The key art for the newly announced The Division: Heartland game mentioned that the free-to-play shooter is “a Ubisoft Original” game. That’s the first time we’ve seen that branding from the French publisher, and it’s something we’ll see a lot more of going forward.
A spokesperson for the company told Eurogamer that, moving forward, the “Ubisoft Original” branding will be attached to “all of Ubisoft’s games created in-house by our talented developers.”
Ubisoft does not currently publish third-party games, so seemingly the “Ubisoft Original” branding will be attached to every game going forward. Whether or not this new designation is a signal that Ubisoft might start publishing other studios’ games remains to be seen.
The branding bears a resemblance to the line of “EA Originals” from Electronic Arts. These are games from independent studios that EA publishes, however, including It Takes Two, Unravel, and the upcoming Knockout City.
In adopting the new branding, Ubisoft is seemingly taking a page out of Netflix’s book. The streaming giant labels its original content as “Netflix Originals.”
As for Heartland, it’s a new free-to-play game set in The Division’s universe. It’s being developed by Ubisoft Red Storm, the North Carolina-based studio that has worked on games in the Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Far Cry, and Rocksmith franchises.
Very little is known about Heartland in the way of specifics. The original Division was set in New York and the sequel went to Washington D.C. Given its name, Heartland sounds like it could be set more in the middle of the US. Heading outside of a major city could shake things up in an interesting way for the series, but we’ll have to see how it plays out.
Heartland is just one of Ubisoft’s upcoming extensions of The Division series. The publisher is also planning the franchise’s first mobile game, while a new novel is coming as well. On top of those projects, Ubisoft is planning more content for The Division 2 in 2021, while it’s also making a Division movie starring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal for Netflix.
Ubisoft might have more details to share on its future direction as part of its upcoming earnings report, which is scheduled for Monday, May 10. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.