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Back when last year Assassin & # 39; s Creed Origins was still a fairly new game, Ubisoft found an unusual way to brag about it. In a press release issued three and a half months after its launch, the company said: "The average game time per player should almost double."
The claim had strange reservations. First of all, it was a projection, based on how the players would play over a full year. Second, for a reason that you can probably guess, he ruled out the sprawling 2013 game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
Anyway, it made sense that the average playing time increases for The origins. The playable card was huge and full of things to do that Assassin & # 39; s Creed before that. The game was also designed to keep players hooked with a post-publication content net and this strategy must have worked.
Ubisoft has been experimenting for years with ways to prevent players from Assassin & # 39; s Creed games after finishing the story. Years ago, the publisher introduced competitive multiplayer into the series, but although its "cat and mouse" design was an interesting change from firing games and online strategy games it has never really made it's way. After several suites, they dropped it. Now, it becomes clear that Ubisoft has a new strategy for the series: a constant stream of post-publication content. It's an approach that has become ubiquitous in the gaming industry, not just in service games like World of Warcraft and destiny, but in everything, first-person shooters Kirby Games. Look even this week tomb Raider, which should receive new tombs every month from October to April next year.
A month before the next big one Assassin & # 39; s Creed Thu, OdysseyScott Phillips, head of the game, promises "our most ambitious support ever," he said in a video of the game's content calendar that convincingly corroborates his argument.
Odyssey is set to have months of free and paid content. The main offers seem to be a set of episodes that will alternate between the free versions of "Lost Tales of Greece" and the paying chapters of two "story arches" in three parts, one relating to the first bearer of the hidden blade of Assassins. and the other on Atlantis. (Yes, as in the lost city of Atlantis.)
The premium episodes of the scenic bow are the main offer of the $ 40 game package. They are ready to go out about every six weeks, with the free release of Lost Tales. It's unclear exactly how all this will be distributed, but the content schedule shown in today's trailer shows that Odyssey Players participating in this plan could watch a new episode every few weeks, from November or December to late spring. This would be more common than The originsSo-called dubbing game plan that included free quests and two big expansions in January and March. (For memory, Assassin & # 39; s Creed Since the beginning, the extensions have been published after the publication, but nothing beats a calendar The origins.)
It is unclear to what extent the Odyssey and The origins the plans are actually, although the Odyssey we have the impression that it will be proposed piecemeal, with less stretching of the game being in stasis. The origins He had two big additions during his January and March expansions – the latter was particularly good – but he also discreetly received a lot of free quests. Each of his paid extensions was preceded by the release of a free quest, just like the horde mode of the game. In addition, he had a short quest that went through with Final Fantasy. (The corresponding crossover in Final Fantasy XV was much more elaborate but the The origins crossover was neat for what he was.)
No matter how it works, it's clear that Odyssey will get a lot of things. This product will expand a game that already seems to be gigantic. During the current cycle of preliminary threshing Odyssey, the creators of the game are already promising the franchise's largest card game and a story that lasts 100 hours or more.
Since Ubisoft started to show Odysseysome franchise enthusiasts noticed some things that seemed to be missing. High enough, oddly enough, it's the Assassins. Odyssey occurs before last year The origins, which described the creation of the Order of the Assassin and, in an expansion (note what they did there …), showed the first fraternity of the Assassins in action. Odyssey, which is a few centuries ago The origins, does not even have the hidden blade of the series as a weapon. This has led to confusion and, in some quarters online (among others, the skeptic It subreddit), an aggravation that Odyssey could miss a Credo and Assassins.
Enter the first expansion, announced today, and its promise to let players fight alongside the first bearer of the hidden blade. This blade is prominently featured in the flagship marketing image of the game's publishing content, dominating the YouTube vignette of the new trailer. Fans speculate that the man with the blade is Darius, a Persian assassin referenced in 2009 Assassin's Creed II and again last year The origins, even though it was thought that he had died just before the era in which Odyssey is defined Maybe it is him. Maybe not.
By enticing potential players to post-publication content promises, developers need to do a careful balancing. If players feel deprived of too many games in favor of add-ons and pre-order bonuses, they often revolt. It's a manipulative game: with, say, WWE 2K, the publisher intentionally retained one of the most interesting new members of the wrestling company's band Ronda Rousey as a bonus character you receive immediately if you pre-order it. With OdysseyPlayers want to see characters with hidden blades – bona fide assassins or proto-killers in the game – and Ubisoft says you'll have to pay more to scratch them.
Part of the Ubisoft process turning Assassin & # 39; s Creed in a service game has been added timed events. Last year, with The originsUbisoft also attempted to catch players by activating high-level special boss battles every two weeks. They had not done that before, and inexperience showed. A month after the game, these fights were too difficult for half of the players to try. Ubisoft seems to want to refine this idea with Odyssey, offering weekly appearances of mercenaries and high-level ships, as well as the promise of adding mythological foes, which would be one more reason to keep playing.
One way to hook the players is to let them continue pecking the game in the hope that it will offer a new pleasure. It works best for booty games, which for many years, Assassin & # 39; s Creed was not. Players could collect swords or outfits for their characters, but the game systems were not based on the frequent acquisition of items of varying quality, for example: Diablo or destiny. Last years The origins went full Diablo by adding an abundance of random color caliber gears acquired during fights, quests or races. There seems to be a lot more equipment to enter Odyssey, and today's trailer shows that it will be possible to obtain even more by using a "special currency" obtained by completing daily or weekly contracts.
In early summer, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that Assassin & # 39; s Creed would not have a new version in 2019. The series usually comes out once a year, with rare cases of jumps. For his precedent It cycle, Ubisoft launched The origins at the end of October and finished the content after the release in March. For this one, they last longer, starting with a game launch in early October and not finishing their seasonal content until spring or spring. It is actually surprising that they do not try to stretch it any longer. The company has proposed content listings for year 2 for more multiplayer games such as The division, Rainbow Six Siege, and Ghost Recon Wildlands. It goes without saying that they could do something similar with a solo game, especially a game as extensive as Odyssey is likely to be.
In addition to all this, Ubisoft weighs the prospect of doing two remastered Assassin & # 39; s Creed Games-III and Release-for people who buy the season ticket, and they promise additions of a Discovery mode and a New Game Plus, both added after the release.
In this age of online gaming, many have wondered how big publishers could succeed in creating single-player games. With their increasingly service-oriented approach Assassin & # 39; s Creed, Ubisoft could show a workable model. We can still see the singular story of Sony's solo success as God of the war but the trend is rather to a menu where you buy your meal, pay extra for a dessert and maybe get some free fries on the table between classes. Publishers want to keep us at the table, hoping we can decide to buy a drink or two.
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