New Assassin's Creed leads Ubisoft's mobile, F2P push

Ubisoft today revealed a rift of new titles due for release over the next year with a huge emphasis on digital and free-to-play, including new entries in the Assassin's Creed, Rayman and Call of Juarez franchises. As part of the Ubisoft Digital Days 2012 event, the company announced Assassin's Creed Utopia, a spin-off freemium title for the series in partnership with mobile publisher Gree, that focuses on city building and strategy gameplay. Set during the early colonial history of America, the game follows how the intervention of the Assassins may have influenced American history. The game is set for release on iOS and Android around Christmas this year. The mobile focus continued with Rayman Jungle Run, a smartphone and tablet game based on the chasing bonus levels found in console counterpart Rayman Origins. Notable console announcements included a new entry into the Call of Juarez series, called Gunslinger. This new title is in development by Dead Island studio Techland, who also made the previous titles in the franchise, and is due for release in 2013 for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC. DLC is also on the way for the best-selling XBLA title Trials Evolution, as Origin of Pain adds a brand new mode and lots of new tracks later this month. However, the most notable section of Ubisoft's event was its free-to-play inclusions. More than half a dozen free-to-play titles were included, such as The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot, an asynchronous dungeon crawler. Other free-to-play titles like Anno Online and Silent Hunter Online were also more fully detailed, making free-to-play and mobile Ubisoft's biggest showings - only five console games were detailed, and two of these were DLC for existing games.