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Ubisoft says that they have cancelled the development of four separate games that were at various stages of development. Two of the projects were never announced by Ubisoft. The other two are Ghost Recon Frontline and Splinter Cell VR.
The choice to end the development on these four titles came as Ubisoft wants to focus on "sizable cost optimization" for their upcoming fiscal year. Chief financial officer Frederick Duguet said during a recent earnings call that Ubisoft wants to place "even more focus on our biggest development opportunities."
Ghost Recon Frontline was announced back in October 2021. It was going to be another free-to-play battle royale game but it was met with severe backlash from most everyone. Just a week after it was first announced, Ghost Recon Frontline was hit with a delay for an unspecified amount of time. Not only was the game itself delayed, but so was the beta test that was expected to go live on the day it was delayed.
Ghost Recon Frontline was supposedly in development for about three years already as of October 2021. It was primarily being worked on by Ubisoft Bucharest.
Splinter Cell VR was first rumored way back in July 2019. At that point in time, it was said that Facebook made a deal with Ubisoft to develop VR titles for both Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed. It wasn't until September 2020 that these games were officially announced during a Facebook Connect developer conference.
Assassin's Creed VR is still apparently happening because there hasn't been any sort of cancellation announcement on that one yet. Meanwhile, the only thing Splinter Cell coming is a remake of the first Splinter Cell. This remake was announced near the very end of 2021, but we haven't heard nor seen anything since.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot sent out a company-wide email that seems to suggest Ubisoft's new goal is to take less risks in order to make development more efficient. If you thought Ubisoft's games were formulaic and same-ish before, well just you wait!
"In the current economic context, carefully and strategically managing our investments is critical now more than ever. We must therefore succeed in strongly limiting our spending to what is essential by questioning some of our habits and reflexes, and by reinventing ourselves together to make gains in terms of cost, agility, and efficiency."
Ubisoft is also still reportedly working on projects such as Project Rift, which is said to be an Assassin's Creed Valhalla DLC that was turned into a standalone game. Skull and Bones is still supposedly coming out on November 8 of this year. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is also still in development for the Switch. The live-service Assassin's Creed Infinity is still apparently coming, which is apparently going to be used as a platform for the Assassin's Creed games. One such game is codenamed "Red" and is rumored to be set in Japan.
