It looks like the success of Assassin's Creed: Origins has pushed Ubisoft into making some much needed changes. The publisher took a gamble by moving on from the series' annual release schedule and it paid off, which has pushed Ubi into taking a bit more time with a few other projects, including Far Cry 5.
Far Cry 5 has been moved from its February 27th release date to March 27th 2018. Meanwhile The Crew 2 is getting a more dramatic shift from the 16th of March to ‘some time' in the second half of 2018. In addition, one of three previously unannounced ‘franchise' games has had its release date moved from the 2018-2019 financial year to 2019-2020.
As Ubisoft's Christine Burgess-Quémard puts it, this decision is a direct result of the publisher deciding to develop “more engaging and higher quality experiences for gamers”. She added that “taking more time with Assassin's Creed Origins” enabled the developers to “fully express their creative vision”, which in turn has had a positive impact on quality and commercial success.
In other words, Ubisoft has realized that taking extra time in development can yield better results, as opposed to sticking with a strict, regimented annual release schedule. Hopefully this strategy will continue into the future.
KitGuru Says: Assassin's Creed Origins has been a major step up for the series, which seems to have opened Ubisoft's eyes a bit. Hopefully this will lead to more varied releases from the publisher in the future, rather than annual releases for all major franchises.
Guess its either to add loot boxes or remove them.
Hard to know