“On ‘Far Cry,’ anticipation is high, and we currently have two very promising projects in development,” he told Variety. So not much to go on, but with rumors about the extraction shooter project, reportedly codenamed Project Maverick, being in trouble, it seems to have survived the recent cancellation spree.

Of course, Far Cry is only one of the franchises that fall under Vantage Studios. Assassin’s Creed is another, with Guillemot assuring that “several titles are in development, spanning both single-player and multiplayer experiences, with the ambition to further grow a community that exceeded 30 million players last year.”

Thus far, we know that Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe is in development for an alleged 2027 release. The long-rumored remake of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag could be revealed sometime in April despite allegedly being delayed to next year. Then there’s the ever-mysterious Invictus, which has yet to receive any details since its announcement (and apparently isn’t inspiring much enthusiasm among some of the development team).

Otherwise, it seems that the brand, which was overperforming per Ubisoft’s fiscal report, hasn’t escaped the cancellation curse. A co-op project called League, allegedly meant for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, was reportedly cancelled. After that, reports emerged of a mobile title known as Assassin’s Creed Singularity that had been cancelled after a “couple of years” of work.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows continues to receive updates, the latest adding a manual jump feature and detailed stats sheets. But while Claws of Awaji is coming to Switch 2 on March 10th, you shouldn’t expect another expansion this year on the same scale.

It is worth noting that Far Cry games have featured some forms of multiplayer depending on the title. 2013’s Far Cry 3, for instance, offered a separate game mode that threw up to four players together into linear levels as they gunned down enemies. Far Cry 4, on the other hand, offered more sandbox gameplay in its co-op multiplayer.

There have also been attempts at bringing competitive multiplayer to the Far Cry series, with 4 and 5. Ubisoft ultimately left them behind when it came to developing Far Cry 6, which only offered co-op multiplayer.

As for what might be next for the Far Cry franchise, Ubisoft has yet to make any concrete announcement t. However, there have been rumours going around of Far Cry 7 being in development. A report from December 2024 indicated that the title, codenamed Blackbird, would offer a departure from what players have come to expect from the series.

On the gameplay side of things, Far Cry 7 allegedly offers some new elements, including new movement options like tactical sprinting, vaulting and sliding, among others. It’s rumoured to feature a loot system, much like other tentpole Ubisoft releases like Assassin’s Creed Shadows and 2019’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

At the time, reports indicated that the developers were optimistic about how Far Cry 7 was shaping up. However, another project being worked on – codenamed Maverick – has been the subject of internal skepticism. It’s allegedly a standalone extraction shooter set in a fictional version of Alaska with permadeath.

The title was also originally expected to be released in Fall 2025. However, plans have seemingly been changed since then; a more recent rumour has indicated that Ubisoft is planning to release Far Cry 7 in 2026 or 2027 instead. It’s expected to joined by other major Ubisoft projects, including a Splinter Cell Remake, Assassin’s Creed Hexe, and a new title in the Ghost Recon franchise.

While we haven’t really seen much about Far Cry since the 2021 release of Far Cry 6 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Ubisoft has been working on improving the performance of some of the older titles for current-gen consoles. Earlier this year, Far Cry 4 got an update improving its frame rate on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The publisher officially confirmed the next Ghost Recon is in development, but a release window remains unknown. Internally, an alpha is planned for this Fall, and if everything goes according to plan, it could launch next year. Splinter Cell Remake hasn’t received many updates, but rumors from last year indicate a potential 2026 release. As for Assassin’s Creed Hexe, it was previously alleged to launch after support wraps for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Of course, that’s not all, as Ubisoft allegedly has the next mainline Far Cry (Project Blackbird) and an extraction shooter spin-off (Project Maverick) in development. There’s also the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, which the publisher said would launch before the fiscal year ends; Project Alterra, an “Animal Crossing-esque” game; Project Crest, an extraction shooter in World War 2; and Beyond Good and Evil 2.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Remake and Assassin’s Creed Invictus are currently “up in the air” with regards to release dates. Tom Clancy’s The Division 3, the next Crew, and “multiple other mainline and smaller Assassin’s Creed experiences” are planned for “beyond 2027.” Regardless, the next two years should feel fairly packed. Stay tuned for updates and potential reveals in the coming months.

