The COVID-19 situation has had a big impact on plans across the gaming industry, with many publishers still evaluating their plans for upcoming game announcements and releases. In the case of Ubisoft, which has already had a series of major game delays in the last year, the current pandemic could see certain titles pushed back even further in order to time releases with next-gen consoles.
At the moment, both Sony and Microsoft are still holding on to their ‘Holiday 2020' release windows for the PS5 and Xbox Series X. However, the possibility of delays to early 2021 are far from being ruled out at this point. Ubisoft in particular is remaining open to that and is prepared to delay games planned to release on those new consoles if needed.
Speaking with the New York Times, Ubisoft CEO, Yves Guillemot, said: “We are not seeing significant impact to our own timelines, but we are in touch with all our partners and if there’s a need to adjust in order to do what’s best for them and for our players, we will do so.”
At this point, Ubisoft has at least give games in development for release between now and March 2021, including Watch Dogs Legion, Rainbow Six: Quarantine and Gods & Monsters. One of the unannounced games is likely the next Assassin's Creed, which would be a next-gen launch game.
KitGuru Says: Even if some games are going to be cross-gen releases, we may still see delays if the new Xbox and PlayStation consoles miss their release targets. There are likely going to be more delays behind the scenes at various publishers that aren't known publicly yet either, but we should begin to see the scope of that as the year goes on and announcements start coming through.