In its statement, Ubisoft refers to the lay-offs has having been done as part of its global cost-saving efforts and targeted restructuring. The company has also confirmed that its employees that were affected by the lay-offs are still being supported with “comprehensive severance packages, extended health-care benefits, and career transition assistance”.

“Today, Ubisoft made the decision to eliminate 19 roles at Red Storm Entertainment,” said the company in its statement. “This step is part of our ongoing, targeted restructuring and global cost-saving efforts, and reflects the needs on the studio’s projects. While this was not an easy decision, it was a necessary one given our operational priorities. We remain committed to supporting those affected with comprehensive severance packages, extended health-care benefits, and career transition assistance. We deeply appreciate their hard work and the impact they’ve had on Ubisoft.”

Ubisoft has also confirmed that Red Storm Entertainment is the only one of its studios that is being affected by lay-offs for the time being. However, it did not respond to questions about the current state of the studio and how many employees were still working there.

For context, Red Storm Entertainment – these days more commonly referred to as Ubisoft Red Storm – has worked on a number of games since its inception. The studio was founded by Tom Clancy back in 1996. While it was originally envisioned as a studio that would make games based on his series of spy fiction novels, resulting in various games across the Rainbow Six series, it was eventually acquired by Ubisoft in 2000.

Over the last decade, Red Storm Entertainment has largely been relegated to being a support studio that helped out with the development of VR off-shoots, including Star Trek: Bridge Crew and cancelled projects like an untitled Splinter Cell VR game. The studio was also working on The Division Heartland, which ended up getting cancelled last year.

Just last month, Ubisoft confirmed that it would not be hosting its own game showcase – often known as Ubisoft Forward – this year. The showcase, typically part of June’s slate of events like Future Games Show and Summer Game Fest, was cancelled for the year with a statement from Ubisoft. In the statement, the company indicated that it just didn’t have much to share this time around.

“We are always eager to connect with our players and showcase our game,” said a spokesperson from Ubisoft. “We are continuing to explore opportunities to share updates, and we look forward to providing more information at a later date.”

Ubisoft currently has quite a few titles under development, including a remake of the classic Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, as well as the next outing in its city builder franchise, Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Slated to be the fourth entry in the Far Cry series of games that reached main stream popularity with the hugely successful Far Cry 3, the game is slated to launch on both last generation and current generation platforms. Arriving on November 18th in Europe and North America, and November 20th in Australia , the game will be available on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One at retail and via digital download (most likely with Uplay third party DRM).

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

Far Cry 4 was confirmed (though not officially announced) by an Ubisoft fiscal year financial report which made mention of the game. The official confirmation of Far Cry 4’s existence came in the form of an official company report, in which Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said, “”The year’s performance will be led by five games,…Assassin’s Creed Unity, Far Cry 4, Just Dance, The Crew and Watch Dogs.”

Despite only being officially announced through the above mentioned report, the gaming media and gamers all knew that this game would be coming. With the runaway success of Far Cry 3 which has sold in excess of six million copies and it’s stand alone spin off dlc Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon which solid over one million copies.

Partnering up with visual computing tech powerhouse Nvidia to help increase the graphical fidelity of Far Cry 4, Ubisoft is aiming to give Far Cry 4 “Hollywood Levels” of animation and a sense of realism. The game will take advantage of Nvidia’s PhysX technology as well as DX11 features and TXAA Anti Aliasing Soft Shadows.

The games narrative Director Mark Thompson has said that he wants to fix the “shortcomings” of the games narrative structure. In Far Cry 3, the player might have been expected to rush off and rescue someone or raid an enemy encampment. But the player could instead turn on their heel and explore for hours on end without any negative consequences or repercussions, despite the supposedly time sensitive situation.

This will apparently be rectified in Far Cry 4 as the game world and the developing story and narrative structure are meant to compliment each other. In keeping with a lot of more open ended games, the writers of the game have opted to give the players character less of a vocal role in the game to better allow for immersion through letting the player imprint on the character through his silence.

The game was met with some considerable controversy when it was first announced as some viewers felt as though the game’s standard box art and promotional art depicted a scene of blatant racism. The box art depicts the games villain and in position of superiority over a “dark skinned man” thus many had the knee jerk reaction of claiming racism.

