Ubisoft apologises for Assassin's Creed Unity bugs

Friday, 28^th November 2014 07:43 GMT (Europe/London)
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The head of the games studio behind Assassin's Creed Unity has emailed players apologising for bugs in the video game and offering them free content. Yannis Mallat, chief executive of Ubisoft Montreal & Toronto, wrote that it had been a "humbling" experience. He is the latest in a series of software bosses to pen such an apology after a glitch-ridden release. Experts said Ubisoft needed to act to protect its reputation.

"Assassin's Creed is Ubisoft's most important, bestselling franchise, and it's also generally the firm's most anticipated series by gamers," said Keza MacDonald, UK editor of gaming news site Kotaku. "The fact that after Unity came out, the conversation has been almost entirely about how many bugs it's got and how broken it is in certain areas, is really, really damaging for the company." Missing faces Ubisoft has traditionally had a more consumer-friendly reputation than some of its rivals. However, its brand had already been under pressure after May's release of Watch Dogs, which many critics had suggested failed to deliver the quality of graphics shown off at the E3 trade show before its release. The issues with French Revolution-set Assassin's Creed Unity were even more clear-cut. Glitches meant the protagonist could fall through the ground, become stuck in hay carts, encounter invisible walls and, at times, parts of his face could become invisible. In addition, frame rate problems and outright crashes led to criticism that the title was not ready for release - particularly the version for PCs. "Unfortunately, at launch, the overall quality of the game was diminished by bugs and unexpected technical issues," wrote Mr Mallat. "I want to sincerely apologise on behalf of Ubisoft and the entire Assassin's Creed team." He added that the company had already released three sets of fixes to address problems with the game's stability, performance and connectivity, and promised more patches to come. "Please keep your feedback coming - it has been both humbling and incredibly helpful as we continue working hard to improve the overall quality of the game," Mr Mallat wrote. Consumers who bought the basic version of the title are being offered an as yet unreleased add-on story for free. Those who purchased a "season pass" - which provides a copy of all future downloadable content (DLC) additions - have been offered another complete game of their choice Options include the firm's recently released blockbuster Far Cry 4 as well as the forthcoming racing game The Crew. "This is extraordinarily generous," commented Ms MacDonald. "A lot of the time when you get a compensation offer from a publisher it's a back catalogue game or something relatively low value. "It's not a full entire