In Ubisoft’s most up-to-date earnings name, CEO Yves Guillemot mentioned he was “dissatisfied” with the efficiency of Murderer’s Creed Nexus VR (2023) and that the corporate is not going to be growing funding in VR proper now, because it awaits additional progress of the medium.
As a Quest unique, Murderer’s Creed Nexus VR introduced the franchise’s patented mixture of parkour, stealth, and fight to VR for the primary time. Launched in November, it was properly primed for sturdy vacation season efficiency on Quest 2 and the brand new Quest 3 headset.
Through the Q&A piece of the corporate’s Q3 2024 fiscal yr earnings name, Guillemot mentioned the VR sport markedly underperformed although, which has led Ubisoft to tug again on additional VR funding. Right here’s Guillemot’s full assertion:
“We now have been a bit dissatisfied by what we had been in a position to obtain on VR with Murderer’s Creed. It did okay, and it continues to promote, however we thought it might promote extra, so we’re not growing our funding on VR in the mean time, as a result of it must take off.
We now have been very impressed by what Apple got here up with, and we predict it’s incredible {hardware}, however we proceed to take a look at this VR enterprise as one thing that now we have to take a look at however not make investments an excessive amount of in, till it grows sufficient.”
Murderer’s Creed Nexus VR represented the start (and doable finish) of the corporate’s second wave of funding in VR. The primary began in 2016, which noticed the discharge of Eagle Flight (2016), Werewolves Inside (2016), Star Trek: Bridge Crew (2017), Transference (2018), and multiplayer enviornment shooter House Junkies (2019), that latter of which was pulled from shops in late 2022 on account of low engagement.
The studio additionally launched PC VR area exploration sport AGOS – A Sport Of House (2020) in late 2020 with surprisingly little fanfare.
Ubisoft’s more moderen reluctance to develop VR video games didn’t begin with the poor efficiency of Murderer’s Creed Nexus VR nonetheless, as the corporate introduced in 2022 that it might be cancelling its much larger second wave of VR content, together with Splinter Cell VR, Ghost Recon Frontline, and two unannounced titles.
Because of tech analyst and YouTuber Brad Lynch (aka ‘SadlyItsBradley’) for pointing us to the information.