I mean cancelling preview copies of Space Marine 2 seemed to work out. They got to finish cooking and it paid off for them in the end with everyone's minds being blown (I haven't played it yet myself, but I've seen reviews).
I feel like Space Marine 2 reviews were mostly just people trying to make a point, either towards the state Helldivers 2 was in (frankly I find these games not comparable at all), or the fact it's a game that doesn't pander to LGBTQ and stuff (yes, I understand the franchise isn't about that, read below).
Either way, I think the game was highly overrated and overhyped. I played like 4-5 hours of it, it's an okay game. It has some serious issues that I think doesn't fit the score it received, like no option to change FOV or camera distance (character often takes up like 1/3th of the screen) or that the game is pretty bad with keyboard and mouse, some in-game screens don't even allow the use of a mouse, it's clearly designed with consoles in mind.
Edit: Not going to bother to respond to people under this thread individually, but you've proven my point that real world politics (yes that includes LGBTQ, DEI and whatever) being forced into gaming, other media and franchises where it has no place and it's just shoehorned in for the sake of pandering to real world situations. Like I said, Space Marine 2 luckily doesn't suffer from this, and plenty of people celebrate the developers for staying (mostly) true to the source material, but political agendas being pushed is widely prevalent in modern gaming and becoming a serious problem in day to day lives. Anyone that claims this isn't an issue is just part of the issue.
I feel like a lot of companies that put the most emphasis on making diverse IP make the worst products. I don't think that the lack of quality is due to diversity. Rather, I think that companies with soulless corporate leadership have a habit of producing mediocre content and attempting to obfuscate said mediocrity by making an otherwise uninspiring game a referendum on the culture war.
I'm willing to bet that there are developers who can make a game that is more organically diverse and genuinely fun, but that they don't get an honest shot due to the state of modern gaming.
Anyway this game is gonna be crap, IGN is gonna give it a 10/10, and Polygon is gonna go on a tirade when it underperforms in the same way every AC game since black flag has underperformed.
what do you mean by diverse IP? Ubisoft has notoriously done the exact opposite by eliminating every distinguishing characteristic of their games and converging all of their designs into assassin's creed with another name. Ubisoft has one of the least diverse portfolio of any AAA company, and that's saying something.
the only good (and diverse) things that come out of Ubisoft have been from a small team inside that somehow missed all the rituals to sell their souls to Asmodeus so they keep making bangers like Rayman and the recent Prince metroidvania.
Sadly, I think this person is railing against "having more than just white guys featured" (as if that's forced, when you start making games in new locations around the world) rather than the bland Ubi-style open-world map checklist that you might expect to be the sane complaint.
I mean it is a diverse portfolio, but only on the very shallow surface level. Like COD or FIFA, AC games are the same every year / 2 years with a different skin.
I remember when it was actually different 10+ years ago, like when we got AC Unity, Black Flag close by, with some Far Cry 3 on the side. Their open worlds had similar elements, but it was still very different at the core.
If it's that they're gonna change something in the game, I doubt it's gonna be related to the (black) main character. I can't imagine it would be an easy fix to fully replace him with a different character at this point.
If people really find it such a big deal I think best they could do is to let people choose their own main male character, like Odyssey and Valhalla.
From what I understand he is not THE main character he is one of the two main characters.
It would be impossible to replace him at this point in the development and other than the super hard-core racists I don't think anyone wants that at all.