A) funny how that works with Steam everytime. "We don't need Steam" > sales plummet > "Release on Steam in 60 days"
B) I don't think releasing the game on Steam will save them here, from what I've seen it's just a bad game plain and simple. It will maybe fill the gap a bit but probably not by enough to actually achieve the sales numbers they would like to see.
This is probably why they pumped the brakes so hard on Assassin's Creed Shadows. The state they released Star Wars Outlaws in was absolutely abysmal. Something tells me they figured if they did the same thing with assassin's Creed shadows, they were fucked. They're also now releasing that one day one on steam. I really get the distinct feeling that if assassin's Creed's shadows doesn't sell for Ubisoft, they're in serious trouble.
All they have is their IP, which they keep shitting on. The unique Ubisoft "innovations" are a shittier launcher and removing games from people who paid for them if they don't play.
Nobody should want to buy that shitshow except to gut it for IP.
It is a good game IMO, but they will have completely missed the hype train by November.
Interesting, I'd say it's incredibly badly designed and executed given Ubisoft's resources and the open world games they can make. The lack of danger and enemy awareness, the perfunctory stealth that barely works, the mostly empty open world and floaty speeder, the formulaic story...
Now, the one thing we learned from Ubi's mistakes is that there's no second chance for a first impression. They added a completely new and rather good campaign to try and fix Breakpoint, making all the looter tropes optional and it works great, it's a good open world game after that, but I haven't seen an influx of new players.