Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy titles exceed Ubisoft's 2023 expectations

For Ubisoft's 2022-2023 fiscal year, its first half was reported to be considerably "stronger than expected." Net bookings for the second quarter were €406.1 million (or $404.8 million) in revenue, up 4 percent from the expected target of €270.0 million.

However, that increase comes with a caveat, and that's that the first half of 2022-23 overall saw a decline. Those first half bookings came at €699.4 million ($697.3 million), down 3 percent from the €718.2 million that marked the first half of 2021-22. 

That decrease can be owed to the delays of several triple-A games to 2023, including Ubisoft's long in-development pirate game Skull & Bones. And canceling four separate games certainly didn't help matters. 

Even so, there's still reason to be impressed, given that the second quarter success is owed to the publisher's strong back catalog, in particular the overperformance of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Extraction and several Assassin's Creed titles. Extraction was reported to have an 18 percent year-on-year revenue increase after it initially released this past January. 

Meanwhile, the last three Assassin's Creed titles, Assassin's Creed Origins (2017), Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018), and Assassin's Creed Valhalla (2020), were reported to have a combined "strong performance." Those three games were recently made available on Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, and their respective launches were noted to be a unanimous "success." 

Valhalla in particular was acknowledged for hitting 20 million unique players ahead ahead of the franchise's larger shift to becoming a service platform with Assassin's Creed Infinity.

Looking towards the holidays and the second half of the year, chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet, highlighted Ubisoft's mobile partnerships as a hopeful "key contributor." Mobile spinoffs for its popular Tom Clancy shooters, Rainbow Six Siege and The Division, are in the works.

Additionally, it's developing a trio of mobile titles exclusively for Netflix, one of which will be an Assassin's Creed game. 

One of the question marks for the remainder of the year is Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. The game came out on the Nintendo Switch just last week, and remains the publisher's last big release for the year. 

Though hard numbers for Sparks of Hope aren't available yet, Ubisoft had no problem touting its positive critical reception or in calling it one of the Switch's highest quality releases for 2022. 

It's that strong reception that Ubisoft is banking on to give the game legs through the rest of the year. For now, its plan is to "build [Sparks'] momentum through the Holiday season with an ambitious marketing plan and material support from Nintendo."