In a bit of a surprise reveal, Ubisoft says that we’ll be seeing a new Watch Dogs game come to market within the next 12 months. The news comes from Ubi’s earnings release for Q3 of the 2015-16 fiscal year.
The release also featured Ubi’s roadmap for their 2016-17 fiscal year which kicks off in April and runs through to March 2017. Ubisoft’s upcoming titles are a varied bunch, including South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, For Honor, and “the next installment of Watchdogs (sic).” Ubi provided no further information regarding an official title nor platforms the game is expected to ship on.
Also mentioned by CEO Yves Guillemot during the French publisher’s earnings call is another unannounced title, a new IP, that’s being added to the schedule, described as “a new high-potential AAA brand with strong digital live services.”
The Watch Dogs news follows a report by Kotaku last month that asserted the sequel would be set in San Francisco and would release later in 2016. The original Watch Dogs was released in 2014 to middling reviews and fan backlash over what was perceived as a number of broken promises regarding the game’s content.
With the reporting of the facts out of the way, here’s a quick personal take on this news: my hope for this series is that Ubisoft will be able to do what they did with Assassin’s Creed 2, which was to take warranted criticism of the original on board and use it to create a game that was vastly superior to the original in every way.
Aiden was a hacker, not a one-man-army. I’d like to see Ubi strip out the gunplay and find more interesting things for your character to do with their smart phone. Your phone should be the most powerful weapon in your arsenal, not a damn rocket launcher. Your move, Ubisoft!
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