E3 Is Nearing Its End; How’d Ubisoft Do?

Ubisoft had a big E3 conference this year with a bunch of new and great games, with a couple low points, too. Check out our round up of Ubisoft’s highs, lows, and biggest games of E3 2016.

Highlights: LeVar Burton Helps Announce Star Trek: Bridge Crew

There aren’t many better ways to announce a TV series tie-in game than bringing out a beloved actor from it, and Ubisoft’s announcement of Star Trek: Bridge Crew did just that. LeVar Burton of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame came out on stage at Ubisoft’s press conference to announce the VR Star Trek game, although he definitely seemed more like the LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow. It was a great way to unveil Bridge Crew.

Highlights: An 8-Person Competitive Multiplayer VR Demo

They may look ridiculous, but this is a pretty cool demonstration. Eight people (including Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey) all demoed Ubisoft’s title Eagle Flight on stage, showing a good application of VR for competitive multiplayer. As most VR games on the market are currently limited in appeal and scope, it’s novel to see a fleshed-out competitive game.

Highlights: The South Park: Fractured But Whole Intro and Presentation

It continues to impress just how well Ubisoft has nailed making South Park games. The next one, Fractured But Whole, seems to have built on the already great South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the presentation of it at Ubisoft’s press conference is testament to that. Introduced by a light-hearted dig at the solemn and weighty tone of Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2 and Ghost Recon: Wildlands trailers, the presentation was then led by the irreverent South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Highlights: Trials of the Blood Dragon Announcement

Trials of the Blood Dragon looks like it’s a great game, and its announcement was pretty awesome. Wearing pink sriped jumpsuits, a representative from Trials: Evolution developer Red Lynx and the creator of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon took the stage in a professional wrestling-like introduction. They revealed the wild crossover of Trials and Blood Dragon and announced that it was available right away.

Needs Improvement: Staged Demos With Players’ Voice

There is certainly nothing new about Ubisoft’s attempt to lend a bit of additional realism to its Ghost Recon: Wildlands trailer by broadcasting players’ callouts and discussions, but this demo’s voiceover was obviously rehearsed and didn’t feel genuine. In such a scripted demo, it didn’t give us any sense of sincerity. It looks particularly strange when compared to Microsoft’s Sea of Thieves demo, which showed genuine reaction and gameplay clips from prominent YouTube personalities.

Needs Improvement: The Length of the Press Conference

E3 press conferences that aren’t Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo’s usually stay pretty short. But Ubisoft this year went long with its conference–way too long. It clocked in at around two hours, one of the longest conferences this year. And it didn’t feel like it needed to be that long–the Assassin’s Creed movie segment, the Star Trek: Bridge Crew segment, and the Ghost Recon: Wildlands demo all felt like they overstayed their welcome. We’d like to see a more compact press conference from Ubisoft next year.

Biggest Games: For Honor

We finally got to see more of For Honor, and it looks great. Ubisoft showed off a demo pitting Vikings against Samurai and it’s looking like a pretty awesome melee action game. It’s an interesting premise for a story, too: the unification of Vikings, Knights, and Samurai to fend off a malicious force. We’re excited to get more time with it in the future.

Biggest Games: Steep

Ubisoft’s big reveal of E3 2016 is its newest IP, Steep. It lets you wingsuit, ski, snowboard, and paraglide all over a bunch of open mountains, and it has robust sharing capabilities to show off your sweet stunts–or rewind your terrible failures. We went hands-on with it and came away cautiously optimistic. The controls are strange and hard to get the hang of, but it’s a title with tons of potential.

Biggest Games: Grow Up

Grow Home is a fantastic and gorgeous 3D platformer, and the sequel, Grow Up, seems like it’s going to be just as great. It was a nice surprise to see Ubisoft following up on its smaller games, and we’re hopeful that Grow Up will prove to be a fun change of pace from the massive open-world games Ubisoft is better known for.

Biggest Games: Watch Dogs 2

The greatest part of what we’ve seen of Watch Dogs 2’s version of San Francisco is that it seems relatively faithful and full of life. Ubisoft’s demo of it began on the Embarcadero and showed the street bustling with activity; it ended with protagonist Marcus running across rooftops with Coit Tower in the background. Ubisoft is attempting to improve upon the good parts of the original and iron out the rougher parts, and Marcus’ new tools seem to give even more options to players.

Of Note: Ubisoft’s Tribute to the Events in Orlando

Ubisoft has been one of the several companies who took the time to pay tribute during their E3 conferences to the victims of a horrible tragedy. E3 this year happened in the shadow of the shooting in Orlando, and it’s been a nice gesture to see game companies together decide to reference the event and honor the victims.