Ubisoft is working to bring its big brands into virtual reality

In its quarterly earnings call today (see the results), French publisher Ubisoft said it is not only experimenting with virtual reality, but is working on bringing its big-budget brands to VR, perhaps sooner than you think.

“First, we believe a lot in virtual reality, because we see it’s really giving a chance for gamers to be immersed in worlds,” said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. “We are developing a certain number of games that are going to take advantage of these new possibilities.”

He added, “What we are doing is working on the different brands we have to see how we can take advantage of these new possibilities, while making sure we also don’t suffer from what comes with it, which is the difficulty to play a long time with those sorts of games.”

Ubisoft clearly sees potential in combining its expertise in creating sprawling virtual worlds (like those seen in Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, and Watch Dogs) with advanced VR devices such as the Oculus Rift and SteamVR-based HTC Vive (pictured).

The Vive is due for launch this holiday, while the Oculus Rift is slated for a commercial release early next year.

“We are very bullish about the potential [of VR],” said Guillemot. “We think it’s going to bring more players into the universe of Ubisoft video games, and we are going to come with our brands.”

The CEO didn’t put a definitive date on when we’ll see Ubisoft VR games, but said, without clarifying, “We’ll have a few titles coming in the first year, and we’ll have regular games coming following that.”