Speaking about this, the antagonists actor Troy Baker has said “Imperialism and racism and everything has been a big thing in Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3 especially, so it’s not about race. At all,” he explained. “As the story develops and people find out more they’ll see it plays no part in it at all. There’s just the fact that this guy is clearly ruling this country and of course with Far Cry… anyway, there’s a lot to talk about with Far Cry. I think this’ll be the coolest Far Cry game there’s ever been. I loved Vaas, I thought that was a great character, Far Cry 3, but Far Cry 4 is just mind-blowing.”

Story

Far Cry 4 is set in the Himalayas, a mountainous region of Nepal and follows the story of Ajay Ghale, a native of Nepal that returns to his home country of Kyrat, one of the more remote regions of the Himalayan mountain range. When he arrives, he finds that the area is under the tyrannical rule of the self appointed king, Pagan Min. Ajay is only there to scatter his recently deceased mothers ashes but somehow becomes embroiled in the civil war that is raging. Despite not having much information, it would seem Pagan Min recognises Ajay by his eyes, perhaps pointing to a hitherto unknown relation.

Gameplay

Gameplay remains largely unchanged in Far Cry 4 given the successful balance of first person shooter gameplay mixed with sandbox world exploration and role playing game influenced levelling mechanics.

The player will progress through the game encountering many weapon types and a vast array of vehicles that can be used to traverse the game world. Seemingly taking inspiration from riding dinosaurs with lasers in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the player can ride Himalayan elephants into the fray with guns blazing.

Like Far Cry 3, Far Cry 4 will feature a multiplayer component. Apparently Far Cry 4 will have “a lot more multiplayer…We are working on launching games that will be played for a longer time,” Guillemot said. “This will allow us to do more DLC [and] item-based sales in those games.”

One feature that has gamers excited is that anyone that doesn’t own a copy of the game is able to play the co-op multiplayer. It was revealed that the person who wish to step into the co-op must be playing on a PS3 or a PS4 and have a PlayStation Plus subscription. Meeting these requirements will get the player ten invitations that can be given to their PS+ friends so they can enjoy a free trial of online co-op with you.

While we don’t know how long these trial invitations will last, executive producer Dan Hay has revealed that they are going to be generous.

Characters

Ajay Ghale – Ajay Ghale is a native of Nepal returning to his home with the aim of fulfilling his now deceased mothers wishes. His plans of scattering her ashes are hindered somewhat when he discovers that a self appointed king has started a civil war in Kyrat.

Pagan Min – Pagan Min is the tyrannical self appointed King of Kyrat that has a thick streak of the eccentric running through him.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

About the game In Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Patriots, Team Rainbow faces a new and very real threat called the “True Patriots,” a highly-trained, well-organized revolutionary group that claim the American government is irrevocably corrupted by greedy politicians and corporate special interests. The True Patriots will do whatever it takes to reclaim their country. Playing as Rainbow, players will face critical scenarios that will require them to make tough ethical decisions in order to stop this new breed of terrorists.

The game is published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

As we pass through the gale force winds of E3 and into the relative doldrums of the summer release window, it’s finally time to get around to Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Ubisoft’s latest edition into the Tom Clancy franchise, although I understand that yet again his name is the only thing he is lending to it. Set in The Near Future, you’re part of the Ghost reconnaissance team of future soldiers -it’s a wonder Ubisoft have a marketing department at all- tasked with venturing around the world to hitherto un-touched locations in video games, following the trails of a plethora of bad guys, and girls.

Future Soldier starts proceedings by committing the cardinal sin of presenting a nicely-packaged intro trailer just before the start menu, only for it to be compressed to within an inch of its life, rendering it completely redundant. This worrying trend of taking some slick-looking game footage and making it look like a YouTube video shot with a toaster has been bubbling away for a while, the last game I can recall which didn’t do this was The Witcher 2’s Enhanced Edition, and that looked sublime. The only possible explanation I can fathom is to do with disk-space restrictions and fat has to be trimmed in any way possible, lopping off a hundred of so megabytes of nothingness isn’t necessarily a bad way to go.

Nicaragua is where the story begins, a country with so little international identity that Ubisoft could depict it as Rand McNally and nobody would be the wiser. Pretty much every location in Future Soldier is an unknown entity, this may be the first time Norway has been used as a location in any video game, ever. This attempt at garnering new locations yields very little, especially when they but possess very little identity. Single-player environments are well-realised and rather shiny, but somehow all seem to hold a sense of blandness That said, I still want to see a shooter set in Brussels with the colour palette of Flower. Future Soldier depicts an aggregated South American country via the medium of a tedious car segment, trying miserably to replicate the excellent intro of Call of Duty 4.

