Ubisoft's E3 conference
Far Cry 4! Assassin's Creed Unity! Rainbow Six: Siege!
Updated on
634 comments
Ubisoft's E3 conference is over - we got to check out a live demo of Assassin's Creed Unity, the first few minutes of Far Cry 4 and the big surprise at the end, a multiplayer game of Rainbow Six: Siege.
Our live text archive is below, and check out our E3 2014 guide for an overview of the whole show.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
Here we go then! Ubisoft's pre-show should start right about now, with the main conference at 11pm BST. And here we go...
So far the pre-show involves a man with a nice scarf waving his arms at the camera.
The Ubi pre-show kicked off with a video montage recapping the last year of events. Now we're seeing the Uplay lounge at the Standard hotel in LA. Which is nice if you're in LA, I suppose?
We get to play Mario Kart 8 between these conferences though, so I am hardly complaining.
Now we're seeing some user-generated video about Ubisoft games. It's quite good actually!
Now we're getting some testimonials from Ubisoft studios around the world about what inspires them. This will probably last a while given that every second building in the world is now a Ubisoft studio.
That's it for the pre-show apparently! Not much happened there although it was quite sweet. Show itself begins in around nine minutes.
It's go time.
Looks like we're starting with Far Cry 4.
We're in a bus of some sort with the Himalayas in the background. A man asks to see your passport. He stuffs a bank note in it and tells you he'll do the talking.
The bus stops at some sort of checkpoint - men with AKs are outside. "Kyrat border", says the sign.
Shootout! Some of your friends in the bus are toast. There's lead flying everywhere. You get out and get captured by the border guards as a chopper lands.
Who's this stepping out of the chopper? Looks like the bad guy from the artwork.
"I distinctly remember saying 'stop the bus'," he says. "Not shoot the bus."
He stabs the border guard in the neck and falls on top of him stabbing away.
He looks to you. "We have a party waiting for you," he sees, happy to see you in a sinister way.
Now he's taking a selfie of you and him. His guys set fire to the bus. We're off on a "grand adventure", he says. Fade to black.
It's Dan Hay, creative director of Far Cry 4. He's saying that on 18th November they're going to put you on a bus to the Himalayas, give you a fake passport, a gun and a bit of cash, "and then you're f***ed."
Dan Hay takes the applause for the trailer. He says to expect an announcement today, then hands over to Aisha Tyler.
"Someone asked me recently why I keep doing these pressers when the internet is so full of bulls***? It's because I love video games."
Aisha's promising excitement and all sorts of other stuff.
She says she was "incredibly stoked" to appear in Watch Dogs, by the way.
Let's take a look at Just Dance 2015 then.
Updated track list with Pharrell Williams and Ellie Goulding among others.
Roll VT. People are dancing.
Apparently you can clap along if that's what you want to do.
Coming this October.
Oh, that's not it for Just Dance 2015. Producer Jason Altman is here to show us Just Dance Now. "All you need is a smartphone and an internet-connected big screen like a tablet, a PC or an internet-connected TV."
Basically everyone can always dance forever in all contexts ever.
That song about clapping was quite catchy. I'm surprised you don't hear it more often.
Right, over to The Division.
Petter Mannerfelt from Massive is on stage, reminding us that as a member of the Division you're a civilian agent who needs to discover the origin of the pandemic and take back New York.
We're getting a trailer showing a time-lapse of New York in The Division, gradually becoming covered in snow as someone sings Silent Night and breaks into weeping.
Which is a nice emotional counterpoint to Just Dance if nothing else.
The timelapse goes inside a New York home and shows the gradual accumulation of society falling apart - boards nailed over doors, blood on the wall etc - then back out onto the street where things get worse by the day.
Now it's showing us the rise of the Division's agents, who the grim VO intones will put the pieces of society back together.
And here are some dudes in nasty outfits jumping off a bin lorry with flamethrowers.
Probably not friendly.
On a day of good CG, that was some more good CG.
Right, onto The Crew.
From Division's time-lapse to sped up footage of a journey from Miami to LA.
There's city bits, country bits, bridge bits, desert bits, snowy bits. All sorts of bits.
The scenery is gorgeous and the map's enormous, says Aisha, but it's what you get to do that counts.
