Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora lead Ubisoft's E3
Rocksmith+ subscription service rounds out reveals as publisher leans on new looks at upcoming games and ongoing support for live titles
Ubisoft today held its Ubisoft Forward E3 showcase, with first looks at new Mario + Rabbids and Avatar games and the new subscription service Rocksmith+ leading a lineup heavy on new content and details for projects that were for the most part already known about (or largely assumed, as was the case with Just Dance 2022).
Ubisoft opened the show with a look at Rainbow Six Extraction, formerly known as Rainbow Six: Quarantine. A trailer showed a small team soldiers in environmental protective gear attempting to rescue one of their own from a building overrun with monstrous parasites.
The game itself will be a tactical shooter with "one-to-three player co-op" gameplay where failing a mission can cost players their progress and upgrades.
Rainbow Six Extraction launches September 16 for Microsoft and Sony consoles as well as PC, with cross-play between platforms.
The publisher followed that up with a segment about Rocksmith+, its guitar tutorial game re-envisioned as a subscription service. Rocksmith + works with actual acoustic or electric guitars, and will have a new focus on community features to help players learn from each other with video tutorials, or create and add their own arrangements for songs Ubisoft has licensed.
The service is currently in PC closed beta, but it will also be available on consoles and mobile as well.
Ubisoft also gave another look at Riders Republic, the extreme sports game it announced in September's Ubisoft Forward event with a February 25 launch date. The game is now set to debut September 2.
Rainbow Six Siege received a segment to mark the game's sixth anniversary and talk about a variety of quality-of-life developments the team has been working on. The game will launch on Stadia June 30 (with crossplay enabled for PC, Stadia and Luna), and crossplay for consoles arriving in early 2022.
As for some of its other live games, Ubisoft had a trailer showcasing For Honor's Mirage addition, the addition of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Brawlhalla, Trackmania updates with new physics and course creation items, and the Watch Dogs Legion: Bloodline add-on starring Aiden Pearce and Wrench. More content for Ghost Recon Breakpoint was also teased as Ubisoft noted it is the franchise's 20th anniversary.
Just Dance received its prerequisite portion of the show with Just Dance 2022 with artist Rodrick Hall saying he would not only have his song "Nails, Hair, Hips Heels" in the game, but an exclusive new version of it as well. The game launches November 4 on consoles and Stadia, and includes 40 songs.
Moving to Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft promised ongoing freely added Valhalla features (like one-handed swords), as well as expansions like the upcoming The Siege of Paris, which will include "black box infiltration missions" where players are given a goal and can accomplish it in a variety of ways. It launches this summer.
The game will also have a free Discovery Tour mode launching this fall, giving players a more historically grounded approach on the game, and Ubisoft also committed to supporting the game into its second year, which has not been the standard for previous Assassin's Creed games.
On the film and TV front, Ubisoft plugged the currently airing second season of Mythic Quest and the upcoming comedy horror film Werewolves Within, "based on the popular video game you've never heard of."
A Far Cry 6 trailer began with a group of people fleeing the island nation Yara by boat for the United States, only to be intercepted by the game's antagonist and dictator Antón Castillo, played by Giancarlo Esposito. After a bit of preamble about the series' various antagonists, it was announced that Far Cry 6's post-launch content would see a number of them return as playable characters. Some sort of follow-up to the neon-drenched stand-alone Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is also planned for the post-launch content.
The event wound down with Ubisoft Milan's Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, a sequel to the 2017 turn-based tactics game crossover. The trailer had a Super Mario Galaxy theme with Rabbid versions of that game's Rosalina and Lumas, as well as an original villain, Cursa. The game is set for release next year.
Finally, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot shared a first look at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a new title based on James Cameron's sci-fi franchise that will use the Snowdrop Engine. Frontiers of Pandora is set for a 2022 release. Cameron's film Avatar 2 is currently slated for a December 2022 debut.