Andi Smith

Ubisoft are a French video game publisher behind franchises including Prince of Persia, Far Cry and Splinter Cell.

For the launch of Assassin's Creed II, Ubisoft wanted to extend the game beyond the disc with UPlay: a reward system letting players unlock in-game content by completing challenges, accessible from the web or in-game on Xbox and PlayStation.

• One of two developers who built the original UPlay Win platform, covering sign-up, challenge tracking and reward unlocking.
• Built cross-title progression, so points earned in one game could be spent there or saved for another. Rewards for Assassin's Creed II included the Altair costume and the Auditore Family Crypt missions.
• Delivered against a fixed console launch date, integrating with platform holders whose certification processes we did not control.

UPlay became Ubisoft Connect and is still running fifteen years later. Unlockable content, cross-title progression and leaderboards keep turning out to be the same problem, whether it's a student games studio, a console publisher or a football app.