From Assassin to Berserker, Ubisoft's Puzzlement and Dilemma.

At the end of last month, "Assassin's Creed: Hall of Soul" was officially released in the expectation of players. After ten years of unparalleled assassins, they finally became the real Berserker.

Some time ago, Ubisoft's Glory spirit of war launched the Prince of Persia linkage activity, and the concept demonstration of Prince of Persia: Redemption, which was quickly cancelled, was exposed on the Internet. It is said that the related domain name of Prince of Persia 6 was won by Ubisoft.

Friends who are familiar with Assassin's Creed should know that the story of Assassin's Creed started with the cancelled Prince of Persia: The Assassin, and later Assassin's Creed indirectly "destroyed" the Prince of Persia.

Assassin's Creed series has always been a good case of marketing and IP operation and maintenance, and its operation and change cannot be separated from Ubisoft's layout.

These recent events are connected in series. Is it Ubisoft's signal?

So today we will talk about how Assassin's Creed became Ubisoft's flagship ip and cash cow product. Why does "Assassin's Creed" need to change its overall system every few movies? And how does Ubisoft handle the relationship between Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia?

As mentioned above, the first Assassin's Creed evolved from The Prince of Persia: The Assassin.

In 2005, after The Prince of Persia: Lord of War was released, the story of the Sand of Time trilogy ended. Because "Prince of Persia" was not Ubisoft's IP at first (it was Br at first? Derbund's game was later handed over to the learning company under the Gauss Consortium).

Ubisoft executives still hope to extract more value from this IP, so they put the new trilogy on the agenda.

This task falls to Patrice Daisy, creative director of Ubisoft Montreal Studio Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time.

After referring to the novel Ying Chao by the Slovenian novelist Vladimir Basor, he decided to set his new work as a prequel to The Sand of Time, positioning the protagonist as an assassin who disappeared without a trace-here really refers to an assassin, not Hashshashin in Assassin's Creed.

The assassin used to be a court bodyguard. After the young Persian prince was placed under house arrest, he began to wear a hood to protect the prince from assassination.

This guardian is the embryonic form of the first generation hero of Assassin's Creed, Atle Ibn-la Achard.

During the development of Prince of Persia: Assassin, its core concepts were constantly adjusted by developers, including the ideas and creativity of animator Ruan Kai, and finally evolved into the Assassin's Creed we saw.

However, the various settings they added later made Assassin's Creed's content have obvious unique symbols: science fiction plus history, hood, vigorous skills and gorgeous actions.

Therefore, no matter which Assassin's Creed is later, these symbols are displayed to attract players' attention and build their sense of identity in the first impression.

However, a simple game can't keep people, and it will only become an occasional conversation between players.

The game of creating concepts will lead to various topics, and the game itself has become the coordinate midpoint of anchoring extended topics.

This is also a common technique used in series novels, movies and games: shaping the world outlook and sub-concepts.

So, you see, Assassin's Creed introduced many new concepts: the Brotherhood of Assassins, the Knights Templar, the sleeve sword, the leap of faith, animus, Poe, the Hawkeye Vision, and "Everything is empty, everything is accurate".

By the way, I would like to say a few more words here: In later works, Ubisoft's screenwriter ate some books set by Tenet.

Some later works emphasize in rhyme that the assassin in the title does not refer to the assassin, that is, the literal translation of "assassin"; The assassin is a secret association called "Assassin Brotherhood".

This means that assassins are not a profession, and assassination is not their only means.

In a word, their names are just assassins (Hashshashin).

But the three tenets of Assassin of the Levant (the first generation of Assassin's Creed) include keeping a low profile, which is related to the DLC of the invisible man in Assassin's Creed: Origin; Later, in Assassin's Creed II, it was also mentioned that "working in the dark and serving the light".

If I'm not mistaken, at first they really wanted Hashshashin to be equal to the real assassin. Due to the needs of the later works, the writers gradually relaxed some settings that emphasized stealth and assassination.

Therefore, people have different opinions. After all, the screenwriter has long changed.

Back to the point. After introducing these concepts, the self-interpretation of players and communities will consolidate the cognitive foundation, and these new concepts and unique ways of playing have become the core competitiveness of Assassin's Creed.

