Ubisoft, as it struggles after a string of commercial misses, doubles down on arguably its biggest franchise: Far Cry. And when I say double down, I do mean double, with reportedly two games for the series in the works: one single-player, the other multiplayer.
This is according to an Insider Gaming report that claims the unannounced Far Cry titles were originally meant to be one game until Dan Hay, the former franchise executive director for Far Cry, left Ubisoft to work at Blizzard Entertainment. The report goes on to say that the single-player project is now being referred to as Project Blackbird, and the multiplayer Far Cry is being called Project Maverick, with Ubisoft Montreal being heavily involved in both games.
Although not much is known, the report suggests that the multiplayer Project Maverick will be set in the Alaskan wilderness and is set to be an extraction-based looter-shooter. This does align with a previous poll that Ubiosft did in the past that was originally spotted by PC Gamer, where it asked fans where they’d like the next Far Cry to be based–one of the options was Alaska.
Traditionally, most Far Cry games have been single-player focuses with the option to play co-op.
If these details turn out to be accurate, this situation sounds a lot like what happened with The Last of Us Part 2, which initially was going to have a multiplayer component that ultimately got spun out into its own project, with more details on it to come later this year. As multiplayer games become increasingly more standalone in their size and scope, it’ll be interesting to see how many more games that would traditionally combine their single and multiplayer components begin to splinter them.
A game that shipped with both a single and multiplayer mode was Dead Space 2. The remake of its predecessor just shipped, and in the original Dead Space’s remake, players think they’ve found an Easter egg to indicate the sequel will be getting the same treatment.
After completing the game, players have the option to replay the story with New Game Plus. Once they load back into the game, players will notice a few new text logs that weren’t originally there when they first played the game.
In the new logs, players can read an email-like exchange between two characters talking about looking for new employment opportunities due to the “decommissioning” that’s supposed to happen within the next year. As the conversation continues, the two talk about potentially working at the Sprawl on Titan.
This location is significant in the Dead Space franchise because this is the location where Issac ends up fighting for his life in Dead Space 2 after narrowly escaping the USG Ishimura.
With EA struggling to put out single player games not a part of the Star Wars franchise, if Dead Space Remake sells well, you’ve got to imagine that a remake of the equally popular sequel would be on the table. Just expect it to only ship with single-player, with a Dead Space multiplayer standalone game releasing down the line.
