This Week at Ubisoft: Far Cry 5 Celebrates 5th Anniversary, Ubisoft Goes to GDC

This week at Ubisoft, celebrations continue for Far Cry 5's fifth anniversary in the form of a free weekend and retrospective deep dive video; Ubisoft announced the launch date for Mighty Quest Rogue Palace, its second mobile game with Netflix; and Ubisoft presentations at GDC 2023 covered topics including AI and neurodiversity in gaming. Check out all that and more in this week's roundup of Ubisoft news.

Far Cry 5: Five Years Later - 10 Secrets & Stories From Behind the Scenes

To celebrate Far Cry 5's fifth anniversary, the Ubisoft News team flew to Montreal to interview developers who worked on the game. In this behind-the-scenes video, Narrative Director Jean-Sebastien Decant, Assistant Art Director Dominic LaForge, Lead Writer Drew Holmes, and Project Closer Anne Farmer share secrets and personal stories about making the game, from the original ending to petting dogs to a secret pizza hangout.

Mighty Quest Rogue Palace Coming April 18

Mighty Quest Rogue Palace, the second of three Ubisoft mobile games for Netflix, will launch on April 18. In this roguelite action game, players must enter the King's mazelike mind palace and fight their way to its center. As you progress, you'll unlock 20 playable heroes from the Mighty Quest universe, and can gather loot, perks, and upgrades to make your run as powerful as possible. Mighty Quest Rogue Palace is exclusively available to Netflix members on iOS and Android devices.

Play Far Cry 5 in 60 FPS For Free Through March 27

You can play Far Cry 5 for free now through March 27 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC through Ubisoft Connect, as well as in 60 FPS on Xbox Series X|S and PS5. You can liberate Hope County from the vicious Joseph Seed and The Project at Eden's Gate solo or with a friend in co-op, and those who buy the game will have their progress carry over.

GDC 2023: Unlocking the Power of Neurodiversity in Game Development

At GDC 2023, Pierre Escaich and Aris Bricker gave a presentation about neurodiversity in the gaming industry. They discussed how neurodivergent employees make up a significant portion of the videogame workforce, why neurodivergent people make great additions to any company, and how they worked to build Ubisoft's Neurodiversity employee resource group (ERG) and neurodiversity talent program, which help make Ubisoft a more neuro-inclusive environment.

The Convergence of AI and Creativity: Introducing Ghostwriter

Ubisoft La Forge R&D Scientist Ben Swanson gave a GDC presentation on Ghostwriter, a new AI tool in development that will assist game writers with a time-consuming task: creating barks, the sounds and short phrases and NPCs and enemies make during combat or other in-game events. Ghostwriter assists by quickly generating first-draft barks based on specified parameters, which scriptwriters can then edit, re-generate, or discard. In his presentation, Swanson detailed how Ghostwriter came about, its development, and where the AI tool is headed.

Ubisoft+ Multi Access Now Available on Amazon Luna in Canada, United Kingdom, and Germany

Ubisoft+ Multi Access, which allows subscribers to play select Ubisoft games on Amazon Luna as well as PC, is now available in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Now, subscribers in those regions can play games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Rainbow Six Siege, The Division 2, and more on the cloud, and take advantage of cross-save features to keep their progress across both platforms.

GDC 2023: Ubisoft's Complete Schedule

At GDC 2023, Ubisoft participated in over 15 summits, panels, and workshops, presenting on topics including AI in game development, accessibility, and more. Ubisoft News put together a complete schedule of Ubisoft's GDC events to help interested parties easily find presentations. For those who missed the live presentations, many talks will appear online later in the GDC vault.

Ubisoft+ Spotlight - Far Cry New Dawn

(Editorial note: This is a series of quick weekly highlights written by Ubisoft News team writers that feature games available with a Ubisoft+ subscription. We hope you'll enjoy reminiscing with us, or perhaps discover something new.)

Brittany Spurlin, Writer/Editor: Far Cry New Dawn, the sequel to Far Cry 5, asks the question: What if Joseph Seed was right? Set in 2035, approximately 17 years after the apocalyptic Collapse, survivors attempt to rebuild society, starting with a township called Prosperity. However, Prosperity is plagued by the Highwaymen, a band of vicious bandits led by twins Mickey and Lou. To save Prosperity, you'll need to track down, infiltrate, and take out the Highwaymen, all while dealing with a world mutated by radiation, working with surprising allies, and facing a deep betrayal.

While some areas of Far Cry 5's map are now inaccessible due to radiation, it's a new Hope County you'll encounter in Far Cry New Dawn, as the land is teeming with bright flowers and new plant growth as well as mutated animals. . Much of Far Cry 5's core gameplay carries over into New Dawn, like capturing Outposts, Guns and Fangs for Hire, and finding treasure stashes, but there are a few updates that make the game feel fresh and realistic. For example, when you take an Outpost from the Highwaymen, you can either liberate it or scavenge it for resources - but if you choose the latter, the Highwaymen will retake it (and they'll defend it harder the next time you attack, with better rewards if you beat them). The game also has a unique weapon-crafting system, letting you build weapons from scraps of the old world. Far Cry New Dawn also introduced the Expeditions system, which lets you travel to other parts of the country - including Alcatraz Island, Navajo Bridge, and the crash site of the International Space Station - to gather resources like duct tape, circuit boards, and titanium.

Plus, if you thought hurling shovels in Far Cry 5 was fun, just wait until you get your hands on the Saw Launcher.

Far Cry New Dawn, as well as Far Cry 5 and its three DLCs, is available now with a Ubisoft+ subscription.

Game Updates

Rainbow Six Siege deployed patch Y8S1.1 on March 21, bringing a number of bug fixes to the new season.

• Hack VFX no longer switches team colors after hacking Defender drones
• Maestro's Evil Eye, Valkyrie's Black Eye, and Bulletproof Camera can no longer be accessed in online matches with unique or secondary ability buttons
• Kludge drone now displays out of range feedback when failing a hack due to distance

On March 27, Riders Republic updated Tricks Battle rules - check some of them out below:

• Capturing a district no longer gives a multiplicator
• Once a district is captured, it is locked for 30 seconds and points cannot be scored
• If a team captures three districts at once, they instantly win the match

The Crew 2 underwent server maintenance on March 23, resolving an issue that caused repeated desktop crashes.