I have to say that Patrice Daisy, the director at that time, was very clever. He directly grasped the essence of business meeting customers' needs and built a reconstructed "real" historical world for players.

For these creators, the game is not only realized, but also used for creation.

With the passage of time and the development of the series, the IP values of Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed are constantly changing.

The trilogy Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time, which started shooting in 2003, made a lot of money, but after several years, Prince of Persia gradually became a thin dog product.

Assassin's Creed at the end of 2007 is obviously a star product with high growth rate and low market share.

Ubisoft's method is simple and clear:

Give you a chance to continue, if the opportunity is useless, do liquidation, IP exit the market.

In the end, Prince of Persia (2008) and Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sand failed to achieve the expected sales. As you can see, the development of Prince of Persia: Redemption on 20 12 was cancelled.

If you are a big fan of the Prince of Persia, you will scold your mother. If you are an analyst, you will say: this step is amazing.

After liquidation, Ubisoft used the movie Prince of Persia to collect the late fan bonus, and then transferred the development resources to Assassin's Creed, Cry Out in a Lonely Island and the Nexus Project, which had not officially appeared at that time, which was later Watchdog.

Let's take a look at the market performance of Assassin's Creed and The Scream from 12 to 18. Do you think Ubisoft lost the sequel to Prince of Persia, or actually made a lot of money?

Of course, there are other muddy waters, such as Vivendi's acquisition from 15 to 18 and so on.

If you have to understand a wave, take Ubisoft as a lost corner and harvest Sang Yu.

Although Ubisoft's operation in the last two years is chaotic, it can really make effective use of traffic.

In the internet bonus period after 20 10, Ubisoft grasped accurately, and launched its own platform Uplay while focusing on these series of games of Assassin's Creed.

For Assassin's Creed, on the one hand, it is to shoot movies, micro-movies and CG animations to supplement the cause and effect of the game plot; On the other hand, official novels and authorized comics have also made up for the parts that are not mentioned in the game, and even opened a new pit-

For example, Juno, the villain in the original comic book Assassin's Creed: Uprising, was written dead.

During this period, the traffic aggregation effect of multiple products brought many fans to Assassin's Creed, and the production and promotion of products around Assassin's Creed were unprecedented.

Ubisoft signed a contract with the German brand Musterbrand, and its own Ubisoft workshop is also full of horsepower, from pin key chains to windbreaker backpacks.

At the same time, there are also mutual content linkages in other games. Whether it is linked to Ubisoft's own games or games from other manufacturers, there are too many examples:

From "Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag", the watchdog kills the director of modern line, to the lightning in metal gear in "Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood".

I won't take stock of them one by one here, and get to the point.

Up to now, we can see that although the overall market flow has peaked, the stock market in Assassin's Creed is still huge.

Because Ubisoft makes full use of Assassin's Creed to cultivate users for a long time with the main story and world view of the game, arouse the voices of players, and retain users and make profits through novels, comics and peripheral products.

There are no barriers for big companies to make 3A series. But you want to make this series live happily?

Love and ideals?

The struggle is whether we can make good use of resources.

This is to maximize the benefits of superior resources.

When we talk about the game content of Assassin's Creed, or even Ubisoft's Open World 3A, the word homogenization is inevitable.

From the beginning, the trajectory of the open world game has been seriously homogenized.

If you want to be famous, you must have explosions.

What are the highlights of Assassin's Creed's early works?

The background of history and science fiction, elegant assassination, stories that fit the real history and unique moral concepts.

But after the tipping point? What should we do next?

Let's recall: When was the original Assassin's Creed released?

In 2007.

What happened in 2004 three years ago?

Crytek and Ubisoft, which developed Crytek's original Crytek Crysis, staged a story of "Farmers and Snakes". EA took the opportunity to form an alliance with Crytek and bought a 9.9% stake in Ubisoft/KLOC-0.

It was not until 20 10 that EA quietly sold its Ubisoft shares.

Later, from June, 20 15 to June,10, Vivendi bought 0.4% shares of Ubisoft/kloc-0 twice. Vivendi's acquisition crisis began.

