Ubisoft is planning to hold in-game events in two of their games — Skull & Bones and Riders Republic — to highlight environmental issues. Riders Republic players will log in one day to find themselves in the middle of a forest fire. Skull & Bones may not have been released yet, but when it does it will try to drum home the realities of overfishing.
Skull & Bones and Riders Republic promote the environment
When players are out and about exploring and pillaging the world in Skull & Bones, they’ll need to gather resources to help them survive, but gathering too much can have a real impact on stocks. In a seasonal live event, Ubisoft wants to address the problem of resource exploitation and depict what happens when the demand for sharks’ fins results in the overfishing of sharks. There will be community challenges for players to complete that will raise awareness of marine wildlife protection and the completion of these will unlock rewards for all players regardless of how much they participated.
Meanwhile, players who log into Riders Republic at a random point in the future may find part of the forest is burning, Ubisoft told Axios. Players won’t get any advanced notice of the “short and intense live event”, currently called Phoenix. The sky will have turned orange and all players will be wearing gas masks. Sections of the map will be inaccessible because they’re too dangerous. However, players can reduce the spread of the fire by taking part in a variety of in-game activities. The aim of the event is to “shock players over the impact of uncontrolled fires.”
In other gaming news, Ubisoft is closing the servers for several of their older titles, including Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games. Elsewhere, Bungie and Netease are reportedly developing a Destiny FPS mobile game.
