For a long time, Ubisoft managed to publish an impressive number of games every year. However, that's partly because they shared a lot of mechanics, such as the infamous region discovery which inevitably required players to climb some sort of towers.
Eventually, those often excessive similarities caused hardcore gamers to negatively describe some of the publisher's titles as derived from the 'Ubisoft open world game' framework, as if those games were basically carbon copies of each other.
At last, though, the infamous 'Ubisoft open world game' could be headed to its grave. We already had an inkling of that after the publisher hurriedly delayed all of its lineup to avoid repeating the same mistakes made with Ghost Recon Breakpoint and The Division 2.
Now, as reported by Video Games Chronicle, they are making internal changes to the executive editorial team that should translate into more unique games in the future. An anonymous source told VGC:
In the previous system that editorial had, there were often the ideas of just one or two people getting put into every game. That’s why you tended to see such similarity, because it’s the same taste and opinion being replicated.
VGC also got the following official statement from Ubisoft.
We are reinforcing our editorial team to be more agile and better accompany our development teams around the world as they create the best gaming experiences for players.
Truth to be told, Assassin's Creed (which remains Ubisoft's flagship franchise) already begun diversifying itself a few years ago by moving decidedly towards the roleplaying genre with Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey. Now it's up to the other titles to seek their own niche, like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege managed to do so well when it comes to tactical shooters.
One thing is for certain: the days of the dreaded 'Ubisoft open world game' might be over.