Ubisoft Says That the Meaning of Sequels Is Changing

With Assassin's Creed Odyssey on the way as well as The Division 2, it's understandable that the topic of "sequels" and what they mean would come up for Ubisoft. With Assassin's Creed Odyssey potentially having multiple timelines within the game in addition to it being set before the Brotherhood was even a concept, the definition of the word itself is evolving. So to with The Division 2 in relation to it being less of a sequel and more of a fresh start. According to Ubisoft's Lionel Raynaud, the line between "live game" and "sequel" continues to blur, marking a significant shift in gaming culture.

In a recent post on the official Ubi blog, Raynaud opened up about "the line" of games and how it's evolving, "This line gets fuzzier every year. We have bigger post-launch periods, longer lives for each of our games."

He added, "Even the ones that used to be solo-oriented games, like action adventures, they now have a very strong post-launch, and people are staying in our worlds for a long time. So this line is absolutely fuzzier and fuzzier. We all see a future where a game will stay {post-launch], and new experiences will come in the games. But we will have technology that will break the [current] limits of memory, for instance, because of new technologies that are arriving. We would be able to – in the same world – have several historical periods, for instance, in Assassin's Creed, and use the Animus to travel from one to the other. Or have different areas of the world linked by travel systems, so that a Far Cry game or a Watch Dogs game could happen in different countries in the same experience, seamlessly."

But when did that "lighbulb go off" regarding this shift for the company? To explain where the line itself between "live game" and "sequel," Raynaud first talked about when the first changes began:

"I guess the special point in our history was the release of Assassin's Creed, because it was our first take on open worlds, and we were kind of defining an action-adventure game with this kind of technology and a new navmesh system that allowed us to have parkour. Very smooth navigation through an open world, the beginning of social stealth, all these things are together. They kind of defined the genre. And we all witnessed that from the inside, but still it created this energy that, yes, we can define a genre that other publishers will envy and will want to follow, and this has defined the culture. Creatively, how does Ubisoft decide how long to keep creating new content for a live game after launch, as opposed to moving on to a sequel? Where does that line get drawn?"

Personally, I'm excited to see the new direction for Assassin's Creed Odyssey. As a huge fan of the AC franchise, I was becoming disheartened by the trend the series was taking. Origins turned that around for me and I even called it "the perfect comeback title" in my full review. With all of the new additions to Odyssey, including that dialogue wheel and gender choice, I'm very happy to be along for Ubisoft's journey into expansion.