The Dark Age Of Ubisoft 

That thumbnail is SO GOOD man

For a company that pushes player choice and agency in gameplay, Ubi certainly knows how to not respect that in the newer ACs.

The difference between these longer videos and your more routine ones are night and day, I love it

The last two rayman games showed that Ubisoft are more than capable of making creative and well made masterpieces its just a shame that these games dont sell anywhere nearly as good as your typical rehashed and reskinned far cry/AC.

Ubisoft always has such incredible ideas and concepts but they always seem content to barely scratch the surface and do the bare minimum with them from a gameplay and lore perspective. There games aren't bad and can be pretty fun but just seem un inspired for the most part

A Moment of Silence for Rayman, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Driver, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Beyond Good & Evil, Trials, Watchdogs and Assassins Creed. I Still Remember When Assassins Creed was good.....those were the days. R.I.P. 2007-2014

I still think we're in the dark age of Ubisoft

It is known that the directors responsible for toxic work environment were also responsible for crushing creativity and not listening to their teams. Some Ubisoft employees worked on new projects for a year and one single director could destroy that project without any proper reasoning or debate within the company. In short, directors had huge centralized power, which explained both abuses and short-sighted decisions on game design and concepts. // I say had (past tense), but I have no idea if Ubisoft changed its leadership model since some directors were fired. I doubt it based on recent game announcements that chase trends and smell like the marketing study team made all the decisions.

I remember picking up Splinter Cell Blacklist at release with skepticism thinking it was going to be an uninspired mess, but it was actually awesome and became my favorite game in the series.

At 1:12 you nailed it: I recently played through Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (starting Two Thrones soon!) and I was blown away at how well they hold up even in 2022. I couldn't believe that the company that made THOSE games is the same company we have today. It's chilling.

This is exactly how I’ve been feeling about Ubisoft for so long. This was an amazing video brother! Seriously keep up the good work!

This would be my plan if I was in charge at Ubisoft- Splinter Cell- Chaos Theory like, big but tight levels after the remake of 1. SpiesVsMercs- FTP, similar to Blacklist but without the mixed team modes. Ghost Recon- sp+co-op, huge separate levels, gear (armour, weight & camo) physical values. Rainbow Six- Zero Hour/Ready Or Not like, campaign like R6Patriots + ai orders (no silly cosmetics). FarCry- Dinosaur tamer & hunter. AC- return to smooth parkour and social stealth, hitman like in open world. S&B- Black Flag without AC stuff +co-op. POP- Remake & fix Warrior Within’s tone. Rayman- Ubi art sequel. Driver- VR option with film director mode also playable in VR holding the camera. Red Steel- gritty yakuza story Watch Dogs- Set characters with different abilities. Call Of Juarez- sp/coop heist story & br. Zombi 2- claustrophobic survival horror with optional online invasion mode. Get the Mission Impossible license

There was a time where Ubisoft was my favorite developer/publisher. Of course, that was a long time ago, and whats happened to Ghost Recon should be a crime

Ubisoft from 2001-2009 was god tier. After that it’s been downhill

Here's an idea for the next "The Dark Ages of" series, Konami. Above all the gaming companies that have fallen from grace, none were as painful and as tragic as Konami's fall. Where do I even begin? Well, I don't know. You to decide Matty.

Ezios family will forever remain the theme for AC.

"Women don't sell" was in reference to the to Aya from AC Origins, who was originally meant to be the main character before she was sidelined for Bayek

Very proud of the work on this one my dude. Much love and keep being a gem in the industry ✌️

Matty, these kind of videos is why I follow you. Love the humor and the in-depth dives! Can’t wait for your next deeper dive vid!

Great project video, dude. Really well done.

Ubisoft has had the most stale writing for almost a decade

At least Unity tried to reinvent the AC genre like we had not seen before. The problem was they scrapped this new vision after Syndicate to “broaden their player-base” rather than keeping AC as the unique IP that it was. They scrapped a great idea due to their own mistakes rather than refining and polishing it to perfection, which baffles me beyond all comprehension.