As past reports have claimed, Ubisoft Montreal has two titles in the works in the form of Far Cry 7 (under the codename Blackbird) and and a standalone extraction shooter spinoff (under the codename Maverick), with the latter being set in the Alaskan wilderness, and the former being structured around a real-time 24-hour time limit within which the protagonist has to rescue their family from a dangerous conspiracy theory cult.

Now, Henderson has offered yet more potential details, claiming that both titles are being designed to intentionally move away from what’s been the established Far Cry formula for years. On the moment-to-moment gameplay front, both titles will also feature new and enhanced movement options, including tactical sprinting, vaulting, sliding, and more. Both games will also feature new inventory and loot systems.

Past leaks had claimed that Far Cry 7 and Maverick would both be releasing in Fall 2025, but Henderson now claims that due to the complexities of their development, both titles have now been pushed back into 2026. Allegedly, the developers working on the project are optimistic about how Far Cry 7 is shaping up, though there is more internal skepticism surrounding Maverick, with some concerned about whether it will be another in a long list of failed Ubisoft titles that tried to chase trends, similar to XDefiant.

New Premise

When Far Cry 3 was released, its premise was intriguing in many ways as a fish-out-of-water protagonist fights back against a despotic yet charismatic local leader in an exotic setting. It did present some nuance to prevent players from seeing themselves as the hero, as seen in Far Cry 4 and 5, but by Far Cry 6, the whole idea was getting tired.

With Far Cry 7, a new approach and treatment to the story are necessary, and based on rumors, that may happen. It’s reportedly a non-linear story where players must rescue their family from the Sons of Truth. They can rescue family members in any order, and the story changes based on your actions, with 100 percent completion only possible by saving them all. Interestingly, there’s a time limit of 72 hours in-game. Things could still change, but as it stands, this sounds fresh and intriguing, though we’d have to see how it’s handled.

Brand New Setting

Far Cry is known for its globe-hopping settings, from an unnamed African location to fictionalized versions of the Himalayas. With Far Cry 6 repeating the tropical islands setting for the third time (Far Cry 1 had Micronesia, and Far Cry 3 had the Rook Islands), it’s time for something new. Perhaps Japan, with its scenic beauty and sheer range of locations, from the metropolis of Tokyo to the more rural Kyoto? It would make for something truly unique for the series, which is desperately needed.

Less Bloat

As the developer focused on making its games bigger, the bloat began to build. This came to a head in Far Cry 6, where the focus was seemingly on providing more content for lengthening playtime. Far Cry 7 needs to streamline things, remove the quests and activities that don’t work and polish the content that does. Less can be more in some cases.

More Involving Side Quests

Even if rumors hadn’t emerged about Far Cry 7 having a non-linear story which changes based on your decisions (including family members potentially dying), the side missions have long needed an overhaul. More involving side missions with interesting stories and branching decisions would be welcome. Far Cry 6 had this to a degree, but they don’t all need to feed into the larger story and could present unique plot points that run through the course of the experience.

New Ways to Unlock the Map

With all the different ways to explore an open world in today’s games, it was nice to see Far Cry 6 do away with towers for unlocking the map. Unfortunately, Far Cry 6 didn’t do anything new in that regard. Towers don’t necessarily need to make a comeback, but what about discovering maps to an area and then having to delve into them for all the little points of interest, a la Elden Ring? It would help encourage exploration without spelling things out for the player.

Improve Hunting

Hunting is a major part of the series, as players use resources from slain animals to upgrade pouches to hold more ammo and items. It was best showcased in Primal but unnecessary and downplayed in Far Cry 6. Considering how other open-world titles, like the developer’s own Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, reinforce its importance, here’s hoping that Far Cry 7 can do the same and expand on it further.

Extensive Weapon Customization

While Far Cry has had weapon customization, it would be nice to go even deeper and change a gun from the ground up, turning an assault rifle into a full-auto shotgun or a semi-automatic pistol into an SMG.

Less Focus on Loot

If there’s one thing that Far Cry 7 must do, it’s move away from the loot and weapon rarities. It needs to focus more on interesting weapons, instead of trying so hard to be Destiny. Unique weapons could still have a place, especially for implementing guns unlike everything else, like flamethrowers, bows, crossbows, harpoon guns, etc. They could mix things up even further, adding some variety to the usual pistols, shotguns, assault rifles and snipers.

Streamline Ammo Switching

Understandably, the developer wants to give players a reason to use different guns. Why implement so many different kinds if one weapon does the trick across the board? The solution in Far Cry 6 was to have different ammo types, some more effective than others on specific enemies.

