Coinciding with the release of Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft launched their new progressive site, UPlay.  UPlay is a hub where gamers will be able to interact more deeply with the Ubisoft games they’re playing.  UPlay has four main components: UPlay Win, UPlay Help, UPlay Share, and UPlay Shop.  However, it’s UPlay Win that most gamers will find the most interesting.

UPlay Win rewards gamers for performing certain in game tasks by awarding them UPlay Win Units.  In this sense, it’s very much like the Achievements/Gamerscore system.  However, Ubisoft takes it one step further by letting gamers redeem their Win Units for actual prizes.  Some examples of prizes are themes, and in-game content such as character outfits and access to restricted areas.  It’s also worth noting that gamers can use the Win Units across different titles (i.e. If you earn points from Assassin’s Creed II, you can redeem them for titles such as the upcoming Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction). Additionally, UPlay works cross-platform, so, if you earn points on a PS3 title, they can be redeemed on a 360 title. 

Assassin 10K and our friends at wouldyoukindly.com were nice enough to make this video demonstrating how UPlay Win works and the Assassin’s Creed II theme that you can redeem from there. From the looks of it, they suggest saving your points for something else.

Overall, we are very impressed by UPlay.  Even though it’s still in beta and not all aspects are functional, we think that the building blocks are in place for a very revolutionary service.  We can’t help but wonder – If UPlay is a success, will Ubisoft have changed what people expect out of their gaming experience?