Great video Matty, but I would have liked to see Rayman included in this video. Rayman was truly something that spoke to me as a child and I am really sad that Ubisoft own the IP to that franchise. We will most likely never see a Rayman again after Legends. Its just so sad that Ubisoft is the way they are now. Hopefully they are bought out and we can finally see some good output from of their dead or stagnant IPs.

Finally able to check it out. Good stuff, Matty! Love the skits as always

The only way for Ubisoft to go back to it’s glory days at this point is either for all of it’s long time upper management to be sacked, or for someone to come in and acquire them and tell them “NO!”. I honestly don’t think the company can get back on track if Yves and people close to him are left in charge. They’ve shown extreme disregard when it’s come to the culture/workplace allegations. They’ve shown that they don’t seem to be willing to listen to their developers who aren’t fans of their initiatives to push microtransactions/crypto/NFTs. Their focus no longer seems to be on making games, but building the platforms to milk consumers with. Even if that comes at the cost of their own platforms competing with each other for users.

So true! I have recently gone back and replayed a few of the older AC games. 3, Unity, Syndicate on PC and Black Flag on SwitchOLED. FYI, a lot of AC games on Switch, and BF looks great on the small screen. These older game are really really good. Even Unity, which got trashed back in the day for bugs is still a beautiful game all these years later. It really is very pretty still and of course the parkour in Unity is top notch.... Don't get me started on Blood Dragon and how far Far Cry has fallen!

Great video man, watching this and this video made me realize how much I miss the heart and soul the developers used to put into the old Assassin's Creed games. Sure, there have been some good AC games in the past couple years, but they lack the feel and depth the old games had, in favor of squeezing you dry of money like Wouldn't be surprised if in the next AC game, it would cost 9.99 just for the hidden blade

I miss the old Ubisoft. I've been playing The Ezio Trilogy.

Nice work on this Matty, keep ‘em coming!!

One of the things overlooked in this video is the ubiart initiative in the early 2010s with the likes of rayman legends, child of light and valiant hearts which are some of ubisofts best games

Those AC2/Brotherhood OSTs always give me the chills...

Fantastic video. I was listening to it on a short drive home and now I'm home l, sitting in front of GoWR on PS5 watching the entire video.

I miss old Ubisoft, games like the early Splinter Cell games, AC2, ACB, AC3, AC Black Flag, Far Cry 2 and 3, and early Ghost Recon games were so fucking great. Now every single one of their games feel like the same game, an open world bloated with repetitive objectives and side missions, hundreds of useless collectibles and micro transactions. Ubisoft has fallen off so hard and it’s sad to see, but they deserve it.

A big part of this era or gaming being great for me was that magic of being a kid and not knowing anything about game development/publishers. Seeing the first assasins creed in game stop and thinking "that looks cool" and having that sense of self discovery. Same with oblivion for me. Now I know everything about every game I'd be interested in before I buy it. Simpler times

The dark age is now, their value is less than Bungie.

assassins creed will always be the most sad for me, yeah origins and valhalla are cool here and there (not odyssey) but man they are nothing like the story telling in the older games.

Love this video! I would love to see more “anthology” content from u

I’ve enjoyed these Dark Age videos but this one was fantastic! The structure is great and the work you put into it really shows. Keep up the great work Matty!

Batman vengeance was the first REALLY good Batman game behind Arkham asylum

This was a great video Matty! You should do more of these! Looking at the success or downfalls of certain companies.

We can give ubisoft all the great feedback we want, and so long it stays aligned with thier cookie cutter templates, we will still be disappointed. I seriously doubt Ubisoft can deliver anything with any sort of creativity. Make it a looter shooter, make that a hero shooter, Make this a Battle Royale, let's add NFTs, let's make R6 an alien zombie shooter, let's make a generic COD clone. Let nothing have a personality, online only games, monetization over storytelling and HOMOGENIZE, USE THE TEMPLATE, CLUTTER THE HUD, MAKE ANOTHER FAR CRY. They are just so corporate and stern in thier mediocrity today. Even if they make something genuinely good, with interesting concepts, it's probably buried in a bunch of junk. They take chances and "innovate" in all the wrong things. Thier games feel "Great Value". OK but nothing particularly good when if they just tried harder they have Great games. Devs I'm sure want to make awesome games, but it seems higher ups dont really care what made thier game franchises special, the art of creating videogames. The truth is they don't care about fun games and awesome stories anymore.

