Ubisoft Forward 2023 Rundown

If you’re missing the pomp of E3’s past, awkward moments included, you will absolutely want to watch the Ubisoft Forward 2023 event. On second thought, maybe just catch up with this overview of everything mentioned or featured during the event! I’ll give my overall impression at the end, but I don’t think this was a bad show at all. Ubisoft is in a period of stagnation, and I think there’s potential here. Let’s get into our Ubisoft Forward 2023 rundown!

The event opened with Just Dance 2024 Edition, which is set to release on October 24th. A live performance by some seriously talented dancers revealed some great tracks on the background screen. Songs like “Sail” by AWOLNATION, “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus, and so much more will be featured in this next iteration of the popular series on every console imaginable. Just Dance is also an Olympic esports series event now! It’s definitely a sport when you’re giving it your all in the game.

Next, we finally got a release date for the video game foray into the world of Pandora. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is releasing on December 7th, 2023 for current and last-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles as well as PC. An in-depth story preview also showed off some in-game footage, including the first-person Far Cry style of gameplay. This one should definitely be worth some attention during the holidays, but it wasn’t the best-looking trailer I’ve seen. Judge for yourself below.

XDefiant is Ubisoft’s answer to the likes of Call of Duty and Apex Legends. With a beta earlier this year that got a good response, Ubisoft showed off some more gameplay of it featuring streamers. The game isn’t going to release until later this summer, but a final open beta will run from June 21st to June 23rd to work out some last-minute kinks. I think FPS fans will probably give this one a go, but who knows if it will stick when so many massive games already crowd the subgenre so protectively.

Next, we got an extended animated trailer reveal for Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. Releasing on January 18th, 2024, this 2D side-scrolling platformer looks great to me, but many thought it was strange that we didn’t hear more about the Sands of Time remake. Either way, these types of games are certainly still appealing to players as we saw with the massive success of Metroid Dread. We won’t see it this year, but it’ll be a great treat to kick off 2024.

Before we get to some massive Assassin’s Creed news, let’s talk about a few smaller things featured between the start and finish of the event. Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix will be a new anime series coming to Netflix later this year. The series will be mixing alternative Ubisoft characters in a highly referenced homage to the early 90s. It sounds like it is worth a watch if you ask me! The trailer was short, but it does look quite stylized.

The Division: Resurgence was also announced with a CGI trailer, which doesn’t do too much for me given that it’s a mobile game. I really liked both of the mainline games in this Tom Clancy series, but I can’t imagine myself checking this one out. I know mobile games are a huge hit for some, but I’m usually looking for unique experiences on my phone, not smaller versions of what I can play on my consoles. Either way, we don’t have a release date for this one yet.

Let’s hit a few more quick reveals we need to talk about for this Ubisoft Forward 2023 rundown. Firstly, we saw Skull and Bones again, with a full band performance and a closed beta date of August 25th-28th. It still is shocking to me just how long we’ve heard about this game. Additionally, we learned Rayman is coming to Mario+Rabbids Sparks of Hope later this year. Lastly, Riders Republic is getting skateboarding added to its array of extreme sports offerings. You can hop on a board on September 26th.

In my opinion, The Crew is relatively underrated as a series, and we’re getting a new game on September 14th. In the cinematic and gameplay trailer, we get a glimpse of some great visuals. The trailer says they were in-engine 4K footage clips, which is nice considering that many games this past week haven’t made the effort to show off actual gameplay. If you’re into racing games, particularly of the arcade variety, this seems like a great late-fall release.

Let’s dive into some major Assassin’s Creed news. Firstly, Nexus VR is coming to Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3. Players will embody legendary Assassins in an all-new story built exclusively for VR. Honestly, this could be a huge VR hit given that it will be an insane thing to experience on a virtual reality platform. If there was ever a game series that could be translated smoothly to VR, it would be Assassin’s Creed. If this isn’t your thing, however, there is another announcement that might make the mark for you.

Assassins Creed Mirage will release October 12th and we got a gorgeous gameplay trailer that I’m obsessing over. In the vein of Odyssey and Origins, Mirage is an extension of the new take on the Assassin’s Creed franchise. After an act of deadly retribution, Basim flees Baghdad and joins an ancient organization called The Hidden Ones. Sound familiar? Either way, it looks stunning and I’m so glad we’ll get to play this on October 12th.

Then we have the big “one more thing” moment: a new gameplay trailer for Star Wars Outlaws. This is, surprisingly, the first open-world Star Wars game on these new consoles and really ever. I think visually it looks wonderful and the gameplay seems promising as well. I can’t wait to see more in the coming months and years. We don’t have a release date for this one yet, but I would bet we’re probably looking at late 2024 or early 2025 before we get a chance to play it.

Overall, I’d grade this event as a B. I think Avatar, Assassin’s Creed, and Star Wars Outlaws definitely stole the show. The more minor updates and announcements however seem well-balanced also. There was a weird drought from Ubisoft in the past months but that seems to be changing with a bit of a regroup of their many talented studios. Let us know how you would grade this event in the comments!