During Facebook Connect, formerly known as Oculus Connect, it was announced that Ubisoft will be bringing Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell to VR. Ubisoft will be partnering with Oculus for this pretty lofty goal, and the two new games will be exclusive to the Oculus platform.
Both games will be based on their respective franchises, but this time players will be able to step into each of the games' worlds and live out the fantasy of these games. Ubisoft is going for a truly immersive experience that will make these titles unique, as few other AAA titles have successfully made it into virtual reality. More and more games are starting to add VR features to their base games, and some publishers like Rockstar Games are gearing up to jump straight into the next generation of gaming, much like Ubisoft, but with far less revealed to the public already.
In a press release, it was said that Ubisoft's Red Storm Entertainment will be heading the development of Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell for VR, in collaboration with Ubisoft Reflections, Ubisoft Düsseldorf and Ubisoft Mumbai. Mike Verdu, VP of Content for Facebook Reality Labs said that his company is "thrilled to work with Ubisoft" in making their two AAA games a (virtual) reality. He goes on to say that "Players will have dramatic, immersive experiences inside beloved worlds previously only available in 2D," and he adds that it is delighted to bring these worlds to both old fans and new players.
Both games will be built from scratch specifically for the Oculus platform, so these will be altogether their own games – new and improved for VR – instead of just a port of already existing titles from the two franchises. Elizabeth Loverso, Vice President of Product Development for Ubisoft’s Red Storm Entertainment weighed in on the making of games for new technologies, saying "Oculus’s state-of-the-art hardware will enable us to bring the worlds of Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell to life for fans in a new way. These games will take full advantage of Oculus’s technology to deliver immersive, visceral experiences that players won’t be able to find anywhere else."
Ubisoft continues to brave the technological realm of VR and has done some ground-breaking work in the field with multiple VR games already available on the Oculus Platform. Since 2016, Ubisoft has been a prominent publisher in virtual reality games, starting with Eagle Flight and slowly reaching out into atmospheric games like Transference and trigger-happy gunfights in zero-G with Space Junkies.
While there has been an Assassin's Creed escape room game in VR, and Ubisoft's Red Storm Entertainment has been developing Tom Clancy titles for the last twenty years, there is yet to be a full-length fully fleshed-out AAA game to hit the Oculus Platform and succeed. Hopefully, the new Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell will send virtual reality gaming in the right direction, leading to more AAA content as VR games.