Gaming

Ubisoft stops development of The Division Heartland and focuses its resources on open-world video games

Ubisoft stops development of The Division Heartland and focuses its resources on open-world video games

May 16. (Portaltic/EP) –

Ubisoft ha development of The Division Heartland video game stoppedthe free multiplayer planned for launch on PC and PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and has indicated that it will redistribute the resources invested in “bigger opportunities” like XDefiant and Rainbow Six titlesas well as in open world video games.

The video game developer announced The Division Heartland in 2021a new title of his Tom Clancy’s The Division independent ‘free to play’ franchise, developed by Red Storm Entertainment.

At that time, the company’s head of Finance, Frederick Duguet, pointed out that the Ubisoft’s development and release strategy was to maintain Triple A video games, but also promote free games. Thus, he detailed that they were “building high-end free games to trend towards ambitious ‘Triple A’ in the long term.”

Now, after three years, Ubisoft has canceled development of The Division Heartland and has pointed out that will redistribute these resources to “bigger opportunities”, referring to the video games XDefiant and Rainbow Six.

This was announced by the French company in its latest quarterly earnings reportwhere he has shared the cost reduction plan that it is currently carrying out to “optimize its operations and adapt to changing market trends.”

The decision to cancel The Division Heartland joins other video games paralyzed by the developer, as is the case of the three unannounced titles that Ubisoft canceled in January 2023, which followed the cancellation of four other games a year earlier.

In addition to eliminating video games in development, the company has indicated that it has reduced the number of workers by more than 1,700 positions in 18 months. As a result, Ubisoft has clarified that with the “continuous and strict control of hiring, organizational simplification and specific restructuring”, the company has 19,011 employees in total, according to figures collected until the end of March of this year.

FOCUS ON OPEN WORLD GAMES

In this framework, the developer has shared its general video game strategywhich will focus on open world titles such as the Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six and Star Wars franchises, as well as in service games like XDefiant and Rainbow Six.

This is how he shared it CEO of the company, Yves Guillemotin the results report, in which he explained the objective pursued by Ubisoft is “regain leadership” in open-world video games and “expand its footprint in native GaaS experiences,” that is, games as a service.

Specifically, Ubisoft aims to achieve this leadership with a “very promising” lineup that includes new releases Assassin’s Creed Shadowswhich will arrive on major consoles and PC on November 15, Rainbow Six Mobile, Star Wars Outlaws, The Division Resurgence and XDefiant, which will launch its preseason next Tuesday, May 21.

However, Ubisoft has recalled that it will release more details about its games and new deliveries in the upcoming Ubisoft Forward eventwhich is scheduled for Monday, June 10.

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