Ubisoft has done a better job than a lot of other publishers when it comes to melding the new live-services model with big-budget games. And this is something that has enabled Rainbow Six: Siege, The Division, and For Honor to rebound from and bring in new audiences or attract new players. Now the publisher has launched a new video that talks about how live services will continue to serve as the guiding light in the online melee-weapon fighter For Honor.
At the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in Los Angeles in June, Ubisoft is planning to show off new content and updates that are coming to For Honor in the future. While there’s precedent for things that came out in the previous year to get time on an E3 stage, but this is an indication that For Honor is doing well enough to justify Ubisoft’s commitment to it. In a new video that it published today, Ubisoft explained what it has done to keep For Honor relevant to its community.
“The team has never stopped working on the game,” For Honor brand director Luc Duchaine sad in the clip. “And it has improved on all levels, and that is the beauty of a live game.”
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Since debuting in February 2017, Ubisoft said it has added 5,000 pieces of content. These come in weekly updates that introduce small additions and major overhauls. More than the free-to-play model, loot boxes, or microtransactions of any ind, the hallmark of a live-service game is this regular release schedule of new updates.
Duchaine’s explanation in the video is a revealing way to understand how a company like Ubisoft thinks about live-services.
“Before we were launching movies,” the For Honor boss said. “We were making a game, launching it, and then we were just witnessing the reaction. Now, it’s an amusement park.”
And the thing about an amusement park is that it can change, and those changes can bring back old fans and excite new ones. To make the best possible experience, the company has done a lot to listen to the community, and it even brings in its top players every couple of months to get their take on new features and mechanics.
By working with players and showing an effort to always improve the game, Ubisoft was able to navigate For Honor through what it admits was a tough first year. The team struggled with balancing and exploitative bugs, and it took several months to address those issues. But it has come out of the other side of those problems with a game that is thriving.
