The Ubisoft Forward 2023 was held online yesterday, with news for fans on big-name franchises like Star Wars, Avatar, and Assassin's Creed. It was an improvement on last year’s iteration in terms of viewership numbers but still far off the most popular and watched edition.
The event also included updates on Prince Of Persia's return to its 2D platforming roots The Lost Crown, a deeper look at Star Wars Outlaws, and gameplay footage of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Moreover, fans got more information on Ubisoft's live-service games, with closed beta registrations confirmed for Skull and Bones, The Division Resurgence, and xDefiant.
Viewership stats from Ubisoft Forward 2023
The showcase did 1.16M Peak Viewers thanks to some major announcements, which included the first reveal of the long-awaited Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. With the movie's director and creator, James Cameron, present to hype up the game, it even got a release date of December 7. It also hit 2.01M Hours Watched and 929K Average Viewers over an airtime of two hours, the second longest among the four such exhibitions held so far.
Another series that fans got information about was Assassin's Creed, with Nexus, a virtual reality game, set for a 2023 holiday season release. Assassin's Creed Mirage, to come out in October, got a new trailer, while Assassin's Creed Jade, a smartphone free-to-play title, also appeared via a quick reveal. Registrations for a closed beta on the latter's official website are now open.
When looking at the languages that were popular, English took up almost half of the viewership pie, with Spanish and French being the only other languages to hit double figures. Put together, these three gobbled up more than 75% of the overall charts, although, compared to the Ubisoft Forward 2022, English fell a bit in its share. Spanish and French ended up being upward movers this time around.
Twitch continued to dominate the platform ward, taking up 70% of the viewership chart and offsetting any worries that recent troubles might see its popularity wane among fans. YouTube was the other big contributor, eating up 29.7% of the remaining pie, meaning it fell by 50% from last year.
As already mentioned, some of Ubisoft’s most popular series appeared at the showcase on June 12. Among them, unsurprisingly, the most popular in terms of mentions in chat on Twitch were Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR and Assassin’s Creed Mirage (9.22K), with fans unable to hold in their anticipation for these games from this legendary franchise.
Next came Star Wars Outlaws with 9.21K mentions, with this being another series that has held audiences captive for generations across media, be it films, series, games, or comics. The third-most mentioned title was Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (8.07K), with pundits and players waiting to see how the game plays out now that the sequel to the 2009 movie has finally hit theatres worldwide.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (3.10K) and The Crew Motorfest (2.88K) came on fourth and fifth, respectively. The former sees the return of time-manipulating powers, while the latter — confirmed for release on September 14 — is the third entry in The Crew series and is set on the island of O'ahu within the Hawaiian archipelago.
When comparing the four Ubisoft Forward events held so far, the last two have seen figures fall, although 2023 picked up the slack of its predecessor, which remains the least watched and popular showcase. The best is the inaugural edition from 2020, which did 3.2M HW and 2.3M PV in less than two hours of airtime
Reflecting an overall fall in grace last year for the French company, the Ubisoft Forward 2022 also attracted the least viewers, not helped by some puzzling choices concerning games and updates. However, with so much to look forward to in 2023, the stats are looking up, and the developer will aim to meet the expectations and hype created so as to ensure this goodwill is maintained in future iterations.