Ubisoft kicked off its weird and wild all-remote E3 on Saturday afternoon with a stage-free version of its annual parade of reveals.
The French publisher laid out a tantalizing lineup that includes a bevy of new games as well as an assortment of additions to older ones. The presentation covered an awful lot of ground, so let’s get right into it.
Rainbow Six: Extraction debuts
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The next iteration of Ubi’s esports favorite, Rainbow Six: Siege, is taking things in a decidedly different direction. First announced in 2019 (and now sporting a new title, since the original Rainbow Six Quarantine hits differently in 2021), Extraction skips competitive players-versus-player action in favor of a cooperative experience.
Drawing heavily on Siege‘s character-driven and tactically oriented gameplay, Extraction pits squads of players against a horde of alien monster things. Those squads are made up of some of the same Operators from the earlier game — with the skills and gear that differentiate them intact in some form — and they’ll have access to a similar set of fortification and battle tools.
The whole gameplay deep dive that Ubi shared gives off major Left 4 Dead vibes. Rainbow Six Extraction is out for PlayStation and Xbox consoles as well as Windows on Sept. 16.
Play as all the Far Cry villains!
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Yeah, you’re excited for Far Cry 6. It looks like Giancarlo Esposito is going to bring much to Ubi’s truly frightening rogue’s gallery of past Far Cry villains. But the stuff that’s coming after Far Cry 6 drops may be even more exciting to longtime fans of the series.
A “Season Pass” trailer hyping the post-release add-ons for Far Cry 6 reveals a set of add-ons that appear to let players step into the shoes of Vaas Montenegro (Far Cry 3), Pagan Min (Far Cry 4), and Joseph Seed (Far Cry 5), at the very least. The Season Pass also seems to include a newly announced re-release of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the completely bonkers, neon-drenched 2013 spinoff of Far Cry 3.
Far Cry 6 comes to PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Stadia and Luna cloud gaming platforms, and Windows on Oct. 7.
MORE RABBIDS!!!
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The exciting news of a new Mario + Rabbids game slipped out on the internet a few hours too early, but Ubi’s stream brought more, including the above gameplay trailer. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope looks like it brings back the same kind of play experience that made the first game so beloved, but in a new and updated package.
For those who aren’t familiar, Mario + Rabbids is a turn-based strategy game in the vein of the XCOM series. It’s cuter, and it features all sorts of quirks and gameplay features that line it up with Nintendo and Ubisoft creations. But the bulk of the action is taking turns in small, tactical battles against an array of different foes.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2022.
In other news
That’s not all the news from Ubisoft’s showcase. There was the big, unexpected reveal of an upcoming Avatar game (the James Cameron one), from Ubi Massive, the studio behind the Division games. We didn’t get to see any gameplay or hear much about what to expect from the game, called Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. But it’s coming in 2022, presumably with some proximity to the theatrical release of Avatar‘s sequel on Dec. 16, 2022.
Ubisoft also shared some peaks at a couple of non-gaming projects. The publisher has been delving further into the world of filmed entertainment in recent years, most notably with its excellent Apple TV+ series Mythic Quest, a comedy about game development and game developers from the It’s Always Sunny creative team.
The E3 2021 press conference brought a new victory lap-style trailer celebrating the Rob McElhenney-starring series’ critical acclaim. There was also a fresh look at Werewolves Within, the upcoming comedy starring Sam Richardson (Veep) that’s inspired by Ubi’s eponymous social stealth virtual reality game.
Finally, a trailer also revealed an upcoming add-on for Watch Dogs: Legion which brings back two characters from past games in the series: Aiden Pearce (Watch Dogs) and Wrench (Watch Dogs 2). The add-on is called Bloodline and it’s almost here, launching for Legion players to enjoy on July 6.
You can see the other Ubi announcements of note on the publisher’s YouTube page