The problem is that not only is ammo switching a pain, but you also had to carry different types around (until a quality of life change allowed for changing on the fly) and using the wrong ammo type felt too punishing. It’s not a bad idea in theory, but Far Cry 7 desperately needs to streamline the whole deal and make it less tedious.

The Classic Skill Tree

Another amazingly annoying change in Far Cry 6 is skills being tied to gear. While it may seem like a great way to encourage a loot game, that’s not what fans want. They don’t want to chase after gear and then switch off from some skills (or worse, equip something useless for their playstyle). Instead, the Skill Tree from previous Far Cry titles needs to return. Let players earn XP, unlock new Skills, and specialize in their playstyle like the good ol’ days.

Fortresses

Before the outposts became so tiring, Far Cry 4 attempted to innovate on them with Fortresses. These were suitably well-guarded and occupied by Pagan Min’s toughest commanders. However, if you disposed of the leader, the Fortress would weaken, reducing the number of enemies and alarms.

Stealth is highly encouraged in this case, though you could still go in guns blazing. With the rumored premise for Far Cry 7, seeing Fortresses return with more variety and unique types of commanders would be great.

New Mechanics

The stealth takedowns, gunplay, sliding and stealth have all more or less been refined over the years, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There have been numerous new mechanics like companions, Amigos, vehicle customization, Supremos backpacks, weapon rarity and ammo switching thrown into the mix.

However, Far Cry 7 needs to do something brand new. Dare we hope for more refined melee combat? Maybe interact with the environment in brand new ways? The rumored Interrogation mechanic sounds like it could be something, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Improved Enemy AI and Variety

For a series that’s grounded in reality, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to enemy variety. Still, it would be nice to have different types of enemies, like a stealth-focused type that hunts players and boasts improved mobility. Even if it can’t decide on new additions, improvements to the enemy AI would also be welcome, especially with how mixed they could be in Far Cry 6.

Survival Mechanics

Remember Far Cry 2? Unlike future titles in the Far Cry series, it didn’t follow a set open-world formula. Instead, there were more survival-focused mechanics, like guns needing to be scavenged regularly and jamming temporarily and medicine required to stave off the effects of malaria.

Far Cry 7 should dip into the survival sandbox well more, forcing players to eat and drink to keep their strength up, treat illnesses and wounds and maintain their weapons. If there’s anything that contemporary games have proven, such mechanics can enhance the experience. Of course, you should be able to tweak them based on preference or even turn them off entirely if desired.

More Interesting Side Activities

Hunting and fishing are just some of the activities Far Cry 6 downplayed or didn’t expand on after previous games. That should change in Far Cry 7, but more importantly, there need to be new compelling side activities (and we’re not talking about the weekly live-servicey insurgency missions from Far Cry 6). What those will ultimately be depends on the premise and setting, but convoy ambushes, scuba diving for treasure, and so on would be cool.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

According to Insider Gaming, the multiplayer title has changed its scope quite a few times over its development period, with its latest iteration being an under-development extraction shooter set in a fictionalized version of Alaska, named Alashnica.

The game is set to take its cues from its Far Cry predecessors, with players setting out to look for resources. These resources can then be used to craft new equipment. For example, leather from a killed animal can be used to make new gear, while chemicals found in the world will allow players to make gadgets.

In extraction shooter fashion, players will also have a hideout where they can store the things they find and craft. The game will also have permadeath, which means that players will lose all of their character’s progress on death.

The other Far Cry title in development, dubbed Project Blackbird, will be a new mainline entry in the series, and will probably end up titled Far Cry 7.

While the extraction shooter doesn’t yet have a release date, according to Insider Gaming, the game is slated for release before Far Cry 7. The current internal release window for the title is set for April 2025, with an alpha release in early 2024.

Felipe Lima, editor-in-chief of Brazilian outlet Universo Nintendo (who has previously accurately leaked a few Nintendo-related stories), has claimed on Twitter that upon its launch (whenever that ends up being), Far Cry 7 also be available day on for the Nintendo Switch 2, alongside other consoles and PC.

Previous leaks have claimed that, through the use of DLSS, the console will be able to output at 4K and 60 FPS, with ray tracing also being enabled, and if that is accurate, it would make sense to see Far Cry 7 (and other AAA multiplatform releases) getting simultaneous releases on the Nintendo Switch’s successor along with other platforms.

