Ubisoft today announced that Assassin’s Creed III has now broken the company’s record for most pre-ordered game. It stated that global pre-orders of Assassin’s Creed III are more than double those of last year’s Assassin’s Creed Revelations. And Ubisoft has decided there is no better way to celebrate than to leverage its new success as a way to promote its new digital distribution platform, Uplay.
Ubisoft today revealed the special in-game rewards gamers can get for Assassin’s Creed III with their Uplay Units. Uplay Units are Ubisoft’s version of Microsoft’s Gamerscore, and are earned by achieving certain feats in Uplay games.
An Assassin’s Creed III theme will cost 10 Units; a “life scratcher pack” that increases the capacity of Connor’s tool pouches and unlocks multiplayer profile items is 20 Units; and for 30 Units gamers can outfit Connor in Ezio’s Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood costume. 40 Units will get players the “renegade pack,” which unlocks the Night Stalker’s renegade costume for multiplayer and provides more profile items.
To its credit, Ubisoft isn’t forcing gamers to sign up for Uplay. Other companies have used their major game releases to force customers onto their platform. Even Valve pulled this one on PC gamers, forcing Half Life 2 customers to install Steam in a notoriously frustrating installation experience. If that game hadn’t lived up to its hype, Valve might still be vilified the way it was at the time. Just something for Ubisoft and EA to think about as they try to launch the Uplay and Origin platforms, respectively.