Far Cry 5 is set to release in Feb. 2018, and Ubisoft is ramping up its efforts to keep the popular franchise relevant. In addition to the bulk of its development happening in Montreal, the brand new Berlin office will open in early 2018 to help make the series all that it can be.
Istvan Tajnay, previously the studio operations director of Ubisoft Blue Byte, will run the new branch. Blue Byte is most famous for strategy series like The Settlers and Anno. With his new title as Studio Manager, Tajnay is excited for the tough tasks that await his fledgling team.
“We are thrilled to be opening the doors to Ubisoft Berlin and working on the Far Cry series together with other Ubisoft teams,” Tajnay said of the news. “In the first year, we will build a core team of around 50 developers drawing on all areas of expertise.”
The opening of the Berlin studio will mark Ubisoft’s third major location in Germany, preceded by two Blue Byte studios in Düsseldorf and Mainz. The Berlin office will supplement the work already being carried out in the region. In addition to handling a few franchises of its own, Byte has also provided support work on titles like Rainbow Six Siege, Skull & Bones and For Honor. That’s essentially what this new creative house will be doing, but for now its focus is on Far Cry.
The opening window of early 2018 would suggest Berlin might assist with pre-release or early post-release QA testing for the final game. If there is any DLC planned in the months to follow, Berlin could certainly be of help there too.
On the business side of things, this expansion seems like yet another signal to investors to help stave off a potential hostile takeover from Vivendi, who has been slowly gobbling up shares of Ubisoft for years . In Vivendi’s recent third-quarter financial report, officials announced plans to hold off the Ubisoft acquisition process for at least six months. The company currently owns 26 percent of Ubisoft’s shares and would have to formally recognize the takeover after that threshold passes 30 percent.
“We will remain vigilant about [Vivendi’s] long-term intentions and will continue to pursue our strategy of growth and value creation in the interest of all our shareholders,” Ubisoft reps told Gamasutra in regard to Vivendi’s change of pace. The fact that Ubisoft Berlin exists is an outright commitment to those words.
Far Cry 5 comes to PS4, Xbox One and PC Feb. 27.
What do you think of Ubisoft’s new studio opening in Berlin? Will it make Far Cry 5 better and maintain the publisher’s autonomy? Tell us in the comments section!
