Ubisoft may have just quietly killed off one of its biggest franchises

Ooft. Ubisoft could be about to disappoint fans as it becomes increasingly likely that it killed off one of its biggest IPs while we weren’t looking.

To be honest, this particular franchise has been fairly quiet since the launch of Watch Dogs: Legion when fans felt the final nail enter the coffin lid. However, hope remained that Ubisoft could pull it back from going over the edge.

Sadly, it seems that hasn’t happened.

Did you check out the Watch Dogs Legion DLC?

According to Twitter user @xj0nathan, Watch Dogs is “dead and buried” thanks to “Legion’s failure”. Not only has this cost the fandom any closure, but it’s also meant the culling of a “fairly original battle royale”.

Naturally, fans who have seen this tweet, or who had their own suspicions regarding the IPs future, aren’t happy.

“Everyone loved the ambiance of the first game and the gameplay of the second game,” explained one player.

“Legion was almost that, but they decided to go the bland Ubisoft way by making it a live service (seriously, what's the deal with that s**t, just make a single player game with a season pass).”

That fan is going to be even more upset when they learn that Assassin's Creed Red appears to have live service elements, as seen in a leak.

Elsewhere in the Reddit thread, less thought went into the responses, with a fan merely confused by Ubisoft’s creative choices, “How Ubisoft fumbled the whole series is still beyond me.”

It comes at a time when Ubisoft is already in the doghouse, only this time it’s about its upcoming Star Wars Outlaws title. Having discovered that a major mission will be locked behind DLC, fans are understandably upset.

Watch Dogs held much promise, and maybe it still does, but whether it can ever realise it seems to dwindle as a possibility every day.