After the Renaissance and the Vikings, it’s time for fans of “Assassin’s Creed” to discover Baghdad in the 9th century, thanks to the new game of the successful franchise, which will be released on Thursday and whose relaunch the French publisher Ubisoft is counting on .
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Launched in 2007, the Assassin’s Creed saga is one of the most popular video game franchises of the last fifteen years, with more than 200 million copies sold worldwide. The last work was “Valhalla” in 2020, which, according to Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot, exceeded the “billion euro sales” mark.
Three years later, the impatience of fans around the world was at its peak until Thursday’s release of “Mirage,” originally scheduled for release in late 2022.
Thanks to a plot device, “Assassin’s Creed” in each variant offers players the opportunity to immerse themselves in a new era of history thanks to a machine that allows the protagonist to travel through the DNA of his ancestors, offering endless potential for intrigue.
To create these universes and give them historical consistency, Ubisoft says it employs “dozens of historians, sociologists and other social science researchers to assist the studios.”
For example, to reconstruct medieval Baghdad, “we worked with historians who told us ‘we can’t contradict you in your suggestions’, so we could be creative with confidence,” explained Jean-Luc Sala, artistic director of “AFP” Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
The release of this new “blockbuster” is crucial for Ubisoft, as it has been in a multi-faceted crisis in recent years, especially at the financial level.
Ubisoft announced in May that the company had fallen into the red with an annual net loss of 494.2 million euros in its staggered 2022-2023 fiscal year.
For the current financial year, however, the company promises a return to profitability with more regular major game launches and is also counting on the release of a title adapted from the “Avatar” film universe in December.
“For four to five years, the group has been hugely disappointing by postponing a large part of its game launches,” Charles-Louis Planade, analyst at Midcap Partners, summarized to AFP.
These next games “will significantly improve the group’s financial health and help it return to the Ubisoft we knew a few years ago,” he believes.
Ubisoft has also opted for an aggressive commercial approach with “Assassin’s Creed Mirage,” which sells for 50 euros ($72), while a new video game is typically priced at 70 euros ($100).