Ubisoft planned to launch three major titles early in 2020: Watch Dogs Legion, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and Gods & Monsters. The publisher has announced that all three of those titles will be delayed to its next fiscal year, which begins on April 1, 2020. In its financial report, the publisher directly connects these delays to production changes that have been implemented after the poor reception to Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
The Watch Dogs Legion release date was originally set for March 6, 2020. Gods & Monsters was scheduled to launch on February 25, 2020. And while the Rainbow Six Quarantine release date was never specifically nailed down, Ubisoft had previously announced that it was due out this fiscal year.
The company says in a post-results conference call that all three games should still be out before the end of 2020 (via Daniel Ahmad on Twitter.) Two other triple-A games will also be out next fiscal year, though Ubisoft did not specify what those titles are. (Just that Skull & Bones is still in development.)
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says that for Breakpoint, “critical reception and sales during the game’s first weeks were very disappointing. As we have done with past titles, we will continue to support the game and listen to the community in order to deliver the necessary improvements.” As a result, the company is already “implementing significant changes to our production processes” to address those flaws.
“In this overall context, we have decided to postpone the releases of Gods & Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine and Watch Dogs Legion until 2020-21,” Guillemot says. “While each of these games already has a strong identity and high potential, we want our teams to have more development time to ensure that their respective innovations are perfectly implemented so as to deliver optimal experiences for players.”
You can read Guillemot’s full comments via MarketScreener.
In our Ghost Recon Breakpoint review, Gina gave it a 5/10, calling it a “a muddled game that trips over itself by implementing mechanics from various genres, but never fully expands on their potential.” Hopefully the publisher will be able to bring the right lessons to its upcoming games – and giving them more development time is a good start.