Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Delayed to First Quarter of 2011

In a conference call with investors, following the announcement of less than stellar financial results for the fiscal year which ended on March 31, Ubisoft has also announced that it will delay Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, its tactical shooter that takes place in the near future. The game was originally set to launch before the end of 2010, but now Ubisoft is only committing to launching end before March 31, 2011. This comes just as the company has been talking about a need “to release new iterations of our major franchises on a more regular basis.”

The official announcement was made by Yves Guillemot, who is the chief executive officer of the French publisher, and the reason cited was a “a very competitive environment” during the final months of this year. Basically, the Ubisoft executive is saying that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier could suffer greatly in terms of sales if it goes up against such big launches like Medal of Honor, from DICE, EALA and Electronic Arts, Call of Duty: Black Ops, from Treyarch and Activision, and SOCOM 4, the PlayStation Move enabled tactical offering from Sony and Zipper Interactive.

The delay for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier means that Ubisoft will have to rely on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the multiplayer focused Ezio featuring open world game, and unspecified Project Natal and PlayStation Move titles to create important revenue streams.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was first mentioned in April 2009 and aims to portray the way soldiers will fight under a recent United States and NATO initiative to upgrade soldiers with more firepower and powered exoskeletons. Players will be able to choose from a variety of classes, each suited to one combat situation, and Ubisoft has mentioned a possible focus on cooperative play, where each player can offer bonuses to those who hang close to him in the hear of battle.