In the case of foreign invasion, we should save money first and control the cost before we can make money.

Therefore, the cost coverage of follow-up products is an important topic. In my previous article, I talked about the method of realizing partial cost coverage:

From the design point of view, the design ideas and elements have been reused, and the existing design foundation has been adjusted and modified to some extent.

From the management point of view, it is necessary to operate with the industrialized operation mode and create with the previous design template, so as to maximize the skill proficiency of the old employees, and at the same time minimize the skill unfamiliarity of the new employees, and prevent the newcomers who are at a loss from reneging on their words and taking advantage of others in their work.

In practice, it completely conforms to the ST strategy in situation analysis. But this does not mean that Ubisoft will always face T (threat). Even without external pressure, it is "beneficial and harmless" to adopt this method.

Big manufacturers like to make decisions to avoid risks, and capital preservation is the first, which is why "Ghost Action: Breakpoint Continuation" was discounted soon after its launch, and the later version of TU2.0.0 increased the immersion experience.

The management doesn't really want to please the players. The real intention is to expect the word-of-mouth to rise after the launch of TU2.0.0, and the final result is to return to the original.

For the current game, as long as the buyout sales can recover most of the costs, it means that it can continue to make profits in other aspects.

If you want to completely avoid risks, production will become a victim. Is it worth ruining your reputation in the industry?

After relying on the explosion point, maintaining stability is the top priority.

As far as Assassin's Creed is concerned, the problem of homogenization has always existed. But it's a lie to say that Assassin's Creed hasn't changed. It's a tortoise.

Here, we make a simple classification of what has been sold:

Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelation belong to the same category.

Assassin's Creed III, Assassin's Creed: Liberation, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Rebellion belong to the same category.

Assassin's Creed: The Great Revolution and Assassin's Creed: Heroes;

Assassin's Creed: Origin and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey belong to the same category.

Did you find anything?

The basic gameplay of the same category is almost the same, and there will be obvious or even huge differences between different categories of gameplay; The more the game design of the later works, the more you rely on the big trees of the previous works to enjoy the cool.

The core factor affecting the change of game mechanism is the change of profit model.

For Assassin's Creed, "breaking the circle" is a false proposition.

What circle is this circle?

Refers to a pure action stealth game.

Looking back, the growth curve of the first generation of Assassin's Creed is very simple. With the assassination of important targets, more weapons and equipment are gradually acquired ("recovered" in the game).

In 2009, Assassin's Creed 2 added numerical design based on RPG and rich customized content for the first time. However, due to the limitation of gameplay, these numerical settings have little effect. Brotherhood and enlightenment follow the same system and mechanism.

Starting from Assassin's Creed III in 12, Ubisoft introduced some brand-new settings, canceled the enemy's blood cells and drugs, and further simplified the combat system.

In this way, players can't directly know the specific numerical effects of weapon damage, speed and block, which is convenient for manipulating the values.

Later, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Rebellion continued to deepen the numerical design of RPG, including the strengthening and production system of warships.

Assassin's Creed: The Revolution fully exposed Ubisoft's ambition: from relying solely on subsequent content updates (plot DLC and multiplayer roles, map packages) to multiple profit-making means of sales acceleration level, equipment combination package and plot DLC.

Like simplified Chinese translation, the revolution really wants to be the biggest revolution in the series: a simple hierarchical system, a brand-new multi-person online cooperation and family system, a skill tree, a weaker combat system and a more complex stealth system, and a special mobile phone companion APP.

The most important thing for Ubisoft is krypton points.

The price of weapons and equipment in the "Great Revolution" is not a fuel-efficient lamp, and the money given by side missions and treasure boxes is not much. It is really difficult to change equipment in the early and middle stages.

If you want to save time, you must give krypton.

The last step in the RPG process is Ubisoft Quebec's "Lean", which directly puts the RPG level in front of us.

In addition to the hook lock, two protagonists, props, carriage, conquest of feeder lines and elimination of multi-person cooperation mode, "lean" is basically the same as the Great Revolution.

/kloc-In 0/6, Ubisoft released Watchdog 2 instead of Assassin's Creed.

Assassin's Creed: It originated after the release of the 20th14th Revolution, and finally appeared in front of us as ARPG on17th.

