The 10 BIGGEST Ubisoft Controversies

10 Biggest Ubisoft Controversies

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re looking at the biggest controversies surrounding Ubisoft, which has unfortunately seen a lot of them in recents years.

Unity’s Buggy Launch

It’s already been a decade, but players will still never forget the state that “Assassin’s Creed Unity” launched in. The game was chock full of various performance and connectivity issues, as well as bugs and glitches, the most famous being a terrifying one that removed the skin from characters’ faces. Needless to say, fans were not happy. Ubisoft apologized and stopped selling the season pass, as well as gave out the DLC, ‘Dead Kings,’ for free. For those who bought the season pass, they were also given one of several games for free, with the caveat that they not sue Ubisoft. This launch was so bad that it affected sales of the next game, 2015’s “Syndicate,” and caused the studio to reevaluate how it developed the series moving forward.

Downgraded Visuals for “Watch Dogs”

When “Watch Dogs” was revealed at E3 2012, it caught a lot of players’ attention. The focus on hacking and sleek visuals made it seem like a big step in open world games. However, when the game was released in 2014, it was hit with accusations that those same visuals had been downgraded. A PR rep from Ubisoft stated this was false and there was no downgrade, but you could clearly see it in side-by-side comparisons. Ubisoft would later own up to it, with producer Dominic Guay stating it was due to the reveal happening before there was any information on next gen consoles. The final game didn’t even look that bad, but the lie and doubling down didn’t do Ubisoft any favors.

The Subscription Model

It seems every company offers their own subscription service these days, though they don’t all need one. Announced in 2019, Ubisoft+ gives subscribers access to a variety of the studio’s titles. While the service included Ubisoft’s newest games initially, it grew to include a lot of older titles, too. When it was launched on PC in January of 2024, Ubisoft+ Classics became its own, standalone service for a cheaper price. Philippe Tremblay, director of subscriptions, spoke a lot about the benefits of separating the older titles. But he also expressed a mentality of getting players “feeling comfortable with not owning your game.” Game preservation has become an important issue during the subscription era, so this understandably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Shutting Down “The Crew”

Unfortunately, Ubisoft has made good on the whole “not owning your games” thing, but in more dire ways than you would think. In late 2023, “The Crew” was delisted from digital stores and microtransactions came to a halt, with servers set to shut down on March 31st, 2024. Well, it’s an older game. Maintaining servers and music licenses for a game that has sequels with their own updates would be needlessly expensive. However, Ubisoft then revoked licenses of the game from players, essentially stealing their copies and making “The Crew” unplayable. It offered no refunds, despite the fact that many had actually purchased the game. Pretty much everyone agreed this was another anti-consumer, anti-preservation move from Ubisoft.

All in on NFTs

From concerns over actual ownership of them to the detrimental damage they can cause to the environment, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, seem to be an all-around bad idea. And yet, multiple celebrities and companies have tried selling them to you over the past few years. In late 2021, Ubisoft announced Quartz, a platform for buying, using, and selling NFTs across its different games. Despite claims that their blockchain was environmentally safe, the announcement was met with severe backlash. Nicolas Pouard, Vice President of the company’s Strategic Innovations Lab, would later claim that gamers just didn’t understand their NFTs, which of course, didn’t work out well for Ubisoft; Quartz hasn’t been that profitable, as you can imagine.

One and the Same

This one is more of a gradual controversy, more than one strikes hot and fast. At a certain point, Ubisoft began following the same formula for many of its games. They’re all open world, they’ve all got a billion completion checklists, and they’re all very grindy. From “Far Cry” to “Assassin’s Creed,” from “Avatar” to “Watch Dogs,” this has been met with wide criticism, as well as diminishing interest and sales. Still, as bored as that has caused many players to feel, it isn’t as bad as Ubisoft following the exact same release formula for every game, too. Want to get ahead of some early grinding? Well, better dish out some money for pre-order bonuses, or better yet, some extra dough on special editions. There’s also always DLC or a season pass, making base games just feel incomplete.

Partnering with Tencent

For any unfamiliar, Tencent is a Chinese conglomerate with a laundry list of controversies in its own right. It has also invested in multiple video game studios, causing it to become the largest company in the industry to the mass unease of players. In 2018, Tencent purchased 5% of all shares of Ubisoft. This, admittedly, was not Ubisoft’s fault; it came from a failed purchase of the company by Vivendi, which sold Tencent the shares. However, since then, Ubisoft has grown pretty comfortable with giving Tencent power. In 2022, it invested more money into Ubisoft, with the studio claiming it would help bring their games to China as well as pay off debt. But giving Tencent control in your company has not proven to go well in the past.

Shadow of a Doubt

No matter how you look at it, the upcoming “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” has been surrounded by controversy. First, some players were upset over the use of Yasuke, a historical figure and Black samurai, as one of two protagonists over the inclusion of a Japanese one. But the way Ubisoft has marketed the game has also brought criticism. It used the flag of a battle re-enactment group in concept art and marketing materials without asking. A figurine of the two protagonists amid a one-leg Torii gate was also met with negativity, as it’s very similar to the actual one damaged by the atomic bomb that hit Nagasaki in WWII. Then there’s the fact that Ubisoft abruptly canceled press reviews at the Tokyo Game Show, before delaying the game to 2025. Yeah, things aren’t going well.

Blaming Employees

When Ubisoft didn’t meet sales expectations for 2022, it delayed “Skull & Bones” yet again while canceling three announced titles. However, the company’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, also sent an email to his employees which got a pretty big reaction and certainly not a good one. Among requests that they all be frugal with their spending, he stated “the ball was in [their] court” to deliver games on time and at an expected level of quality. This rightfully upset staff over the implication that Ubisoft’s failures were their fault. Anticipating the CEO’s words to signal loss of their own livelihood, Ubisoft Paris went on strike with several demands, including a 10% increase to salaries, which reportedly hadn’t kept up with inflation.

Workplace Misconduct Allegations

In 2020, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Ubisoft was hit by massive allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. These claims were leveled at multiple higher-ups at the company, the severity of which ranged from person to person. This was found across several studios, meaning it stemmed from Ubisoft’s main management, and in many cases, claims stretched back for years. Ubisoft’s HR department did little to nothing to fix any issues, with many witnesses and victims equating it to an unchecked fraternity house. The people responsible were let go, and Yves Guillemot issued a half-hearted apology, which not a lot of people bought. There are many business practices of Ubisoft that have drawn criticism. But this was the point where many fans lost faith in the publisher.

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