Ubisoft will now brand all games developed by its internal studios as Ubisoft Originals. The new branding first appeared in a trailer for The Division Heartlands, a standalone, free-to-play game that it set to release either later this year or early next year.
When asked whether the name signified anything more than new branding, a Ubisoft spokesperson told Eurogamer that “Moving forward ‘The Ubisoft Original’ mention is attached to all of Ubisoft’s games created in-house by our talented developers.”
The branding matches that of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, which affix an “Originals” label to content that is either made by their studios or exclusive to their platform. Ubisoft doesn’t currently publish games that are from studios that they do not own, unlike EA, for example, that publishes indie titles under the EA Originals label. If Ubisoft were to start publishing games from external studios, such as indie title, the name change would allow Ubisoft to differentiate those games from the ones produced by its own internal studios.
Until something like that happens, however, this is just an interesting name change.
