Far Cry 5 and The Crew 2 delayed, says Ubisoft (quietly)

US-based shooter Far Cry 5 and accidental transformers racer The Crew 2 are both delayed, said Ubisoft last night, in a quiet voice. They announced the delays in the middle of their own livestream for Beyond Good and Evil 2 and shortly before the flash flood of news brought on by the Game Awards threatened to drown us all in release dates and trailers. There’s no suggestion Ubisoft has chosen this time because it will now be a quiet floater of a post in a sea of more interesting revelations. Oh wait. That's precisely what I'm suggesting.

The delays are not that long. Far Cry 5 is now due on March 27 next year, instead of February 27, while The Crew 2 will be out in the vague “first half of fiscal 2018-2019” instead of the more concrete March 16. They’ve also shoved back a third game they haven’t announced yet, saying it won’t be out until “fiscal 2019-2020”, rather than the originally planned "fiscal 2018-2019". This is all because they want to spend more time making the games good, they say.

“Taking more time with Assassin’s Creed Origins enabled our talented development team to fully express their creative vision,” said Ubisoft Worldwide Studios director Christine Burgess-Quémard. “As expected, this had a very positive impact on the game’s quality and largely participated to its commercial success. Taking a similar approach, we have decided to invest additional development time in three upcoming games.”

A press release at this time is equivalent to taking your mum out for her birthday, waiting until the cake comes out and everyone starts singing, before quickly mumbling "I've failed my exams." But the reasons for a quieter announcement may be more complicated than avoiding the ire of impatient gamers. A previous delay announcement for Watch Dogs whacked down the company's share prices, for example.

We don’t know any details about the third unannounced game. Given the amount of Clancies, AssCreeds, Far Cries and Rabbids the developer has running around in its paddock, it would be folly to speculate.

But we love folly. So here are a few guesses:

Assassin’s Creed, Here I Come

Set in 1960s Philadelphia

Far Cry 6: Liverpool

Climb on top of the superlambanana to reveal the map

Tom Clancy’s Kill The Foreign Man

He’s got a gun! But so do you

For Honor 3

They lost the second one on a team-building trip to Saskatchewan, so just started work on the third

Watch Dogs Origins

Set in the 90s, starring Johnny Lee Miller

Tom Clancy’s The Division: United

A name chosen entirely in earnest