Quite a lot of time has passed since Ubisoft released a newFar Crygame. For the past decade or so, the FPS series has received new installments on a near-annual basis, mirroring Ubisoft’s release cadences with its other franchises, likeAssassin’s CreedandTom Clancy’s. Since the launch of 2021’sFar Cry 6, however, there hasn’t really been any official news on the future of theFar Cryfranchise, whether in terms of new mainline game announcements or even spin-offs reveals. The only publicly-revealed information about upcomingFar Crytitles comes not from Ubisoft itself, but rather from Tom Henderson and other insiders.
Recently, Henderson reported that Ubisoft is working on not one, buttwo newFar Crygames. One of them is a mainline singleplayer installment in the series, codenamed Project Blackbird, and another is a multiplayer extraction shooter, tentatively titled Project Maverick. ConsideringFar Cryhas never delved into the realm of extraction shooters before, Project Maverick is perhaps the riskiest of the two games, assuming they exist. Therefore, Ubisoft should try to avoid falling into the same pitfalls it fell into with other titles in the same genre, such asTom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction.
Far Cry’s Project Maverick Needs to Steer Clear of Rainbow Six Extraction’s Path
Rainbow Six Extraction is a Co-Op Extraction Shooter that Failed to Sustain a Healthy Playerbase
Judging bythe information that has been revealed about it so far,Project Maverick sounds a lot like the Ubisoft-developed extraction shooterTom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction. Released back in 2022 on all non-Nintendo platforms,Rainbow Six Extractionis a spin-off of the highly-successful 2015 FPSRainbow Six Siege. In the game, players are dropped into alien-infested locations, grouped together in teams of up to three people, and must work alongside each other to complete a set of given tasks, most of which involve collecting intel or extracting data in some way. Stealth is also, surprisingly, a major part ofRainbow Six Extraction’s gameplay loop.
IfRainbow Six Extraction’s premise sounds familiar, that’s because it’s based off of and, therefore, very similar to a certain limited-timegame mode inRainbow Six Siegecalled Outbreak. In fact, some may say it’s a bit too similar. Despite being a standalone game,Rainbow Six Extractioncontains a lot of the same operators (a.k.a. player characters), features, and skill sets that are present in the 2015 shooter. That’s somewhat understandable, given the fact that the two titles are set in the same universe, but the overall lack of original content inExtractionhinders its replay value and prevents it from truly standing out.
Rainbow Six Extractiongot off to a decent start in the first week after its release, attracting more than 3 million players across all platforms. Only a few months later, though, the game’s popularity decreased dramatically, and player counts for the game fell to dangerously low levels. Ubisoft ultimately ended support forExtractionless than a year after its launch. While some may have different explanations on the matter, many will argue thatRainbow SixExtractionwasn’t able to last longsimply because it didn’t have enough content, and what little content it did have was far too repetitive.
Project Maverick Needs to Stand Out from Project Maverick And Be Content-Rich At Launch
If Project Maverick is indeed in development at Ubisoft as rumors suggest, then the company needs to ensure that the game has enough quality content at launch in order to avoid having anotherRainbow Six Extractionsituation on its hands. Furthermore, Ubisoft needs to differentiate Project Maverick from its singleplayer counterpart,Project Blackbird. Reusing assets between the two games isn’t an issue, but if they both share the same gameplay mechanics, skill sets, and weapons, then they may end up feeling samey. There are a lot of ways aFar Cryextraction shooter can go wrong, asRainbow Six Extractionindicates, but hopefully, Ubisoft can defy all odds by releasing a unique, content-rich game in the end.
Far Cry
Far Cry is a long-running first-person shooter franchise set across diverse locations around the globe. Developed by Ubisoft, the Far Cry series features open worlds, unique characters and villains, and tons of weapons.
