I love a good video game redemption story, as I have emphatically expressed in the past when discussing the journey which Hello Games and No Man’s Sky went on. While of course it would be preferable that a game is released in a perfect state – representing the exact vision that the development team had for it – one of the next best things is for a title to scrounge its way out of a pit of unfulfilled promises and redeem itself through dedicated care and support.
Given enough time and effort, a team with a cohesive vision, will and the creative freedom to do so can turn even the most disappointing game into the masterpiece which it had intended to be. Here’s the thing though, in order for such rare occurrences to take place, the team in question above all else must have a concrete vision for the identity of their game – even if the launch result was not able to represent it.
This is the problem with Ubisoft. Known for their middle-of-the-road output, the publisher has in the past and present shown a commitment to making sweeping changes to its games post-launch in order to craft an overall improved experience in the long-term. Unfortunately, Ubisoft appears to have neither the vision – nor its games the sense of identity – in order to elevate them beyond just being “another Ubisoft game.”
Before going ahead, I want to briefly give Ubisoft some credit. While not applicable to every release, the publisher has in recent years shown a greater dedication to the long-term support for its games. Though this comes in various shapes, sizes and timelines, the ever-increasing fiscal danger which the publisher has found itself in has seemingly forced them to commit to a more rapid and reactive response to player feedback with its games.
The poster child for this is none other than 2024’s Star Wars Outlaws. Marketed as being the first open-world Star Wars game, Ubisoft had a lot riding on the success of this licensed title – not only due to the likely-exorbitant fees required from such a partnership with Disney – but also thanks to a number of previous high-profile disappointments. And so, when Star Wars Outlaws released and its lukewarm sales figures were only matched by its critical reception, Ubisoft had to act.
Thus would come what is perhaps one of the most clear examples of a game creator seemingly going directly against their own vision. While ultimately for the betterment of the title itself, even just a couple notable alterations to a game’s design can fundamentally change it – and Ubisoft introduced star destroying levels of changes; so much so that it is quite clear that whatever vision the team had for the game was fleeting.
As mentioned, Star Wars Outlaws launched to a rather lukewarm reception, with criticism surrounding the game involving discussions of insta-fail stealth sections; limited gunplay and stretched out checkpoints. All this, and much more, created a particular sense of identity and vision which the team at Massive Entertainment were clearly going for. Even prior to release, they said it themselves: you are not a superhuman jedi nor a Sith lord. Instead, you are Kay – an outlaw whose relative lack of firepower requires them to sneak around; hoping that they don’t encounter any enemies.
In many ways, it was clear that this sense of atmosphere and style of gameplay was an intentional part of the game’s design. Unfortunately, fans didn’t like the vision which Ubisoft presented. So what did they do? They changed it completely.
Starting with the very first title update, Star Wars Outlaws was already backtracking on its design philosophies introducing “tweaks and improvement on some challenging stealth moments”. Considering the fact that stealth was advertised as a core part of the game’s experience, already changing how it functions does not give the greatest sense of confidence in the world.
This was just the beginning however. When it came to stealth, each update introduced further sweeping changes, including but not limited to:
- Reducing your detection while rolling
- Tweaked the overall stealth experience by adjusting AI detection, the number of NPCs and their positioning, patrol pathing, camera detection and highlighting environmental opportunities to reduce player friction
- Reduced detection chances when using cover
- Implemented stealth changes to ‘False Flag' and other missions to give players more flexibility in how they approach situations without the risk of failing
- Improved enemy detection
- Improved detection signs and feedback of cameras
- Added visual indication of when an NPC starts detecting the player
- Made it clearer whether a takedown could trigger combat
While in and of themselves enough changes to drastically impact Outlaws’ stealth experience, compounding with other gameplay; economy; traversal and combat changes and Star Wars Outlaws today is a wholly unrecognisable and different beast – with just some of the combat changes being as followed:
- Added a quick throw button for using grenades
- Improved NPC combat behaviour
- Scaled ‘Wanted' difficulty based on player progression
- Removed autosave restrictions for combat/detection
- Improved enemy AI and combat behaviour
- Improved enemy tactical decision-making in combat to encourage more active management of their positioning
- Decreased enemy damage per shot while increasing the damage cadence increase over time
- Enabled the use of combat in parts of syndicate districts
- Added weak points to various enemies
- Adjusted weapon aiming (spread, recoil, etc.) to allow for more precision and management
- Updated weapon damage values for Kay for all weapons
- Increased headshot damage when hitting enemies
- Added enemy stagger to explosions
- Improved NPC cover usage during combat
- Improved camera when shooting, aiming down sights, and moving aim
- Improved enemy AI when detecting grenades and when Kay is hidden in smoke
- Improved detection when ‘in-combat' state
- Improved shooting when behind cover to prevent hitting the environment
- Improved enemy AI when moving to cover/being suppressed
Pretty much all of these changes sound positive, with Ubisoft seemingly addressing many of the biggest complaints which players had with the game. Here’s the thing though, each of these singular patch notes could alone be enough to alter the game’s original experience. When a game creator has vision, every decision, design choice and compromise is made in alignment with said vision.