Ubisoft Red Storm’s preferred method of breaking up missions is to intersperse each with a boring car segment, perhaps in an attempt to convey the more mundane aspects of the future soldier’s existence, I don’t know. Okay, Future Soldier’s story line is never going to win any awards, but neither was it trying to. It’s simple and functional; it won’t knock anybody for six but nor will it disappoint to heavily. Story, schmory, this is a shooter about shooting and there’s very little wrong with that, it’s first-and-foremost about gameplay, with the online coming a close second.

As a ghost, you’re tasked with undetected infiltration, with only the occasional gun-blazing firefight, a few missions slap you across the face with an F if an enemy so much as gets a whiff of you or your buddies. To assist, the team are equipped with a prototype form of invisibility camouflage, working only when crouched. Except in the online, as it would almost certainly be a game-breaker, there it’s only for particularly immobile scouts. Most Tom Clancy games have featured a cover system of some sort, but never have they felt as fluid and free-flowing as this, working an absolute treat both in stealth, but also, through manic fire-fights, proving that systems like that really need gigantic reticle to be most efficient.

Sych shots are a nifty addition, as well as a handy stealth tool for silently bringing down up to four enemies. Tagged with RB, once all of your AI team-mates have a clear line of sight, shooting will bring down every enemy in a great big heap, simultaneously. The AI are helpfully stealthy, not once being the ones responsible for giving the game away, effectively manoeuvring without so much as a peep from them.

The strange thing is Future Soldier has a seperate co-op mode, yet the single-player feels like it was specifically designed to cater for four, even down to the ‘waiting’ AI players to get into certain positions before the game progresses. Furthermore, local co-op is nowhere to be found, instead a token wave-based mode is present named Guerilla. It’s fun, yes, but seems to lack the covert finesse of its single-player brethren.

Competitive multiplayer is where Future Soldier stands proudest, every map feels carefully crafted and built from the ground up, bearing vague resemblance to the single-player but no copy-pasted buildings are to be found here

The jewel in the multiplayer crown is undoubtably Gunsmith, possessing 600 individual assets with a staggering 10m+ customisation possibilities, and the way level progression works. Rather than unlocking components to a gun either at certain levels, or when a certain proficiency is achieved, instead each rank-up affords a single point for each faction, to be spent on any single add-on for any already unlocked weapon, aside from ammunition. This means that guns can essentially be customised in any way possible right from the word go, quickly negating many of the imbalance shortcomings some games can suffer from.

In most games, shotguns are almost deliberately underpowered, very few gamers holding them in particularly strong regard. That is, until now, shotguns now feel brutal and devastating at close range, especially with Dragon’s Breath ammunition. As the same suggests, Dragon’s Breath is a form of incendiary ammo, providing both some very rewarding, but also often deeply disturbing.

Before another weapon is unlocked, both types of gun will more than likely be fully customised, so early-game weapons aren’t necessarily left in the dust like you may expect. One strange choice is that factions are customised independently, meaning twice the numbers of weapons, but is there any real need for this?

Gunsmith was also specifically designed for Kinect and whilst I couldn’t use it in my bedroom given that I’m not the owner of my own galaxy, I got to experience it first-hand at a preview event and offers one of the best Minority Report experiences yet. Not so clever is the the Kinect firing range, requiring clench fists to be opened to fire a gun. Hold your arm out straight and repeatedly fully open and close your fist. Hurts, doesn’t it? I can see why it was included, if you’re going to have Kinect in a shooter you may as well afford some glimpse into being able to shoot with it, but it simply doesn’t work in this form.

In my preview, I speculated that Future Soldier wouldn’t necessarily appeal or cater to newcomers, or those of a CoD persuasion, even going as far as saying this is a ‘clan’ game, but I was simply wrong. It does certainly provide a different experience to the big shooters of 2011, but the feel and balance of the online play really hits the spot, providing a more frequently satisfying experience. The pace is certainly slower, but the game is all the better for it. Okay, it’s certainly a far more team-focused title than your Modern Warfares and much more fun will be had with friends than alone, but the sheer cohesion which the multiplayer provides will certainly have me playing for months to come.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.