The live service game is becoming quite popular with publishers these days. These always-online games demand your attention for years—not weeks or months—with frequent content updates and/or monetization. They’re your Fortnites, your Maddens, your Overwatchs, your PUBGs; games that are, in large part, dependent on lasting player engagement. As EA Chief Finacial Officer Blake Jorgensen said during Credit Suisse’s 21st annual conference, “I think what we’re seeing is that people are playing fewer games but they’re playing the games they’re playing for longer with deeper engagement.” Engagement—a word bound to become just as nauseating as “immersion” in the games industry—is the essence of an online game’s longevity, but that focus seems off in single-player only games. Unfortunately, Ubisoft—a company already brimming with plenty of live services games like For Honor, Rainbow Six Siege, and Tom Clancy’s The Division—has made it clear that Assasin’s Creed Odyssey is indeed a live service game.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, EMEA executive director Alain Corre said, “Yes, [Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is] a service. It’s a service-type product.” He then began to outline Ubisoft’s plans to “create new content every week so that it’s a [lively] adventure for the fans.” That sounds fine since they’ll “always [be] something new, something fresh and something [players] can discover and appreciate,” but it likely means we’ll spend more money on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. And with the franchise seemingly back to annualization, we can expect to spend $60 per Assassin’s Creed game every year, plus $40 for the season pass (assuming all Assassin’s Creed’s season passes are $40 like Assassin’s Creed Origins‘), and additional spending on whatever post-launch content Ubisoft cooks up for that year’s Assassin’s Creed. And then when the next year rolls around and we get another Assassin’s Creed game, we’ll do it all over again.
“We want [Assassin’s Creed] Odyssey to be living, to always be fresh, so it’s a different way to create games this way,” Corre concluded. Well, isn’t that awesome? It seems we’ll be playing the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed for an eternity.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey will be available October 5, 2018, for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Be sure to check out the official gameplay walkthrough.
[Source via GamesIndustry.biz]
