E3 2016: Ubisoft

It’s Ubisoft’s 30th birthday this year, and they came out guns blazing with another solid lineup of sequels, DLC, and new IPs taking the stage. Let’s recap everything that was announced.

Just Dance 2017

In typical Ubisoft fashion, an elaborate dance sequence opened the show, which served to advertise the next Just Dance game. Not much was revealed about this year’s iteration, but predictably, it will feature new pop songs like Justin Bieber’s Sorry. Just Dance 2017 will come to all game platforms, including PC, this year, as well as the Nintendo NX next year.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands

After taking the gaming world by storm last year, Ghost Recon: Wildlands returned to the E3 stage with some fresh content to show. The new demo hinted at a plot wherein Bolivia gets overtaken by a drug cartel that uses the country’s resources to become the biggest cocaine producer in the world. The game’s open world can be explored by yourself or through up to four-player co-operative play. This demo emphasized the player’s ability to approach missions at their own pace and in their own way; to get some intel, for example, one player breached a complex while another played sniper support and later brought in a helicopter. The two then linked up with two additional teammates to actually take down their target via stealth, drone recon, cooperative takedowns, and more. Of course, things went awry, and a sprawling multi-vehicle chase brought the mission to a close. The whole thing felt a little too good to be true – a bit too polished and scripted, for example – but it certainly looks fun nonetheless.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands will be released on March 7, 2017 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole

Ubisoft had two unique VR experiences to show off; the first was Eagle Flight, and it focuses on the freedom birds experience as they take flight and soar. The game was demoed on the Oculus with a capture-the-flag PVP match set in the city of Paris after it was reclaimed by nature. In navigating the environment, your bird character can use gusts of wind to get a speed boost and areas like tunnels to break your enemies’ collective line of sight. Eagle Flight launches on all major VR platforms this fall.

The second VR game should please sci-fi fans. In Star Trek: Bridge Crew, players will get the chance to pilot and interact with a starship, flying through space and engaging in combat with enemies. You’ll have the opportunity to actually operate consoles and directly participate in a Star Trek bridge experience with your friends, and for some people, that’ll be a dream come true. Star Trek: Bridge Crew will launch on all major VR platforms this fall.

For Honor

Making its second E3 appearance, For Honor put forward another look at its world of conflict and combat with a glimpse into its single-player campaign. The demo level showcased the player character’s viking faction as they breached an enemy stronghold, complete with robust fighting mechanics against waves of minions as well as beefier, more specialized warriors. Much of the combat system, especially its lock-on targeting and parrying, reminded me a fair bit of Assassin’s Creed if that fighting system was more complex. Your offensive capabilities are many, including the ability to throw enemies off cliffs and into walls of spikes. The demo culminated in a rather technical battle against an armored samurai that made even better use of the blocking system.

Visit forhonor.ubisoft.com to sign up for the game’s alpha. For Honor launches on February 14th, 2017, which happens to be Valentine’s Day! How romantic.

Watch Dogs 2

As revealed just a few days ago, Watch Dogs 2 is coming. You now play from within DedSec, the hacker group from the first game, and the plot involves your joining forces with the group to get revenge on a system that unjustly put you behind bars. The twist this time around comes from the fact that, now that you play as a hacker, you can control much more of the world around you, including every NPC and every drivable vehicle. A controllable drone lets you sneak around enemy compounds and scout ahead. A small ground device lets you hack physical devices from a distance while maintaining a low profile. Shock devices let you lure enemies over to it before stunning them into unconsciousness. New parkour mechanics make movement even more fluid. Animations looks cleaner, gameplay looks more dense; it really does look like everything has been improved.

Watch Dogs 2 will be released on November 15th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. PlayStation players will receive all downloadable content 30 days before it comes out on other platforms. If you pre-order the Limited Edition, you’ll get a radio-controlled robot as an added extra. Also announced was a Watch Dogs movie to be developed and released in the future.

Steep

Every Ubisoft conference needs a surprise reveal at the end, and this year’s stunner is a new IP in a new genre. Steep is an extreme sporting game like you’ve never seen before, an open-world game partially set in the Swiss Alps. The demo started out with one of the characters parachuting into a treacherous range of mountains. Through something called Mountain View, you can zoom out and explore the map around you; once you’re ready to start a challenge, you can simply hop into one, and these challenges include snowboarding, skiing, parachuting, and proximity flying – think SSX, but even more insane. Every line you run throughout the game leaves a trail behind that you can examine, replay, rewind, and generally mess with to relive your craziest moments. You can also broadcast videos of your coolest moments and share your best runs as challenges with your friends. I really hope this one comes to VR at some point.

Steep ships this December for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. You can visit steepgame.com to sign up for the beta.

Additional Announcements

Through uPlay, Ubisoft Club will offer a free game each month for the next seven months, starting with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A few smaller projects were announced as well; one of these games, Grow Up, will follow a robot’s first steps into a fresh new world, and when it launches this August, you’ll get to experience its acrobatics for yourself. The other, Trials of the Blood Dragon, shows the result of what happens when you fuse the Trials franchise with the crazy retro aesthetic of Blood Dragon; if that excites you, you’re in luck, as the game is available right now. An exclusive behind-the-scenes video also shed a little more light on the production of the Assassin’s Creed movie, which hits theaters on December 21st.

With Sony’s presentation coming later tonight, we’re nearly done with our E3 keynote recaps. What do you think of the convention so far, and how did Ubisoft do this year? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.