A Date With Ubisoft

There was a certain je ne sais quoi about the restaurant. You’d been told by friends that this place was one of the best in Montreal, and it certainly looked it. Along the wood-panelled walls hung pictures of famous faces, all smiling and laughing, while the gentle hum of classical music set a tone for romance.

Waiters rushed here and there, carrying plates of delicious looking food to eager customers who tucked in with gusto. Your own table was furnished with gleaming silver cutlery and a single wax candle, its nub burning softly. Just as you began to get caught up in watching the smoke drift by, you notice them.

They were something out of a dream; all of a sudden they appeared out of nowhere, when you had lost all hope. Promised adventures, romance, action and stories to tell, you were whisked into agreeing on dinner before you knew what had happened.

Everything seemed perfect, they weren’t like those in your past, who had promised so much and delivered so little. Your first date, through the desert springs, faraway lands and a futuristic city were incredible. How could this ever go wrong? you thought wistfully.

But, through all of your time together, something niggled at the back of your mind. At first you pushed it to the back of your mind, but it continued to return, stronger than ever.

Sat across the table from Ubisoft, the smoke from the candle wafting around you, that niggle becomes an itch and then a scratch.

Things just don’t seem right. Hadn’t you been here before? It certainly seemed familiar. Surely they hadn’t just rehashed your old dates? The first date was amazing - ground-breaking, even – yet the second (which split itself into smaller dates) had been a little flat.

True, the fourth date had been just like the first – full of action, adventure and whirlwind memories. You had just begun to feel like Ubisoft was back to itself again. But now, something was definitely up.

A waiter arrives and the return to normality calms your nerves right until you look up. He has no face. Floating there, ephemeral and Lovecraftian, is a pair of eyeballs and a grinning set of teeth.

You cry in alarm as the façade is stripped away. Every waiter looks like this. Ubisoft reaches out to comfort you, but you recoil away in terror - Ubisoft’s hands are jerking around, as if in spasm. Their face jerks up to look into yours: in what seems like a herculean effort, your date manages to speak:

“This… will be fixed… in a patch.”

All that money you spent on them, was it all for nothing? The walls of the restaurant suddenly come crashing down. Guests rise from their seats, get stuck in them and inexplicably die. Everything flashes in and out of quality. The lights stop working properly – everyone’s shadows take on an otherworldly quality.

You need to get out of here. You make to jump from your seat but instead climb the table. In your confusion you then attempt to run up the wall a number of times. Why won’t your limbs do what you want?

Finally tumbling from the table you crawl through the nightmare, the carpet changing quality, colour and tone as it comes into focus. Trying to make some sense of the situation you clamber up a pylon that has inexplicably risen from the ground. Just as you reach the top and spin around, gathering sense of the world, you’re attacked by a frenzied eagle, clawing at your eyes and scratching for your wallet.

There’s a chest at your feet. In desperation to escape the bird of prey you reach to unlock it. You physically can’t. A psychic blast of light erupts in front of your eyes:

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE iOS APP TO UNLOCK THIS CONTENT

Exhausted, bloody and broken you pass out, falling from the pylon towards the ground, saved at the last second by a fortunately placed haystack.

...

That’s the last time you book a date through Uplay.