Forreal.

Every time this happens, a couple years later: "oh wow look at this new indie studio, they are seriusly punching above their weight"

Looks inside.

Industry veterans.

People you fire, are free to compete. And it's been biting a growing chunk of the market for a while now.

Echo’ing the other reply, but the Assassin’s Creed franchise (at least up to, but not including Origins) scratches my alt-history itch like nothing else has been able to.

Likewise, both Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 5 (inc. expansions) were absolutely fantastic IMO - and are some of the rare few FPS games I would willingly revisit.

Don’t take the above to mean my opinion of Ubisoft as a publisher is particularly glowing - let’s be honest, most publishers are absolute dogshit, due to perverse Capitalist incentives - and Stephanie Sterling’s segments about them on the Jimquisition should have been the final nail in their coffins.

I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older and more curmudgeonly, I’ve also become more nostalgic for the “good ol’ days” of gaming in the up-to-and-including the PS3/X360/Wii era - so my money has stayed largely away from AAA-publisher bank accounts.