For a game which is stealth focused, wanting you to feel somewhat underpowered in order to force you sneak around, even just one of the changes listed above could wholly impact the overall experience, pacing, and identity. For example, a seemingly mild change such as “Adjusted weapon aiming (spread, recoil, etc.) to allow for more precision and management” is enough to displace the game’s original intent. Making players a more accurate marksman immediately affects the sense of tension, danger and risk during any stealth sections as one missed shot could alert everyone around you. Now, with the ability to pop a clean headshot from far away, that sense of danger, risk and fear is gone.
That is just looking at a single patch note and its impact on the experience. But game design decisions are not made in isolation. Every single one of the changes above make an increasing and exponential impact on Outlaws’ identity – from the increased headshot damage to the amount of camera sway, and even the choice to switch from Performance to Quality Mode as the default on console shows a wavering sense of vision.
While of course the choice in graphical fidelity is welcome, most casual players are unlikely to even open the options menu, meaning the default experience needs to be well thought out, balanced and designed with intent. Opting for the 30fps mode as default makes sense for a game like Star Wars Outlaws, with its emphasis on using high-end rendering techniques, cinematic flair and even lens distortion which replicates that of the original trilogy of films. For some reason however, the team decided to ship the game out with performance mode as the default – only to quickly change it around post-launch. Similarly, while the game was also almost entirely advertised in an ultra-wide cinematic aspect ratio, Outlaws didn’t even fully support the format at launch.
All the above is still far from the complete list of alterations made in the months following Outlaws’ launch. Other miscellaneous – yet equally as impactful – changes, this time for general gameplay and traversal, include:
- Improved the speeder's response and reaction when called
- Improved speeder collision with the environment to reduce being knocked off the speeder
- Improved speeder travel by reducing collisions with objects in the environment
- Kay now holsters a two-handed weapon in more situations such as when climbing, grappling or using the speeder
- Added the ability to free fire Kay's blaster while riding the speeder
- Kay is now thrown off the speeder when hit by a melee attack
- Added the ability to press jump twice when near a grapple point to activate it
- Improved attaching and releasing input when using the grappling hook
- Increased spawn rates for speeder races
- Miyuki Traders have been upgraded to full vendors and now sell passive system upgrades in addition to previous resource items
- Added new space contracts for all players that include multiple challenge types
Once again, these seemingly small tweaks have an overall major impact on Outlaws’ ‘intended’ experience. Once a somewhat clunky and risky mode of traversal for escape, requiring a meter build up in order to fire at the enemies, Kay can now easily blast any adversaries around her at any time, all the while maintaining a greater sense of control of the speeder. This fundamentally changes the way that a player will interact with the world around them.
Similarly, though admittedly done in a rather poor manner, Outlaws’ limiting of your weaponry – in having you constantly drop the guns which you’ve picked up off of enemies – served a function. Seemingly inspired by the likes of Uncharted, Outlaws’ gunplay was intended as a sort of continuously moving and somewhat hectic affair in which you would be constantly and consistently picking up other guns, expending their ammo and then picking up another.
The limited ammo and inability to hold onto these guns purposefully pushed players to use the tools given to them, instead of hoarding them for later “just in case”. This system has of course been turned on its head as a result of these tweaks. Even the changes made to trading can have a notable impact on the game’s economy – affecting all elements from progression to the vibes.
These are all design decisions which Ubisoft would have considered during the earliest days of Star Wars Outlaws’ development – or at the very least they should have considered. Am I being a bit harsh? Absolutely. With the typical developer/publisher relationship in mind, what likely took place was that the creatives at Ubisoft had a vision for Star Wars Outlaws – that being a somewhat challenging, stealth focused game with a mix of pre-planning, and flexible emergent gameplay when all hell inevitably breaks loose.
