A new look at the Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix animated series debuted at Ubisoft Forward today, and folks, the announcement was practically engineered to grind against my own entertainment pet peeves.
Ubisoft announced Captain Laserhawk years ago, but producer Adi Shankar took to the stage today to introduce a new trailer. The show, billed as an anime series (it's not, it wasn't produced in Japan), features a dose of 90s cyber nostalgia (even though the Blood Dragon games were always about the 80s) and a host of references to various video games (only some of which are Ubisoft properties).
Despite my grousing, Shankar is also the producer behind the admittedly excellent Castlevania animated series on Netflix, so I'm willing to give Captain Laserhawk the benefit of the doubt for now - but man, from the generic nostalgia bait to the metaverse-style crossover of universes, I'm struggling to think of a less compelling hook for an "anime."
- Borderlands boss Randy Pitchford hyped up the Borderlands 4 trailer as much as he could, but series fans feel burned by "bland" Vault Hunters: "They look so generic"
- Secret Level's Pac-Man episode had one big request from developers: "We would like the audiences to wonder, 'What the f*ck did they do to Pac-Man?'"
Okay, let me try for some positives. The animation looks good. Kaiju Rabbids pouring out of a portal, Pacific Rim-style, is fun. And I do like the implied existence of a Muppet-filled Assassin's Creed universe, where murderous frogs tell each other to requiescat in pace. Please, Adi - prove me wrong.
Captain Laserhawk is set to hit Netflix this fall.
Ubisoft Forward has also brought us our first proper look at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora gameplay, including details on the game's two-player co-op option. It all looks quite a bit more Far Cry than any of us expected.
For all the Ubisoft Forward announcements as they happen, you can follow that link.