Recent reports have suggested that Nintendo showcased tech demos of its next-gen console to developers in behind-closed-doors at Gamescom. The console is allegedly targeting a launch sometime in the second half of 2024.

Yeah, will launch day one along with other console versions on Switch NG

— ‘Necro’ Felipe #UnivNintendo (@necrolipe) September 27, 2023

As per Henderson, Far Cry 7’s big, new hook will be a non-linear story that’ll come with a time limit imposed on players. The game will allegedly see players trying to rescue their family members from a conspiracy group known as “Sons of Truth”, and interestingly enough, the story will be told in non-linear fashion, which means having the freedom to rescue family members in any order.

The report further claims that the story will change based on players’ actions, which means some family members could potentially die while others survive, and that 100% completion of the story will require rescuing all members. At the same time, however, players will have a hard time limit within which to do that. As per Henderson, currently, that time limit is 72 in-game hours, which will translate to 24 hours in real-time- the report states that some details could still change, given that the game is still in development.

Far Cry 7 will allegedly also feature a new interrogation mechanic, and while enemies are being questioned, they can have varying responses, like telling the truth, lying, choosing to remain silent, or even trying to escape (and sometimes succeeding).

Henderson also claims that Far Cry 7’s development is being handled by Ubisoft Montreal. The studio was behind Far Cry 2, 3, 4, and 5, though Far Cry 6 was developed primarily by Ubisoft Toronto. Meanwhile, it’s also claimed that unlike past instalments, which were developed on the Dunia engine, Far Cry 7 is being developed on Massive Entertainment’s Snowdrop engine, which is used for the likes of The Division, Mario + Rabbids, and upcoming titles like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, XDefiant, and Star Wars Outlaws.

Allegedly, Far Cry 7 is targeting a Fall 2025 launch.

Recently, it was announced that veteran Far Cry writer and designer Drew Holmes had been made the IP Director for Far Cry at Ubisoft. Read more on that through here.

One of these is presumed to be a single-player experience, Far Cry 7, while the other is multiplayer-only. They were reportedly one game early on as Project Talisker under Hay before his departure. Far Cry 7 is internally referred to as Project Blackbird, while Project Maverick is the multiplayer title. Ubisoft Montreal is heavily involved in both.

There aren’t a lot of details, but two anonymous sources revealed that Maverick changed several times over the past year. It’s reportedly an extraction-based shooter set in the Alaskan wilderness and features contracts, backpacks and permadeath. Though there is the threat of other players, you’ll need to worry as much, if not more, about the wildlife and freezing weather.

Insider Gaming has seen screenshots of extraction zones, loot chests and more that line up with this premise but can’t publicly show them. Both titles are apparently a couple of years off, at least, and tentatively targeting Fall 2025. Ubisoft responded to the report with, “We don’t comment on rumors or speculation”.

The far-off release lines up with Kotaku’s report on the next Far Cry being further out than Ubisoft originally planned. Time will tell if it manages to hit it, or if there will be delays, as seen with recent projects like Skull and Bones and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

The two firms, which are the biggest in private equity worldwide, have reportedly been “studying the French business” and have “preliminary takeover interest.” While Ubisoft hasn’t had “any serious negotiations with potential acquirers,” it has allegedly worked with consultancy firms in the past few years to audit the business as per Kotaku’s sources. This is apparently a sign that the company is “trying to tidy up its books for a potential sale.”

The highlight of Kotaku’s report, however, is concerning development on the newest titles in the Far Cry, Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed franchises. According to three sources familiar with the developer, they’re apparently “further out” than Ubisoft has previously planned. As such, the company has some 20 titles that it’s looking to announce and/or discuss in the coming months as per insider Tom Henderson, and we’ve already seen announcements for games like Project Q.

A Ubisoft spokesperson told Kotaku that it didn’t “comment on rumors or speculation” and that it has “unmatched creative and production capacities, with more than 20,000 talented people collaborating across our global studios on game development.” “Thanks to them and to our long-term approach and appetite for taking creative risks, we have built some of the industry’s strongest proprietary brands and have many promising new brands and projects on the horizon. We also have one the industry’s deepest and most diversified portfolios, cutting-edge services and technologies, and a large and growing community of engaged players.

“As a result, we’re ideally positioned to capitalize on the rapid industry growth and platform opportunities that are emerging right now.”

Stay tuned for any potential developments in the coming months though, especially with major players like Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks and Bungie having been acquired over the past year.