A new report into the state of Ubisoft has revealed that the giant publisher has three separate extraction shooter titles in the works. If all these projects materialize, PS5 and Xbox players will be treated to the already confirmed The Division Heartlands, a rumored Far Cry spinoff, and a brand-new IP set in World War 2. While I’m always excited about the prospect of new shooters, I’m struggling to see how Ubisoft will ever make all of these projects work.
Ubisoft’s track record of trend-chasing is well documented by now – it reportedly had a dozen battle royale games in the works during that genre’s height of popularity. From the BR craze came the current extraction shooter craze, and it seems the publisher is keen to capitalize.
We’ve known about The Division Heartland for some time now, and it seems likely that it’ll launch this year. According to this new report though, which comes from Insider Gaming, this will be followed by Project Maverick, an extraction-based shooter based in the Far Cry universe that has a “tentative 2025 release date” – Insider Gaming first leaked details of this game last year. Then, sometime in “2026-2027”, Ubisoft will look to launch a third extraction-style shooter, which will be set in WW2 and an all new IP.
We’ve already seen how saturated the market for the best multiplayer games has become in recent years, but by making three games in the same sub-genre as well, Ubisoft is surely not giving them the best chance of success. Any ongoing/ live service multiplayer title that wants to sustain itself needs to retain a playerbase for multiple years, so by giving your own projects more competition, this will surely hinder that.
Then factor in all of the other competitors these games will face in the coming years. Call of Duty will no doubt keep finding ways to include extraction mechanics into its games, as it’s done already with Warzone DMZ and MW3 Zombies. As was confirmed last year by The Loadout, the team behind PUBG is also making an extraction shooter currently codenamed Project Black Budget. Embark Studios, the team behind one of the best FPS games of recent years, The Finals, also has Arc Raiders in the pipeline. Destiny 2 developer Bungie is also gearing up for the Marathon release date within the next two to three years.
For those on PS5, especially, things are even more crammed – one of the big upcoming PS5 exclusives, Fairgames, is also an extraction shooter.
So, forgive my skepticism, but I can’t see all the projects in Ubisoft’s reported extraction shooter timeline succeeding. As it is swooping in the earliest and has a fanbase more naturally suited to extraction shooter gameplay, I can see The Division Heartland doing well. But I’m nervous for the fate of the others.
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