(News Bulletin 247) – The video game publisher is starting the week down, while its game Skull and Bones, released last Friday, received a mixed reception.

In a market that is catching its breath, Ubisoft is starting the week down. The video game publisher fell 2.3% around 2 p.m., to 23.69 euros while the group announced the release of its game “Skull and Bones” on Friday.

Ubisoft’s new opus finds its inspiration in the second golden age of piracy in the heart of the Indian Ocean. The player plays a pirate who will travel uncharted seas in search of challenges, competition and resources.

A sword in the water

This is the last “big” headline of Ubisoft’s staggered 2023-2024 financial year (ending at the end of March), recalls TP ICAP Midcap in its note published this Monday morning. But the reviews are timid for the moment… “With an average Metacritic of 64 for a still limited number of reviews, the group does not seem to have succeeded in capturing positive attention for this new innovative franchise”, explains Charles- Louis Planade.

“Skull and Bones is not the successor to Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag that many seem to want”, believes IGN, with “a general instability which sometimes gives the impression that the adventure is only a draft”. But the specialized site wants to emphasize that this game has “good foundations”.

On the jeuxvideo.com site, the editorial staff rated the game on average with a score of 15/20, which is quite correct. While readers were much harsher on Ubisoft’s latest opus with a scathing average rating of 7.1/20, out of a total of 51 reviews. And the comments live up to the disappointment caused by this game which required 11 years of development. “Not intuitive gameplay; unfortunately, looting (collecting) resources is indeed tedious! Why not leave your ship in a rowboat to dock and farm (acquire objects) by hand?”, complains one of the users.

It is therefore a “sword in the water”, to use the title of the short note from TP ICAP Midcap on the release of the game, the development of which was not the easiest. Skull and Bones was announced in 2017 and was due to be released in 2018. Since then, the video game publisher has made a series of delays, six in total, with the aim of delivering a perfect copy for its game.

“It’s a huge game and we think people will realize just how huge and comprehensive it is. It’s truly a triple-A game [des jeux vidéos à gros budgets et de grande qualité, NDLR]” and even “a quadruple A which will provide over time”, assured during the results press conference the CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, cited by AFP.

Ubisoft’s previous releases (“Assassin’s Creed Mirage”, at the beginning of October, and “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora”, taken from the Avatar cinematographic license, at the beginning of December, Editor’s note), will therefore have “done the job”, adds Charles-Louis Planade from TP ICAP Midcap assuring that the upcoming financial year “already promises to be a new record”.

Waiting for Star Wars Outlaws

At the beginning of February, Ubisoft revealed some of the upcoming releases for the next fiscal year which will begin on April 1, 2024. “We are now preparing for the very promising line-up of fiscal year 2025, including the launch of Star Wars Outlaws in 2024”, a highly anticipated game, indicated Yves Guillemot. “We will also launch Assassin’s Creed codename Red, which will take place in the long-awaited universe of feudal Japan,” he also announced.

Ubisoft announced these releases on the sidelines of the publication of third quarter revenues higher than its own forecasts. The company also reiterated its objective of a non-IFRS operating profit of 400 million euros for its entire fiscal year, which did not fail to relieve investors.

“While the stock has fallen about 30% in four months and short positions in the stock are likely high due to expectations of a material outlook cut, these higher-than-expected results should help restore “positive sentiment towards the stock – especially when we look at the impressive gaming pipeline for fiscal year 2025”, Deutsche Bank said after these quarterly results.