Ubisoft Montreal
The establishment of Ubisoft Montreal is considered to have significant impact on Montreal. The Mile End area over the next several years transformed from a low-rent area to a commercial hub with new businesses, stores, restaurants and other attractions for the young workforce. For the city overall, Ubisoft Montreal was the first major video game studio and helped to establish its position as a creative city. Several other publishers, including Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive, THQ and Warner Bros., established studios in Montreal following Ubisoft, with the Quebec and federal governments continuity to offer subsidiary programs to support high-tech job creation. In exchange, the studio has spent up to in the province of Quebec, and with their parent publisher, helped to open Ubisoft Quebec in Quebec City in 2005 and Ubisoft Saguenay in Saguenay in 2018 to help support Ubisoft Montreal's efforts, using similar tax incentives from the providence to help found these.
Watch Dogs 2
At E3 2014, Ubisoft executive Tony Key claimed that they were very satisfied with the sales of the first game, and that the brand would be turned into a long-running franchise. According to creative director Jonathan Morin, the first game's main goal was to establish the "Watch Dogs" brand. It was intended that they take risks with the sequel, instead of creating a more polished version of the previous game. To improve the game, Morin and his team read the reviews of the first game, and visited NeoGAF and various forums to study player feedback. Their priorities included creating a "believable" environment, giving players more freedom, and introducing a new leading character, whose personality would be completely different from that of the protagonist of the first game, Aiden Pearce. The primary developer Ubisoft Montreal worked with other subsidiaries Ubisoft Toronto, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Bucharest, Ubisoft Kiev, and Ubisoft Reflections to aid in the production. The driving mechanic was completely overhauled to make it more accessible to players, and was developed by Ubisoft Reflections, the developer of Ubisoft's own "Driver" series. In light of complaints about a graphical downgrade in "Watch Dogs" from what was seen at E3 2012, Ubisoft assured that "Watch Dogs 2" would not suffer the same outcome because, unlike the first installment, it was developed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One from the start. Another improvement from the first game was a more prominent thematic connection to the narrative. Main operations are structured like story arcs that last up to ninety minutes each, advancing the plot with each completion.