape, competing in a popular game called Crown Rush. But something shady is happening in the game, and players will have to compete amongst themselves to solve the mystery.
Hyper Scape seems to have a fairly standard battle royale setup, in that it will drop a huge number of players into a battlefield, then let them fight it out with a variety of weapons and tools. Each player will also be able to make use of “hacks,” which can alter the datascape to allow special skills, such as teleportation or morphing into a giant, bouncing ball.
The game is now in open beta on PC, so if you want to check it out, visit Ubisoft’s website.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
It’s been two years since the last Asssassin’s Creed game, and we’ve moved from ancient Greece to medieval England. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla stars Eivor: a Viking warrior trying to help his or her clan settle in a new country. You know the drill: There’s stealth, combat and a meticulously researched story that mixes historical fact with science-fantasy “what-if” scenarios.
Tom’s Guide had an extensive hands-on with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, where we covered most of the same information as what Ubisoft Forward shared. It looks like a promising title, particularly if you were hoping to revisit England after the well-received Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.
Far Cry 6
The only brand-new major game we heard about at Ubisoft Forward was Far Cry 6 — which technically leaked a little while ago, but at least now we can watch a full trailer.
Giancarlo Esposito plays a Latin American dictator, who teaches his son about the “necessity” of limiting the population’s liberties. It’s very ambitious, but we haven’t seen any gameplay yet, so it seems safe to say that we’ll learn more about the game over the next few months.
Ubisoft Forward: Other announcements
Here’s a short list of everything else Ubisoft showed off:
- Brawlhalla is coming to iOS and Android on August 6.
- Might and Magic: Era of Chaos is still up and running on iOS and Android.
- Tom Clancy's Elite Squad will guest-star Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell, and make its way to mobile platforms soon.
- Rainbow Six Siege is celebrating its five-year anniversary.
We’ll also see at least one more Ubisoft Forward presentation before the end of the year. Tom’s Guide will put together a page on how to watch it as soon as we get more information.
