When it comes to gamers, E3 is definitely a Christmas in July type of situation. All the big publishers, developers, and most importantly, game reveals are all here to whet our appetite. What will be playing in the coming months and years are generally revealed at E3, so the excitement and hype train behind it is definitely something I can get on board with. So let’s take a look at Ubisoft. Let’s see what they have offered us in the past, and what they may offer us in the very near future.

What we can expect

It is very hard to talk Ubisoft without talking Assassin’s Creed and their… less than stellar performance in both the games, and keeping them under wraps in recent years. With an massive streak of 12 Assassins Creed games being “leaked”, it should come as no shock that the newest instalment in the Assassins Creed franchise is due for the E3 spotlight.

Dubbed Assassins Creed Odyssey, and leaked via a cheeky image of a branded keychain in the shape of a Corinthian helmet, all signs point to this entry being set in Greece. After the leak, the Assassins Creed twitter crew took to it the only way an ancient Greek warrior should, and that is by posting a video of some poor soul being 300’d off a cliff  with a message saying “See you at E3!” Thanks for making my job easy Ubisoft.

With the first games focus on multiplayer, loot and a sprawling environment, it is hard to imagine that those things will not be in the sequel, and with the game really starting to hits its stride late last year, we can only hope that Massive Entertainment have really learned off the previous game as they have said, and will produce an effort from launch as good as The Division is right now. If they can do that, I am sure they have a hit on their hands, if the populace at large can forgive a few initial missteps from its predecessor, and with any luck maybe the campaign will be a bit more engaging while they are at it.

Another sequel you can expect to see on the main stage is The Crew 2. The carry on from the 2014 original which received a resounding ‘eh’ on release, The Crew 2 hopes to improve things by adding different vehicle types including boats, planes and off-road vehicles, with the ability to switch between them instantaneously, a persistent open world with multiple themed hub-worlds and a raid co-operative online mode, which can also be played with just bots.

With its release just a few weeks away on June 29, you would expect The Crew 2 to get some screen time at E3 as a big final push to get people to buy it on launch, and with the extras they have added, it looks like they may have a bit of a winner on their hands. But only time will tell.

What we’re hoping for

Ubisoft has a ton of great IP’s, with a lot of them sitting dormant in some dusty warehouse somewhere, probably sitting in a damp corner, crying out for Yves Guillemot to please finally end their torment and let them get back to work. So let’s do a bit of crystal ball gazing and see what we can come up with.

Running on pure speculation let’s dive into another fan favourite with Beyond Good & Evil and its long awaited sequel. Having been stuck in development hell for the past 10+ years, they did a bit of a reveal at E3 2017, which was enough to tease everyone who has ever touched the series but not enough to let us actually know what was going on with the development. So let’s hope there is a repeat of last year, but with a bit more meat on the trailers’ bones this time.

Pirates have been all the rage recently, and Ubisoft is not one to let a good trend sail on by, so I am expecting a showing from Skull & Bones this E3. Little booty has been found about this one since last year showed off some serious ship combat, but it’s said to be a tactical action game set in an open world and has a 3^rd person perspective. Based after the awesomeness that was Assassin’s Creed IV’s naval battle, Skull & Bones is looking at a 2019 release, so let’s hope its ship gets docked at LAX this year… somehow?

One game that has seemed to have a bit of a resurgence lately is Rainbow Six: Siege, a fantastic 5v5 tactical, class based shooter where your shooting skills were just as important as your ability to communicate and use your and your team mates abilities. While I don’t think they have much reason at this point in time to create a sequel, I wouldn’t be disappointed if they released a road map of new content that they are going to putting out in the coming year, maybe adding zombie mode back in?

Keeping the talk tactical, let’s talk Ghost Recon Wildlands. Releasing only early last year, you wouldn’t expect them to be pushing out a sequel anytime soon. But Ubisoft definitely love their DLC, and with the game doing gangbusters, even at one point outselling Breath of the Wild, you can expect them to release more DLC in the coming months, and what better place than E3 to give it a little love?

With games like Assassin’s Creed and The Division 2 ready to take centre stage, you know that Ubisoft’s E3 conference is going to have a lot of hits in it. But with games like the cult classic’s sequel Beyond Good & Evil 2 primed to be announced, let’s hope that they pull a couple of rabbits out of their hats, and gives us some surprises.

If you want to see the conference for yourself, you can tune in at 5am AEST on Tuesday the 12^th of June and see exactly what they have on offer.