This is the last step in the transformation of Assassin's Creed RPG.

Having said that, everyone will definitely have a question:

Why did Ubisoft gradually RPG Assassin's Creed from the inception of Assassin's Creed 2 in 2008?

Because a very important direct purpose is to lengthen the playing time.

Let's recall, for example, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Although the map where we can move freely is the whole of Rome, the actual activity area is strictly limited before the later sequence.

Each sequence will open a new area for us, and if we enter the subsequent area in advance, we will lose synchronization.

This trick used to be very useful, and it is completely possible to leave the content of sideline tasks to the players for later completion. But now it will be labeled as "low degree of freedom" by the evaluator.

By suppressing the level, the game time can be effectively extended, and the whole world can be solved step by step for the player, instead of being cold and unsynchronized, which will not directly interfere with the player's free experience.

If you can't play level 4 to level 40, then don't play. If you want to rise to level 40, you should bypass the enemy.

And what's the point of extending the game time?

First of all, in some ways, it can be worthy of the $60 3A title.

Secondly, it brings the potential possibility of internal purchase.

Think about it, both Origin and Odyssey are based on the whole RPG system we mentioned.

On the other hand, such a system can provide a way out for the acceleration of grades and the sales of materials in the store.

I want to speed up and even end the battle ahead of schedule. I want to raise my sleeve sword to a strong enough level. I want a sturdy and beautiful equipment bag.

Just collect the money.

It's as simple as that when bandits meet bullies.

Besides forcing players to make money, every time Ubisoft changes the foundation and core mechanism of Assassin's Creed, it can turn the screen against high loyal users.

You see, Assassin's Creed III has been shown once in 12, Assassin's Creed: Revolution Comes Again 14, Assassin's Creed: Origin Comes Again 17.

Money is neither good nor bad, and capital is always smart.

Ubisoft does the action of Prince of Persia at this time node, and the purpose is very simple.

Two years ago in the spring, China Tencent, Ontario Retired Teachers Foundation and Ubisoft raised funds to "redeem Vivendi".

So Ubisoft's course is very interesting.

/kloc-in 0/8, the widely acclaimed Beyond Good and Evil was restarted, and the Blue Ocean black sails similar to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was launched. This situation looks chaotic, but at least there is hope.

From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Ubisoft's negative news basically never stopped. The failure of ghost operation: the continuation of breakpoint, the joke of blockade 2, rainbow 6: the siege of TS moved the cake of the core player.

Are these things shameful for the first European manufacturer?

Shame.

But did Ubisoft stay?

I left it.

The IP of cell division has been hidden in the snow, and Ubisoft still takes it out for linkage activities.

The IP of the Prince of Persia has also been hidden, but Ubisoft has recently made a linkage of the spirit of glory and war.

From the player's point of view, Ubisoft has not forgotten these classics; On the other hand, Ubisoft is showing off its muscles.

"As long as I want, Lian Po is old, but he can still eat."

Let's talk about the next topic: When will Ubisoft restart these IPS?

Whenever Ubisoft is not in the state, it will take the initiative to play big cards with you.

E-sports games and events, small games, open world 3A, mobile game layout ... Ubisoft has a high ceiling, but there is always pressure in the general direction of market stocks.

Recently, many core games of "Assassin's Creed: Lingtang" have been leaked, including the cancellation of the level, the numerical design of powerful values, the killing of the sleeve sword, the hero and heroine, marriage, conquest and plunder. ...

These things are still not intuitive enough, and players care about the real machine demonstration. After reading, the steelyard in my heart will have a good understanding of the quality of the game itself.

For Ubisoft, both data and operation and maintenance technology are ok, but sometimes players need less routines and more sincerity.

There was a bug in my product and I started to misname it. It's a joke in the industry.

Every change and expansion of Assassin's Creed is a deliberate change under the analysis of data and public opinion.

Every change is not accidental.

But Ubisoft's current strategy has a fragile premise:

The players of the basic disk have not lost patience and continue to be optimistic rather than bearish.

As to whether this idea is right or wrong, time will give each player an answer.

But it won't give Ubisoft a chance to choose again.