Ubisoft’s next big gamble is reportedly another BR ‘heavily inspired’ by one that helped define the genre

HyperScape was just the beginning. Ubisoft is reportedly ready to get back into the battle royale genre.

According to a new report by Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, Ubisoft is looking to Apex Legends for inspiration on its next game. The new game, codenamed Scout, has “been in development for at least a couple of years and will feature ‘very similar’ characters to Apex including a spin on Pathfinder, Wraith, Lifeline,” and others.

Ubisoft tried the ride the battle royale trend in 2020 with HyperScape, a futuristic FPS BR, but the game did not find much of an audience and was soon shut down. But with Apex’s player always in question, apparently the company thinks it can swoop in and pick up the scraps.

“I think the goal is to capitalize on the player count of Apex dropping and them [Ubisoft higher-ups] thinking there’s room in the market for another hero battle royale,” one of Henderson’s sources said.

Henderson has been a reliable reporter in the past, especially when it comes to Ubisoft titles. His reports on XDefiant spelled doom for the publisher’s attempts at capitalizing on the twitchy Call of Duty shooter market, and it was announced not long after that the game would also be shutting down. In fact, Henderson said “Ubisoft has cancelled around a dozen battle royales for one reason or another in various stages of development” after HyperScape was shuttered.

I honestly don’t envy any publishers or developers in this current market for games. With players continuing to sink more and more time into older games like Fortnite, Warzone, and others, trying to find the next big thing seems to be mostly fruitless, outside of outliers such as Marvel Rivals that have come out and found immediate success.

A new BR can’t be too different from what makes the genre fun, but it also can’t be too similar, and it has to have a hook, and it has to have fair monetization while also being profitable. It’s a lofty goal, but it seems like Ubisoft hasn’t given up just yet.