Is Assassin’s Creed Unity a better game now that the real-world cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris has been gutted by fire? That’s the question I’ve had rolling around the back of my head for a few weeks. Ubisoft gave away their open-world murder simulator, which visits a virtual Paris circa 1789, for free in April after the fire and soon received a spike of positive player reviews on Steam. This caused store owners Valve to mutter about the idea of “positive review bombs” and how changing context can a game seem better. So, has Unity become a better game because it lets us visit a pristine Notre-Dame while the real one is caked in soot and scaffolding? What can we destroy to improve other games? And who can we MURDER?
In an extended blog post that reads like a first year philosophy student essay, Valve has been debating what counts as a Steam review bomb. With itself.
The company's confusion was prompted by the recent surge in positive reviews for Assassin's Creed: Unity, which Ubisoft made available for free on Uplay in the aftermath of the Notre Dame fire (along with donating €500,000 to help with restoration efforts). Naturally, the move was incredibly popular with players, and despite its free release on a different platform prompted a spike in player reviews on Steam.
But does this count as a review bomb, and if so, should Valve prohibit it as it has in the past?
When Valve implemented Steam’s anti-review-bombing policy in March – manual exclusion of “off topic” review clusters from a game’s overall score – they’d not given much thought to what a ‘positive’ review bomb could look like. Just one month later, Notre Dame cathedral goes up in holy smoke and Ubisoft bring in a flood of positive press (and reviews) for Assassin’s Creed Unity through a Uplay giveaway and a half-million-dollar donation to help rebuild the landmark. This has led Valve to a rare bit of public introspection on how they should even define “off-topic”, shared in this official blog post.
Assassin's Creed Unity is currently getting the review-bomb treatment on Steam - but this time it's a little different.
This week Ubisoft gave Unity away for free for a limited time following the devastating fire at the Notre-Dame de Paris, and donated half a million euros to the restoration effort.
Unity is of course set in Paris, 1789 amid the French Revolution, and features a virtual reconstruction of the famous medieval Catholic cathedral.
Ubisoft has announced that, following Monday's devastating fire which caused extensive damage to Notre-Dame cathedral, it will be donating €500,000 to Paris' reconstruction efforts. And as an additional gesture, Assassin's Creed Unity is currently free on PC.
"As the smoke clears on the events that unfolded on Monday at the Notre-Dame de Paris," Ubisoft wrote on its blog, "we stand in solidarit with our fellow Parisians and everyone around the world moved by the devastation the fire caused. Notre-Dame is an integral part of Paris, a city to which we are deeply connected. Seeing the monument in peril like this affected us all."
To that end, the publisher has pledged to donate €500,000 to help with the restoration and reconstruction of Paris' historic landmark, and has encouraged interested fans to donate too.
Ubisoft delved into the "perfect conditions for the perfect storm" behind 2014's Assassin's Creed Unity's launch issues.
As part of the talk '10 Years of Evolution of the Assassin's Creed Brand' at GDC 2018, creative director Jean Guesdon explained how Ubisoft iterated on each game as it built the franchise.
Unity started development in 2011, after work on Brotherhood had finished, and was designed to be the first real next-gen game for then upcoming consoles PS4 and Xbox One.
