- Ubisoft open-world games typically take place across a map that’s filled with quest markers, and players are often guided with a compass or arrow that directs them to their next objective.
- For Oxygen, however, the developers planned to drop a lot of those helpers in favor of requiring players to search harder to figure out where to go, by tracking animals, following the wind or navigating via the position of the stars in the in-game sky.
- A core inspiration was FromSoftware’s 2022 hit Elden Ring, which sold millions of copies despite throwing players into an intriguing, hostile world with few obvious pointers about how to survive or proceed.
I feel like I’ve heard this “it’s different this time guys, we swear” spiel about every Ubisoft game in the past five years. Hard to believe or care at this point.
Even the UIs of their games look similar, even though they are from different genres (Division looks similar to AC looks similar to Settlers). IMO that alone shows that they are not about making unique games, but about hammering their franchise into the heads of gamers. They don’t foster creativity, they try to apply the same formula to everything.
Honestly, Immortals: Fenyx Rising was superior to Breath of the Wild in every way (for me at least). The world wasn’t “stretched” in size needlessly, “shrines” integrated directly into the overworld, instead of being seperate, the collectibles were sometimes fun (compared to Koroks, which were always bad), there were far more interesting characters and side quests, the world was more alive, the combat was better (if we ignore BotWs weird physics stuff, which has fuckall to do with an action RPG), exploration had an actual point, because you might actually find something nice that doesn’t break five swings in, the story was superior, and the humor was great (to me).
TL;DR: Ubisoft cancels a sequel to their best game in some time, no suprise here.
