During Ubisoft‘s most recent earnings call, the company quietly revealed it had cancelled upcoming extraction shooter The Division: Heartland so it could “streamline its operations and adapt to evolving market trends.”
The Division: Heartland was a free-to-play extraction shooter that had gameplay revealed September 2022. The third-person co-op game looked promising, but the extraction shooter genre is one with fierce competition. Set in rural America, the game was promised as one that players could jump straight into without needing to have played either of the previous instalments in The Division series.
The Division: Heartland hasn’t had the smoothest development. Originally planned for March 2022, it was quietly delayed in a 2021 earnings call. There seems to be a pattern for Ubisoft delivering bad news on Heartland. It’s a surprising cancellation nonetheless, as the game was recently rated in Taiwan which led to speculation its release was around the corner.
Ubisoft stated that resources previously being used for Heartland had been “redeployed to bigger opportunities such as XDefiant and Rainbow Six.” Rainbow Six: Siege is a popular competitive shooter in Ubisoft’s roster, but XDefiant is yet to come out, so it’s a big bet on its success from Ubisoft. XDefiant is due to launch May 21, so we’ll soon see if Ubisoft’s gamble is going to pay off.
When Heartland was first revealed, Ubisoft said it planned to move away from premium triple-A releases to pivot to free-to-play titles, which XDefiant also is. The company has also seen success with premium titles like Assassin’s Creed Mirage and even Skull and Bones, according to the earnings report. It apparently “displayed strong engagement, achieving the second-best daily playtime for a Ubisoft game.”
In other news, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, formerly Assassin’s Creed Red, just got a cinematic trailer and launch date.