Prince of Persiahas reportedly sold 300,000 copies. In just under a month, that looks good, but it’s likely below Ubisoft projections and a far cry from its biggest hitters. Yet we’ve been asking for a game likeLost Crownfor years, with the same mantra dragged out every time we read reports on ballooned budgets and lengthy dev cycles.
Lost Crown is one of the most stylistic and beautiful Ubisoft games in years, but there’s no denying the graphics are outdated and that it’s a shorter experience than the bloated RPGs we’ve grown accustomed to from the French juggernaut. It’s a smaller game made with a quicker turnaround that still provides 25 hours of fun.
It’s everything we’ve wanted, the key to a sustainable industry that’s currently swallowing its tail with unrealistic live-service expectations and a constant need to one-up itself with photorealistic graphics that skyrocket development costs. But it was written off the day it was announced for being 2D and not bringing the long-dormant series up to par with its spiritual successor.
Skull and Boneshas been in development for over ten years and hasreportedly exceeded a budget of $200 million. No game needs to cost that much.
Instead of taking the expected route of being a linearAssassin’s Creed, Ubisoft Montpellier crafted an intricate Metroidvania, something never before seen in the series. It was a bold move, and those who played it mostly agreed that it paid off as it garnered an aggregate review score of 86 on Metacritic.
But it hasn’t sold well because people saw the worse graphics, 2D framing, smaller scope, and tuned out, flooding the trailer with dislikes. This is what a sustainable industry looks like, and the future can’t have sprawling triple-A behemoths without games like The Lost Crown alongside it. Turning your nose up because it’s not exactly like all the other games won’t get us anywhere.
In a post-pandemic world where one wrong move can spell the end of a studio and lay-offs are at a record high, the industry cannot keep itself afloat with enormous budgets and ten-year dev cycles. Making a profit is much harder under these conditions, but it also means studios are hinging their bets on one project at a time, an ironically huge risk given how risk-averse gaming has become in a bid to counter the ongoing crash.
We’re seeing the same happen with Marvel movies. The once unstoppable juggernaut of cinema is being crushed under the weight of its inflated budgets and by-the-numbers storytelling, going for spectacle over substance, pushing audiences away.
Mid-budget games that are shorter and use inventive art styles as opposed to pushing the graphics envelope are the future of this industry. We can’t expect everything to be groundbreaking, genre-defying, technological pioneers. We’ve been saying this for years - it isn’t a new argument or some eye-opening revelation. But Twitter is an echo chamber, not truly representative of the wider zeitgeist, and the only way to make that point truly heard is to support games like The Lost Crown. Unfortunately, when it came to raising our voices by using our wallets, we failed.
It’s hard to say what will happen next. Ubisoft reportedly doesn’t expect to make a profit on Skull and Bones, and its games are getting more and more expensive despite their middling reviews. Throwing money at projects clearly doesn’t increase the quality. If it’s about prestige, The Lost Crown was a huge success in terms of reception, so we may see more games in that vein as Ubisoft tries to restore its reputation.
However, in what is a more likely outcome, the fat cats who run these companies will fail to see past the dollar signs and red-arrow-laden charts. The Lost Crown didn’t do well, so it will be tossed aside as Ubisoft attempts to cash in on industry trends. Assassin’s Creed is pivoting to live service with Infinity while XDefiant attempts to break into the world of shooters, chasing what’s hot likeUbisoft did with NFTs and battle royales to disastrous results.I hope I’m wrong, but everything about Ubisoft’s recent history raises red flags like the burning ships of Skull and Bones’ development.
The Lost Crownshouldhave been an eye-opening moment for the industry, to say that mid-budget, smaller games will do well and that we don’t need to see the individual droplets of sweat on a character’s face or the pores in their skin. But looking at how trends are the focus of so many in an industry shrinking as it consolidates itself, my gut tells me this will be more dissuasive than anything else.