The game's creative director Julian Gerighty is on stage talking it all up. "We've been striving to put the gamers at the heart of our expedopdwsfjhklfds;klfdj
For everyone who isn't at E3, the closed beta is opening 27th July. Register at thecrewgame.com/beta.
The Crew is out 11th November on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Time for Assassin's Creed Unity!
Alex Amancio from Ubi Montreal is setting the scene. "It is the dawn of the 19th century."
Trailer time! An eagle swoops over Revolutionary Paris through the towers of Notre Dame and towards the Bastille.
Over peasants fighting soldiers. Men with muskets firing into crowds. Men in funny hats walking solemnly down corridors.
Four assassins square up and look out over the city, then prance around on rooftops as people wield pitchforks and run down the barrel of the soldiers' guns on the streets below.
Looks like one of the assassins had a new hidden crossbow weapon.
Two of the assassins stand facing a French nobleman who is threatening to light a fuse. Two more swoop down and incapacitate his guards and extinguish his wick. Peasants burst in.
Unity is out on 28th October 2014.
We're going to get a live demo of how the game systems work in the open world too.
They are cramming in a hell of a lot of NPCs. We start off on a gargoyle atop a church, then rather than diving into hay we swoop down swinging from beam to beam.
Ah there's a catch-the-thief mini mission. Can't be bothered to tackle him though, so we get distracted by a little "Murder Mystery" side quest.
We're now in a fairly standard fight on a street, countering and hacking away.
Eagle Vision shows us the location of loot and enemies, bringing us closer to our target.
Working through a building now, sneaking behind low walls to avoid detection until we reach our target upstairs.
Here we go, over the rooftops. Icons for stuff are now dotted all over your vision, so you're not diving into the map presumably.
More prompts for side content - Brotherhood missions.
Traversal and combat doesn't look that different, although there are tweaks, more NPCs and moving from outdoor to seamless indoor areas is a bit more next-gen.
We're now on a rooftop overlooking our target, who is overseeing executions, one of which we get to see take place as we creep around.
And in classic AC fashion, we hop down onto the top of the guillotine, then dive bomb the target with a hidden blade.
Amancio says that's only a glimpse of the systemic open world, with much more to see on the show floor.
AC's over, so let's check out Shape Up, a new fitness game.
"Fitness is boring," says Charles Huteau, the game's creative director.
The game turns fitness activities into mini-games. This one is called Piano Step.
You see yourself on screen and have to beat-match stepping on piano keys in time to music.
Now they're doing a Ubisoft San Fran vs Ubisoft France fitness face-off.
It's a push-up competition.
Ubisoft San Fran won! So hopefully that's it for Shape Up.
Here's a look at Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
This is Ubisoft Montpelier's game about four strangers travelling through World War 1 with their dog. It's a puzzle adventure with beautiful artwork.
If you liked the look of that, Valiant Hearts is out later this month on 25th June.
Yves Guillemot is on stage to help close out the conference.
He says thank you to everyone at the conference and watching online. "We love you very much." Aw.
"I would also like to show you one more game."
"The following sequence is pre-alpha footage captured from a multiplayer match."
Looks like Rainbow Six.
Guys inside a house are barricading windows - we're watching through a spy cam, which the guys inside then shoot out.
We're dropping in from a helicopter onto the roof. There are five in the squad armed with a mixture of cop weapons - shotguns, riot shield etc.
We're ziplining down the side of the house, planting a shape charge.
Blow a hole in the wall and bust in with the zip line, taking out one bad guy. The team secures the hostage inside but come under fire from elsewhere in the house.
The scenery is all destructible - the interior wall looks like Swiss cheese as the firefight unfolds.
This is sort of what I thought Hardline would be like based on EA's description.
They have drones, riot shields and other gadgets. It's very quiet, close quarters, fighting over a hostage and working out breach plans.
Blowing doors in walls and floors to assault enemy positions.
It's now three vs one with the cops in control of the hostage.
Uh oh, he comes outta nowhere. Down to two.
Hostage injured! Coming under heavy fire from downstairs as the remaining cops move through the upstairs. Cut to black.
Rainbow Six: Siege.
Aisha's back. "THIS IS UBISOFT! YOU KNOW THE DEAL!"
And we're out! Hope you enjoyed that. We'll be back at 2am BST for Sony...