This week sees the release of Ubisoft’s Hail Mary play of 2025, along with more news surrounding the games industry since it’s Game Developer Conference 2025 week. 

The Big Picture

In 2014, French video game giant Ubisoft were at their peak, with many revered Assassin’s Creed games under their wing while also making classics like Rayman Legends and taking risks with license titles like South Park: The Stick of Truth. It was a good time. 

Fast forward to 10 years later, and the company is arguably a shell of its former self. Its game releases are lacking and aren’t as creative and innovative as before. And even with a reworking of the Assassin’s Creed formula with Assassin’s Creed Origins, the company milked that idea to the bone that it had to go back to basics with 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. 

The company wasted time and resources on developing its seemingly big quadruple-A title Skull & Bones, only to have it launch with the effect of a wet fart. Conversely, Ubisoft released its best game in years, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. They rewarded its development team by disbanding them. Ditto their involvement with Nintendo with the Mario + Rabbids turn-based combat series, where it faced pricing issues.

Ubisoft also went through a lot of public scrutiny due to many, many allegations of sexual harassment, workplace abuse, and sexual misconduct in many of its offices, especially in Ubisoft Singapore. 

Is Ubisoft truly “cooked”, as the young kids are saying these days? Well, they’re not at a complete loss, as right now Assassin’s Creed Shadows is being played by over 1 million players on all platforms and counting. It’s also being reviewed positively with aggregate sites like OpenCritic stating it’s getting an average of 82%. 

However, the company has been in a downward spiral given the actions (and inactions) they’ve done in the past 10 years. Let’s not forget that this is the company that took a while to make an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan, and let a PlayStation-exclusive game studio beat them to the punch. 

Short Beats

Newzoo just released the latest report on the State of PC & Console Gaming in 2025 during GDC 2025 week. Long story short: PC gaming popularity remains stable, console revenue will depend on Grand Theft Auto 6 and Nintendo Switch 2, play habits & time are going down, and older F2P titles like Genshin Impact and Fortnite are still dominating worldwide. 

Speaking of GDC 2025, indie game Balatro has won Game of The Year, Best Debut, Innovation Award, and Best Design in the 2025 GDC Awards. Other highlights include Astro Bot winning Best Audio and Metaphor: ReFantazio winning Best Narrative. 

Razer announces an initiative to identify bots in online gaming: Razer ID verified by World ID. 

Warner Bros and Mojang Studios are teaming up with New Zealand to make a Minecraft DLC of New Zealand. It’s like a virtual tour of the country but with more creepers. 

Over in the Philippines, purchases from Steam and other digital gaming stores will be subjected to 12% Value-Added Tax.

LEGO has announced a new Pokémon line, which is slated to be out in 2026. 

Two Chinese players have beaten a particularly tough Split Fiction challenge called Laser Hell. The reward? A congratulations message from the game’s director Josef Fares. The video also states that he will show the winners his company’s upcoming game in early footage form all the way in Sweden. 

A remake of 2008/2009’s best Japanese role-playing game of the year Persona 4 is in the works, thanks to a domain name being registered by Atlus. 

A new Painkiller first-person shooter entry has been announced by 3D Realms and Saber Interactive. It’s slated for a Fall 2025 release. 

Op-Eds

We made a comparison video between this year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows and 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, both open-world action-adventure games set in Feudal Japan. 

We also made a news recap video, but with a review of the anime Batman Ninja VS Yakuza League.

Games Out This Week

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the next big action-adventure open world period piece game where you play as a shinobi and samurai duo to bring peace back to Feudal Japan. The game is out now for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series. 

Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is the 2025 remaster and rerelease of the Nintendo Wii U open-world scifi Japanese role-playing game back in 2015. This remaster adds in new quality of life improvements and updates, new graphics, and an epilogue quest to tie up loose ends of the game’s plot. But mostly you’ll be flying around in your Skell mecha and doing quests & unlocking secrets in the vast planet of Mira. 

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & The Envisioned Land is a new Japanese RPG from developer Gust and publisher Koei Tecmo that focuses on alchemy and experiments. You play as the titular Yumia, who has to live in world where her craft of alchemy is banned. Journey with Yumia and her friends as they forge their path through forbidden territory. 

Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a new 3D anime fighting game from Bandai Namco, based on the long-running Bleach manga series. You can pick any of the 33 fighters of Soul Reapers, Vizards, human warriors, and Arrancars as they confront each other in one-versus-one combat.

Recommended Viewing

The GDC YouTube page has revealed the winners of the Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developer Conference Awards.