On the occasion of its 15th anniversary, Assassin’s Creed is getting a a lot of new things in the not-too-distant future. And as new game reveals, and the fact that the series is And last but not least Visiting feudal Japan were among the headlines that stole the show during Saturday’s Ubisoft Forward, it was the upcoming mobile game Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade that got me thinking about the video game industry as a whole. Sure, Mirage’s stealth-infused foray into historic Baghdad looks great, and I’ve wanted a shinobi-esque AC for years, but the series’ first trip to portable screens could be a turning point for Ubisoft, as it follows in the footsteps of the recently unveiled sister series mobile title, The Division Resurgence.
With high-profile, big-budget games like Fortnite, PUBG, and League of Legends already well established on the mobile spectrum, The Division and Assassin’s Creed’s steps in getting involved aren’t all that surprising. But what I’m most interested in in the longer term is Ubisoft’s commitment to making these games the so-called “benchmark” for mobile titles, and then if there is room for new features to be rolled out in, say, The Division Resurgence and Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade will be reverse engineered into their main series counterparts.
Hands-on
Speaking to GameMe+ earlier this year, Fabrice Navrez, executive producer of The Division Resurgence, echoed similar sentiments and emphasized a twofold desire to create a game that is true to the inspiration of the main series while reaching a much wider audience. — “so existing players discover something new, while newcomers have plenty to enjoy too.” On the latter, the idea that Ubisoft could use its more experimental features through its mobile games to gauge reception — not least customizable player characters — seems plausible, before reintroducing the most well-received ideas into its main games. Plus, looking in the opposite direction (and assuming Codename Jade will be a free-to-play title when it lands), the flexible nature of mobile gaming puts developers in a better place to get instant player feedback from the get-go. collect, especially those familiar with the wider range.
For example, one of the main selling points for Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade during the livestream was the fact that we can create our own avatars. “For the first time in our open-world games, you can create your own character,” said Marc-Alexis Cote of Ubisoft. “You get the chance to do things like parkour atop the Great Wall of China, sneak through crowded cities, engage in intense battles and discover the secrets and vastness of ancient China.” In doing so, Cote promised the developer’s passion for history, and the visuals and features we’ve come to expect from the main series won’t be sacrificed as players descend in the palm of their hand to ancient China around 215 BCE.
“For those who don’t play on mobile, it’s also easy to overlook how powerful smartphones are these days.”
For those who don’t play on mobile, it’s also easy to overlook how powerful smartphones are these days. With each passing console generation and the arrival of the latest high-performance GPUs for PC, we’re making a big deal about new cutting-edge visuals and effects in line with technological advancements. Frame rates, ray tracing, graphical fidelity – we hear these buzz words repeatedly, before being judged on the move through the latest games. On the mobile side, we often hear about the camera power, memory and screen size of the latest handset, but the same attention to detail is rarely extended to their gaming specs in any way. Much like the footage teased from The Division Resurgence in July, the reveal trailer for Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade showed engine-exclusive footage—a tangible testament to just how powerful mobile gaming can be in 2022.
That to me is the reason why Ubisoft is currently entering the mobile market so quickly and surely. That’s why PUBG Mobile was the most profitable mobile game of 2021. That’s why Call of Duty Mobile is almost as big as the main games and Warzone combined. That’s why Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two announced in January that it wants Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online on mobile devices after its deal with mobile specialist Zynga – and it’s why it has similar plans for Borderlands, Red Dead Redemption and Civilization behind the scenes. The quiet but precise rise of mobile gaming is now entering the picture, and while there will inevitably be players who will never cross the threshold, it remains exciting how the mobile boom could affect main series games. Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade is the latest to make that leap, and I’ll be watching it as closely in the future as Mirage, Codename Red, and Codename Hexe.
If Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade adopts the free-to-play business model, it could be on our best free games list.
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