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Is it really faux-E3 if we don’t have Aisha Tyler hosting the Ubisoft showcase? No, and I don’t know why Ubisoft keeps doing this to me. The woman is gold, gold I tell ya! With the world going all topsy-turvy and Ubisoft executives resigning left, right, and center, I guess it is time to sweep all that under the rug and pretend none of that happened. So let’s get to the Ubisoft Forward showcase, Ubisoft’s version of an E3-esque showcase. Though Ubisoft was offering Watch_Dogs 2 as free-to-keep for those that watched the show live on their site, servers were plagued with too many people, forcing them to ditch that quickly and run maintenance. They did make it right afterward though, and you can follow this link for the rewards.

The first segment in the showcase made me excrete liquids all the way throughout the show; some from excitement, some from too much coffee, and some from being tired of battle royales. The first came excitement though, because we finally learned more about one of my most anticipated games of the year. Watch Dogs: Legion got a full 15-minutes of short film trailers, a little bit of bullshot, a bit of actual gameplay, and a release date for later this year. To say I’m excited would be an understatement, as the game expels pure and utter video game fun from the outset. The concept might not be there, as the multiple protagonists seem like a very ambitious task to take on, but it looks fun nonetheless.

I will say though that at first, I thought the short film/trailer thing we got at the start was just a bullshot trailer as a whole, which did slightly irk me. It was said the video package was a short film after the fact, but being told “let’s just right in with Watch Dogs: Legion,” and seeing that could leave some with a bad taste in their mouth. The actual trailer and gameplay overview is everything I want: Gangs of grannies gagging grunts in Hackney makes me gleeful. Specifically going a little more in-depth with what traits characters bring to the table, such as the football (Soccer for Americans) hooligan who does more damage when he drinks, a builder with a nail gun, and John Wick.

You can bet all your money that I will be watching and re-watching this entire presentation of Watch Dogs: Legion on a loop until October 29th, when the game releases. It seems to be a beautiful experiment that some will dislike because it isn’t the most-polished shooter tripe, but I’m looking forward to October. I can’t wait to have a gang of men named Bob and women named Ethel, one will kneecap you with a nail gun and the other will offer you a Werther’s Original to shut up.

Next up was Brawlhalla, that 2D fighting game with crap versions of just about everything from Steven Universe to WWE. Now the free-to-play fighter is coming to mobile phones… for some reason. Yes, releasing back in 2017 for PC, Mac, and PS4, and later releasing on the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2018, it is a weird reverse order of releases. Normally free-to-play games tend to release on phones first where insipid micro-transactions are accepted, but I guess it is opposite day today. Brawlhalla had been on the Google Play store for three days before the announcement, in which time no one had made a “LEAK!” article. I think we know why. Brawlhalla releases on August 6th.

Continuing with mobile phone guff, next up was something that I didn’t (and still don’t) grasp what i’m meant to take away from its trailer. Might & Magic: Era of Chaos was promoted with grand numbers of over 30 million hours played of the game in several months, though I’m sure this is the first time many of us are hearing of it. At the time of writing, the trailer is not being met favorably, and I can see why. The trailer itself was promoting that you can play now on mobile and get exclusive rewards, or you could just pay the $99.99 for micro-transactions.

Next up we have a game that is basically Fortnite marrying Fisher Price. Yes in the first of the breaks to relieve myself or watch paint dry, Ubisoft again announced a game I was sure we’d seen before. We did, last year at E3 proper, when it was clearly a turn-based strategy fixed around 5-5 XCOM-style battles. This trailer did not give that vibe at all; Instead, it was a cinematic bullshot team-based Fortnite knock-off. Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad has an old paranoid man spinning in his grave starting August 27th, 2020.

Following that, we continued to watch Tom Clancy spin for Ubisoft’s money as we got a promo package of Rainbow Six Siege and E-spors. It is just thank you package from the developers for all the money spent on cosmetics. That thank you means Ubisoft will pump resources into the game until you stop, then servers will go offline. Ah, the true spirit of a thank you message.

Once again I was allowed to watch paint dry and let coffee spill out of myself as we moved on to Hyperscape, another battle royale. This one is filled with characters that have stories you’ll never remember five-years from now. Yes, announced recently and released into beta, “ready player ninety out of ninety-nine royale” is set to bring the battle royale genre into grey stoned buildings lit by neon lights in futuristic French cities. Story-driven and based around a competition in a virtual world, it feels like someone other than myself has been listening to Ready Player One while working recently. Hyperspace is free-to-play in open-beta for all PC players right now.

Afterward, we got Phil Spencer talking about Ubisoft partnering with Microsoft to enable players to use Xbox Smart Delivery. This is something Taylor spoke about the other day, with the rumor that Xbox is “putting pressure” on developers to join the system. For those unaware, Smart Delivery offers those who buy a copy on Xbox One, a free copy of their game when they switch over to Xbox Series X.

Dancing back to gens Anglorum, or Britain to you and I. For the next 10 or so minutes we got a nice look at Vikings. You know, those people who didn’t just pillage and cause sexual misconduct claims to pile up at HR for the sake of it, they did it for family. This is not a nice look from Ubisoft if you ask me. Following two weeks of claims of strong sexual misconduct, this will just sweep all of that under the rug… Right? Ignoring the questionable option of shoving history aside, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla looks brilliant. Like Odyssey but more and less action on Lesbos.

It has a truly brutal combat system, new village-building systems, boats, shield-maidens, and level design by someone who has never seen England, I’m in. Yes, oddly looking like Tolkien’s less magical land of pillaging and HR forms, you will ravage the lands to try to lay claim and ultimately fail when you try to head north. It looks to be bringing a whole new aspect to combat and hostile raids too. Seemingly you’ll be able to burn houses and other roofed areas either to burn down the buildings or cause intimidation during battles.

Along with the quick look at the mythical lands that you’ll be traipsing across, the combat, and the idea of a story, stealth, hunting, and the return of the Assassin’s blade; there is also a 30-minute gameplay overview. It looked a little rough around the edges and seemed to forget a bit of history to play with mythology; Valhalla looks like it will be a lengthy monolith of an RPG that I’ll probably never finish, and I’m fine with that. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will release on November the 17th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, with next-gen consoles yet to be announced.

Finally, after a week of leaks, teases, and otherwise, Far Cry 6 has been announced. It contains a cast including Gus Fring, and Giancarlo Esposito playing Antón Castillo, a dictatorial South American leader taking up the villain role laid out by fellow Better Call Saul actor Michael Mando back in 2012 with Far Cry 3. We have nothing to go on but the cinematic TV-style opening sequence trailer railing off names and the cinematic world premiere trailer, so there isn’t much that we know so far. Though at the end of the premiere trailer we did get an intended release date of February 18th, 2021.

Before we got the Far Cry 6 trailer, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot announced there will be more Ubisoft Forwards coming in the future. Though no strong date was set, we could assume more is yet to come in the next few weeks or months as the release dates of the Xbox Series X and PS5 have yet to be set. We are inching ever closer to that “Holiday 2020” release, so there is more to come for sure.

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