Didn't even mention Uplay Were they would reward you with points from one game to earn prizes in another no other game publisher did that and that just fizzled out

Very cool thumbnail. Props to the artist!

That obscure Neon Genesis Evangelion background music while you were talking about the Ubisoft X Capcom deal, sealed my sub. Good shit.

It’s Moss. It’s too bad that Splinter cell died. I guess I just scared Fisher away.

If video game devs were pizza chains, Ubisoft would be Little Caesar’s.

There was a time that when you saw the ubi-logo on a game you knew it would be good. Nowadays it's the exact opposite.

This ties into the theory I have of development companies taking on the villain names of their respected franchises. I.E. Assassin's Creed now being developed by Abstergo Industries, or Halo by 343 (Guilty Spark).

Company became very corporate like EA. Not allowing some originality

i've played AND finished every AC to date and it's scary how game after game you notice how stale and out of new ideas they become, what's left for me at this point at least is enjoying the detail they put into them as a historical re creation of a certain period in time, but when it comes to gameplay and writing, it's just sad and boring for the most part.

Almost 20000 people work in Ubisoft it's gonna be huge procedure to acquire them That few company in the gaming world could manage ( realisticly only Microsoft...)

This Dark Age will keep going on because they receive a lot of profits from their MTX system. They knew people will keep buying their games and using the monetization.

Assassin creed 2 will always be my favorite assassins creed game man I remember coming home from school excited to play it was probably the first game i 100%. What they did to the series now is just painful man I bought Valhalla at launch and still haven’t beat it

I will always look back on ubisoft with fond memories. I will never forget growing up putting the story together on my own when it came to assassin's creed. I still think the music for the assassin's creed series (especially 2) is underrated.

It's no coincidence Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda and now Activision want in on Game Pass... to sell their micro transactions

My childhood shelf was lined with games from Ubisoft.From Sam to Jade.From the Rabits to the Assassins. Sadly that all changed.Ac2 was thier last game i bought at full price.Even thou i have played some of thier games in recent years it has gotten to a point that i dont even watch trailers or gameplay.Was hopeing FC6 would shake things up.... oh boy was i wrong. RIP UBisoft....you will be missed

Really great video brother.. took me back to younger days.

Ubisoft's creative issues partly stem from EA's attempted takeover of the company in 2004, which spooked their leadership into focusing more on profit and less on creative risks (same goes for the 2016 Vivendi fiasco). Another underappreciated factor is the mass exodus of key creative talent over the last fifteen years, especially Michel Ancel and Patrice Desliets.

I hope the smaller side Assassins Creed game that’s in the works turns out like the old games and maybe a bit like Hitman

I was hoping you'd talk about rayman, I need another 3d rayman game

I’m so happy to hear that Matty loved GRAW! GRAW Was my very first online shooter and I can’t even begin to guess how many hours I played that game online on my 360. I’ve made friends playing Graw that I still game with to this day.

Fantastic video Matty, more of this Matty please! 👍

Great vid, Matty. More history of games and the industry please!

The Ezio Trilogy, Far Cry 3 and Rayman were the last Ubisoft games I really cared about playing.

Great video Matty, really enjoyed it.

Great job on the video Matty.

Kind of puzzled why you didn't start with Rayman in 1995. It was probably their first real big commercial success. Ubisoft also acquired some significant subsidiaries by 2001 too (Redstorm: Tom Clancy, Blue Byte: Anno and Settlers, Broderbund: Prince of Persia and Myst, Strategic Simulations: AD&D RPGs and Warhammer 40k Strat), so they were already a AAA publisher with access to lots of IP by then. How is ZombiU trend chasing? That was a remake of the very first game they developed and released on a system that was quite experimental. That doesn't seem to fit the definition of trend chasing from what I see. That looks a lot more like risk taking and innovating.

creativity cost money that the capital would never ever thought of letting go. Its better and safer to release used formulas for new games to guarantee the money for the capital's pockets

The irony of this being about "the dark ages" of Ubisoft while the thumbnail has some of their best games. But yeah, we're actively in the dark ages of Ubisoft right now. The Mario + Rabbids games are literally the only things good that they're still making

Great video. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Bare minimum! No depth no passion, the magic is gone!

Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast. - Ron Burgundy

Just letting gamers know Rockstar isn't far behind. They have bent the knee and will no longer offend LGBT crowd in GTA. Ya know, the IP BUILT on offending EVERYONE. Video Games are in such a sad state along with Comics and Movies. Glad I grew up when ppl could take a fucking joke and didn't need everything toned down because meh offended. Even GTA remasters of Vice City and San Andreas (which look horrible) are censored in many scenes from the original. Such a pathetic world atm.

I haven't played a ubisoft game in over 10 years

I miss old Ghost Recon. The second they went third person with that IP was the exact moment they lost the point of those games.

fantastic video Matty!

This showed up at my homepage and I almost ignored it because it wasn't your regular thumbnail and when I scrolled far down past this video I was like: "Waaait, the guy in that thumbnail looks like Matty doesn't he?" _Scrolls back up_ Me: "Oh!"

13:51 yeah the 1989 version I played ALL THE TIME as a kid. It's well worth your time Matty, it is BRUTAL.

Will be watching your other Dark studio takes

High effort videos like this are like gold

Origins was pretty good in my opinion. Ubisoft sort of redeemed themselves at least in my eyes when they made it. Spoiler warning: I think the hate was simply from how Bayek's son died and his conclusion was rushingly wrapped up within less than an hours time of missions. Odyssey and Valhalla however is when they, in my opinion, took their freshly washed clothes and jumped right back into a murky mud pit and got dirty once more. Everyone was left wondering "If Ubisoft wanted to tell a different story, why not create a new series and NOT call it Assassins Creed when it has nothing remotely to do with either faction of Assassins or Templars?" At least that's how I and all the people I've spoken to that were fans of the series felt.

Minor correction: Prince of Persia was 3D in 1999 on the Dreamcast/PC.

I'm convinced Matty's accent in the "justice burger" segment is just Matty's normal voice.

My biggest takeaway from this video is that Matty randomly has a drive thru window in the middle of his house 😂

Gave up on Ubisoft many years ago. I recently installed their launcher on my pc because I got a code for Farcry 6. I had fun with it and ended up buying Fenyx Phenix Rising on a sale which is actually a fun adventure but other than that their games feel samey but apparently a lot of people like these games.

While I enjoy some of their recent gamea like FC 6 but man the business practices the way they treat their employees etc is awful

I fell in love instantly with Prince of persia series, the gameplay and the story i still can't find a game like that just empty open worlds with shitty side quests.

classic assassin's creed ambient music playing in the background made this more depressing

Great vid, well done!

This is so hard to watch.. Ubisoft was my favorite company back on the 7th generation. Darn..

While i agree that the cost of producing games has risen, we can't ignore the fact that profits from video games have increased while profits from microtransactions outright dwarf production costs tenfold

Rise of the Ninja and Broken Bond were incredible games.

Excellent work here, Matty. I mean, this totally bums me out, but I think you nailed the issues that are plaguing recent Ubi games. Like BioWare, I sincerely hope they can turn things around. I've enjoyed too many of their titles to wish ill upon them. There needs to be a complete rework of their game designs and a BIG change in their senior management. Thanks for your hard work 👊

Great job on the video!

I believe that For Honor was heavily overlooked in this vid. I think it’s the most original content they made in a long while

11:35 "stealth GOAT: dishonored" so you've chosen...death!

Why you got a drive thru window in your home?!

I didn’t know about all that stuff with misconduct. Why wasn’t that made a bigger deal like Activision was?

DUDE thanks for informing me about the Mario Rabbids Xcom like game! I had no idea! Getting it right now

You got to hand it to Ubisoft; they have games for new systems at launch.