Ubisoft will surely have some disappointed fans today. They’ve announced varying delays for three major titles in their 2018 lineup.
Far Cry 5 has been officially delayed by one month, and will now hit store shelves on March 27, 2018, instead of its previous date February 27, 2017. In the end, a brief one-month delay.
Next up is The Crew 2, which was originally supposed to hit on March 16, 2018, but gamers will now be able to get their hands on it sometime in the first half of Fiscal 2018-2019, which means that it could theoretically hit anytime between April 1, 2018, and September 31, 2018.
Finally, a previously-disclosed but completely unannounced game, which has now been delayed from Fiscal Year 2018-2019 to the Fiscal 2019-2020 year (April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020). While we don’t know what this game is, the press release does say that it is a “franchise” game.
While speaking about each of the games’ delays, Christine Burgess-Quémard, Ubisoft’s Worldwide Studios Executive Director, had this to say:
This decision is in line with our strategic vision of developing even more engaging and higher quality experiences for gamers. Taking more time with Assassin’s Creed Origins enabled our talented development team to fully express their creative vision. As expected, this had a very positive impact on the game’s quality and largely participated to its commercial success. Taking a similar approach, we have decided to invest additional development time in three upcoming games.
It’s weird that these game delays occurred even as Ubisoft has has a strong 2017. Their first earnings report for FY 2017-2018 showed that sales were up 45.2% to €202.1 million overall. Ubisoft also enjoyed a tremendous 55% increase in digital revenue to €162.4 million.
These delays are clearly meant to allow dev teams more time for polish, hopefully they can deliver a great experience on these delayed titles.
