Back at E3 2011, one of the more promising Wii U titles demoed for Nintendo’s upcoming HD console was Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Online. Despite the publisher’s reassurances, we were a bit worried when the game failed to make an appearance at E3 this last June. As it turns out that concern was well-founded, because Ubisoft has just revealed that the Wii U version of Ghost Recon Online is “on hold” indefinitely.
Speaking to VideoGamer, Ubisoft producer Theo Sanders broke the disappointing news saying:
“As of right now, the entire Ghost Recon team is focused on the PC version only. The Wii U version is on hold.”
“If in the future we have an opportunity to address it again, we’ll make future announcements. But as of right now we’re focused completely on the PC version.”
“It’s not a reaction to anything specific happening to [Wii U]. It was a really fun, cool platform to develop for. But you realise once you launch an online service that it’s an all-consuming effort, so we really wanted to have all hands on deck. It was the same dev team working on both SKUs, and [we] really wanted to focus on doing the PC version right.”
Considering some the other titles that Ubisoft is working on for Nintendo’s upcoming console (like ZombiU and Rayman Legends), it’s impossible to conclude that the developer is turning its back on the Wii U. With that said, the loss of Ghost Recon Online comes as a bit of a blow.
For better or worse, the first-person-shooter genre is extremely popular, and Nintendo needs to come out swinging with as much software as possible if the Wii U is to succeed. Ghost Recon Online was not going to make or break the console by itself, but its presence sure wouldn’t have hurt anything.