Be it due to a lack of time, budget, mismanagement or simply a failure to execute on the vision, reception towards Outlaws was mid, and so too were its sales. The higher-ups at Ubisoft likely saw this and panicked, with even the power of the Star Wars IP failing to keep the game floating above water. With neither care nor concern for the original game’s vision, those at the top then took their golden executive lift down to the offices of the ‘workers’ with one simple command: “fix the game.”
What does this mean? Who knows exactly, and so the dev team opted to address the game’s various complaints one at a time. The insta-fail sections are annoying? Get rid of them. The game doesn’t look as good as the pre-release material? Change the default graphics mode. The weapons feel discouraging to use? Turn them into laser beams. Bit by bit, with each change and alteration made, the original identity of Star Wars Outlaws was stripped away from it. Now, what you're left with is a game which while admittedly objectively better, feels more generic, sanitised and somewhat vision-less.
The buck doesn’t stop with Star Wars Outlaws however. While one of the more clear examples in years, the early changes made to the more recently-released Assassin’s Creed Shadows seems to indicate them once again heading in a similar familiar direction. While the launch reception towards Assassin’s Creed Shadows was certainly more positive than Outlaws’, its overall experience still remained far from perfect.
The 4th entry in the series’ RPG-styled AC offerings, Assassin’s Creed Shadows managed to improve greatly over 2020’s Valhalla. Even so, in the immediacy following its release, Ubisoft committed to making a ton of changes (mostly for the better). Though far less extensive when compared to Outlaws (due to being a more recent release), some of the biggest changes coming to Shadows over the course of the next year include:
- New Ally, abilities, activities, and additional backstory that will permanently impact the game
- Multiple parkour updates, stating with:
- Height-gaining back-ejects
- Height-gaining side-ejects
- Vertical Ledge Jump allowing both characters to jump and grab onto awnings and lower overhangs
- Horse-auto follow and faster speeds
- Speed improvements
- Mastery nodes reset
- Can turn off weapon glints
- expanding the Alarm System and are bringing it to the Open-World to give you even more challenge!
- Investigation board shortcut
As mentioned, Shadows only released relatively recently, and so Ubisoft has not yet had the chance to wholly alter its identity. Still, as was the case with Star Wars Outlaws, each of the above patches could fundamentally change the way you play and experience the game.
Horse auto-follow makes traversal trivial and mindless – making the strongest aspect of Shadows, its environmental visuals more easily ignorable. Similarly, while the mastery node reset is a welcome addition as it allows for more experimentation, this now removes the careful considerations which players needed to make and plan for previously in order to more directly role play in this RPG.
Parkour in Shadows was designed in a way to discourage the practice when playing as Yasuke due to his relative lack of skills and heavier build in this regard compared to Naoe. Assuming the aforementioned parkour improvements come to both Naoe and Yasuke, then Ubisoft will have once again sanitised one of the game’s biggest design decisions.
As a champion of accessibility, I welcome changes which can make any game more approachable and available to as many people as possible – so long as it does not clash with the creator’s original intent. Pretty much all of these changes made are seen as being positive, ultimately making for a more agreeable experience. The issue isn’t in that these features exist at all, but that they have come (or are arriving) long after launch and in direct contrast with the game’s original experience.
Am I more likely to play Assassin’s Creed Shadows once all the updates have been released as compared to its launch state? Of course, and in this regard, Ubisoft has done the correct thing in wanting to improve the game post-launch. The thing is, with so many drastic changes released in a sporadic and seemingly disconnected manner to the rest of the game, it feels less like Ubisoft are shooting for the stars, missing and then trying to correct for the missed trajectory.
Instead, the company appears to have just needed to get the game off the ground first – and would then worry about any issues as and when they encountered it. Or in the worst case, Ubisoft were shooting for the stars, they missed, and so the executives told them to aim at the sun instead; changing the mission statement all the while.
Ubisoft is a weird company. Anytime a new game is announced from the publisher, it is presented with a strong sense of direction, vision and identity. Unfortunately, this vision is rarely met come the game’s official launch day – leading to a response from the team which ultimately undoes many of the design decisions that made the game what it was. This is why Ubisoft has no vision – and its games lack identity.
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KitGuru says: What do you think of Ubisoft’s output in recent years? Would you rather they stick to their guns when it comes to game design principles, or do you appreciate how reactive they are to critical reception? Let us know down below.
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KitGuru Games: Ubisoft Has No Vision And Its Games Lack Identity first appeared on
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