Pioneer, the space exploration game teased in Watch Dogs 2, is reportedly dead

Publish date: 2023-02-09

Those with excellent memories may recall that, way back in 2016, Ubisoft teased a brand-new space exploration game within Watch Dogs 2, codenamed Pioneer. Well there's some bad news if you've been patiently awaiting its arrival: the game is now reportedly dead.

Pioneer first came to the attention of the internet in 2016 via a nifty little easter egg within Watch Dogs 2. During one mission, players were encouraged to hack into the servers of a fictional Ubisoft San Francisco in order to steal a confidential E3 teaser and sell it to a gaming site. Once downloaded, the teaser transpired to be footage from a mysterious, unnamed space exploration game, with a colourful palette not dissimilar to Hello Games' No Man's Sky.

Not long after, Ubisoft sources confirmed to Kotaku that the footage was from a very real, but as-yet-unannounced game with the codename Pioneer. At the time, Pioneer was said to have originally been scheduled for an official reveal the following year in 2017, but development troubles meant a delay was inevitable until it was "retooled".

Skip ahead two and a bit year to 2019, and we now know two things: firstly that a 2017 official reveal did indeed never occur, and secondly, that Pioneer will now apparently never see the light of day at all. That's according to Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 4 director Alex Hutchinson (now co-founder and creative director of Savage Planet developer Typhoon Studios), who offered a fairly definitive tweet on the matter earlier today.

"RIP Pioneer [weeping-face emoji that I don't know how to replicate in the Eurogamer CMS]", Hutchinson wrote alongside the attached original trailer. And when a concerned follower asked, "Is it super dead?", Hutchinson merely offered three additional weepy-faced emojis.

RIP Pioneer. 😭 https://t.co/YP8LK1s6fX

— Alex Hutchinson (@BangBangClick) January 15, 2019 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings

Of course, Hutchinson's word is by no means official Ubisoft word, given that he's no longer with the company. However, he's certainly well-connected enough to be privy to reliable information direct from the source. And truthfully, Pioneer's demise wouldn't come as too much of a surprise - Ubisoft is now fairly well covered for space exploration games between last year's Starlink: Battle for Atlas and the upcoming Beyond Good & Evil 2.

Perhaps Ubisoft can be nudged into officially sounding the death knell (or otherwise) for Pioneer, but, in the meantime, it seems the dream teased in Watch Dogs 2 might finally be over.

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