Summary
Ubisoftis one of the largest gaming companies in the world, having created countless video games over the past few decades. While the last few years have seen them attempt to focus more on their biggest franchises, there have been several games both recently and in the further past thatUbisofthas canceled.
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Their honest assessment of the recent cancelations, in particular, is mostly to do with there being a lack of interest in some of Ubisoft’s ideas. Whilethey still are flourishing as a companyand have some huge upcoming projects, there are quite a few that they have had to give up on.
7Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline
The idea of aGhost Reconmassive battle royal spin-off game was not a terrible idea. The battle royal genre has just become too saturated and has begun to fall out of popularity. Ubisoft’s problem withFrontlineis that they put it into development far too late, meaning they now have had to cancel it instead of potentially finding real success in the genre.
Frontlineisn’t the only failed attempt by a major game company to capitalize on the success of the battle royal surge in popularity over the last decade. While it was supposed to be similar in style toBattlefield’sbattle royals, instead of going for the same feel asFortniteorWarzone. Fortunately, this cancelationdidn’t kill off the legendary franchise.
6Alien Versus Predator
Ubisoft, at one stage,had the rights to createAlien vs Predatorgames, and they had a video game that was supposed to release for the Game Boy Advance sometime in 2003. However, the license for Ubisoft to create games for the franchise ran out in 2003, and without warning, this game completely vanished from the release radar forever.
Alien Versus Predatornever had a lot of information released about what the game would include. A single Ubisoft statement that said “This game allows players to experience numerous levels of action and terror” was all the information fans ever got on what may have been the focus of the game.
5Project Q
Another failed attempt by Ubisoft to capitalize on the battle royal’s popularity in gaming recently,Project Qwas announced through a series of leaks that came from the company. The idea seemed to be more of a party game battle royal than many of the more gunplay-focused ones that had been the focus of the genre’s other major releases.
Project Qcould have provided a boost for the battle royals as they began to wane in popularity, but in the end, Ubisoft didn’t consider it worth the risk of a major flop at a time when the genre was beginning to fall in strength.Project Qwas meant to be a team PvP battle arena that would feature martial arts combat and melee styles as the focus. The title of Project Q hassince been taken on by a handheld PS5 project.
4Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood
While it was released for the PC, an early RPG that Ubisoft created in 2000 was canceled due to lack of interest before the planned Dreamcast version followed. Supposed to be identical in nature to the PC version of the game, this version never came to fruition. Part of this may have been that translation was needed for the game from the German studio that developed it.
Related:Games Still Trapped on The Dreamcast
Another reason could be the lack of positive reception for the PC version, making it seem as if a Dreamcast version would only cost more in the development budget while not making a lot of it back. Critics said the original concept at E3 had looked promising but led to a disappointing final result.
3Splinter Cell VR
Another gaming trend that everybody was quick to jump on in the last few years has been VR. With many studios hedging their bets in case VR became a real dominant force in the video game world, Ubisoft was like all the others in announcing a VR spin-off from one of their most popular franchiseswhich needs a reboot.
However, theSplinter Cell VRgame was canceled, which could be because of a few different reasons. One major one is that the classicSplinter Cellfranchise probably didn’t have enough interest left around it for any new games to be successful, and Ubisoft may also have decided to back away from the VR craze as it wasn’t getting as much traction in the mainstream gaming community as they had likely hoped.
2Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Patriots
AnotherTom Clancygame that didn’t make it to fruition for Ubisoft was a fresh take on theRainbow 6series. Supposed to set the Team Rainbow combatants against a terrorist group called the True Patriots in New York City, this entry would have been a new major entry in one of Ubisoft’s bigger franchise mainstays which includesome of their best-ever games.
However, the development was a turbulent one and eventually this whole entry was shelved due to constant shifts in the team working on the project. Ubisoft didn’t give up onRainbow 6though, and they managed to later releaseRainbow 6: Siegeas a replacement for this entry, proving the franchise has still got mileage left in it, even creatingone of the best games in the franchise.
1America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier
It is interesting to think that the actual American Army helped Ubisoft develop games about war and real-life soldier experiences in Afghanistan. But it was real, and America’s Army was released on the PC before this updated version was developed for consoles.
Having only received average and mixed reviews up to that point, it is perhaps not very surprising that the PlayStation 2 release of this game was canceled by Ubisoft before making it to shelves. However, the Xbox version was released, and also only managed to attain average reviews.
