In the Sunday Edition of The Washington Post for May 01, 2022, there is a reprint of this article by Teddy Amenabar from April 21, 2022: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/04/21/orlog-gwent-tabletop-games-tales-of-tribute/?itid=ap_teddyamenabar). In the article, Amenabar quotes Benoit Richer, the director of AC Valhalla at Ubisoft Montreal, saying: “Orlog makes Valhalla a bit more believable and richer”. As preposterously incomprehensible as that statement is, Richer apparently also told Amenabar that “players will see more of [Orlog] in the future” when asked about the AC Infinity.
This is a very bad idea. Just because “PureArts has shipped 60,000 editions of [the physical version of Orlog]” doesn’t mean it’s the next Gwent, which has its own esports circuit. I know Ubisoft is going to do what they want to do, but as much as they want to pretend that Orlog is a new goldmine, we know better.
Previously, I made a case against the replayability of Orlog versus mini-games like Gwent. If Ubisoft wants to really make Orlog something worthwhile, they need to increase the number of God Favors and make the game less dependent on chance and more on strategy. Maybe then it could be a contender... but if the current iteration of Orlog is what Ubisoft will be fudging into the future of AC, I won’t be interested.
Preorder for future payments?