I was watching the Quicklook for Assassin's Creed IV and was reminded of the very specific way Ubisoft creates games.

In Assassin's Creed IV you play an incredibly "meta" role as a play tester for Abstergo and you're able to rate every mission in the game with 1 to 5 stars, which obviously is feedback that goes directly to Ubisoft.

I think everyone's noticed by now, the way in which gameplay elements blend over between games like Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Far Cry and Watch_Dogs, which all seems to be features that people generally preferred in those games. One of the most lauded additions to Assassin's Creed 3 was the sailboat missions and that Assassin's Creed IV suddenly is a game about pirates hardly feels coincidental.

I'm not saying that there's no creativity at Ubisoft, but doesn't it feel like they are trying to distill "fun" and create a "product", rather than creating "art"?

In essence, I'm starting to feel that Ubisoft is the McDonald's of game development. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, because despite all the hypocrisy, everyone has had McDonald's at one time or another followed with varying degrees of regret, but can their efforts every hope to aspire to something truly unique or will they end up just making the same game over and over again?