This Week at Ubisoft: SpongeBob and More Unveiled for Brawlhalla, The Division Resurgence Gets New Beta

This week at Ubisoft, SpongeBob SquarePants and friends were unveiled for Brawlhalla, The Division Resurgence team announced an upcoming regional beta, and the Assassin's Creed Nexus VR team put a spotlight on its accessibility features ahead of its November 16 launch. Plus, the Anno 1800 Console Edition free weekend is underway, giving players the chance to dive into the city-building strategy game for free from now through November 12. Check out all that and more in this week's roundup of Ubisoft news.

Brawlhalla: Everything Announced During BCX 2023

The 2023 Brawlhalla World Championships (BCX) kicked off in Atlanta on November 3, and with them came the announcement that SpongeBob SquarePants and friends are joining the game as Epic Crossovers on November 29. The event will include SpongeBob (an Epic Crossover for Rayman), Patrick Star (Teros), and Sandy Cheeks (Cassidy). Additionally, Brawlhalla will enter Roblox in Weapon Fighting Simulator on November 15, when players will be able to complete quests for Legends Mordex and Hattori in exchange for three new weapon rewards.

The Division Resurgence Regional Beta Returns Starting November 16

On November 16, The Division Resurgence - the upcoming free-to-play mobile entry in The Division series - will host a new regional beta for players in the US and Brazil (register for your chance to play), as well as all players in Australia. Packing a host of improvements made since the summer beta, the new beta will let players tackle the campaign up to mission 8 in solo and co-op, as well as the Dark Zone and PvP Conflict mode. The beta will also include the new Lone Wolf Challenge mode, which challenges solo players to complete a series of short, increasingly difficult levels as quickly as possible. The beta will be available on select Android and iOS devices.

Assassin's Creed Nexus VR Accessibility Spotlight

Assassin's Creed Nexus VR launches on November 16 for Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Meta Quest Pro, and one of its biggest priorities from the start has been to make the experience accessible and comfortable to as many players as possible - while still delivering a full-scale Assassin's Creed game in VR. We spoke with Game Director Olivier Palmieri to find out what players can expect - and what, exactly, a "virtual nose" is.

Ubisoft+ Spotlight - Starlink: Battle for Atlas

(Editorial note: This is a series of quick weekly highlights written by Ubisoft News team writers that feature games available with a Ubisoft+ subscription. We hope you'll enjoy reminiscing with us, or perhaps discover something new.)

Mikel Reparaz, Editorial Communications Manager: Not many games let you fly freely through an open star system, transitioning seamlessly from space to atmospheric flight to ground exploration - but Starlink: Battle for Atlas is among the proud few. Centering on a team of human and alien explorers trying to rescue their leader from the clutches of the sinister Legion, Starlink invites players to explore seven diverse planets and the danger-filled expanses of space between them. There are puzzles to solve, wildlife to discover, resources to collect - and plenty of enemies to fight on land and in space, many of which require players to juggle a wide variety of elemental weaponry to take advantage of their weaknesses.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas debuted as a toys-to-life game, but the Ubisoft+ version unlocks everything from the jump (minus the Star Fox content exclusive to the Switch version). Its eight ships, 14 pilots, and 26 weapons are all yours to play with, and can be swapped out at any time during gameplay. You can even mix and match ship wings and cockpits to tweak your ride's appearance and stats. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the moment-to-moment gameplay is tremendously fun, with combat encounters that range from hovering skirmishes against small enemies and giant robots to full-on space dogfights featuring massive capital ships.

You can play Starlink: Battle for Atlas today with a Ubisoft+ subscription.

Game Updates

Assassin's Creed Mirage launched Title Update 1.0.5 on November 7, bringing a number of bug fixes and gameplay improvements, including:

• Added an option to enable/disable Chromatic Aberration.

• Whilst wearing the Fire Demon outfit, players would not receive the correct number of shards after assassinating any ISU Hunter.

• Basim now has an equal chance to play any of his takedown animations during front executions.

• Fixed issues with store rewards.

• Fire Eater enemies' hitbox now properly considers one-shot kills with the throwing knife when breaking the oil jar on their back.

Brawlhalla deployed Patch 8.01, which includes a number of updates and additions, including Battle Pass Classic 3: Jötunn Winter's Return, a new map (Small World's End), exclusive items to celebrate the game's eighth anniversary, and much more. The patch also comes with gameplay improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Weapon Spawn placements improved on Plains of Passage, Demon Island, and Small Brawlhaven.

• Improved Bot behavior and pathing on Inverted Dracula's Castle.

• Fixed a bug where Sticky Bombs could not KO in the Buddy Game Mode taking place on Under the Canopy and Kung Foot Arena Maps.

• Fixed a bug where Bots would accidentally self-KO on Inverted Dracula's Castle.

• Fixed a bug where favorited Weapons were not saving correctly.

• Fixed a bug where controller players could not back out from the "rename local player" menu.

• Fixed a bug where the chat box was not functioning when in the Queue (PC & Mac Only). 

On November 14, Anno 1800 will deploy Game Update 18.1 for PC, which adds support for the Eldritch Pack Cosmetic DLC, as well as the following fixes:

• Fixed a rare occurrence of the game crashing during start-up.

• Fixed an issue with the "accept" button not working after a dual island takeover with a friendly AI when the AI has more "Morale Loss Inflicted."

• Fixed an exploit that made it possible to construct locked Building and Modules from Stamps via the Upgrade Tool.

• Fixed the reward text for the Grand Stadium in the New World, it now correctly communicates 90 Influence for the "Regional" event.

• Fixed an issue with a wrongly displayed "Missing DLC" message when upgrading a blueprint of an owned Cosmetic DLC ornament.

• Fixed the missing mod popup that didn't show when starting a customized game.

• Fixed an issue with the loading order not being followed by the mod loader for identical files.

• Fixed the causes for LR40 desyncs that were related to ornaments from Cosmetic DLC.

Anno 1800 Console Edition players will also receive Game Update 4 on November 14, which also adds support for the Eldritch Pack as well as the following:

• Fixed an issue with Expeditions returning with less than three rewards after completing two- or three-skull Zoological Expeditions.

• Fixed a wrongly displayed ship icon for Expedition events with 'Navigation' and 'Naval Power' choices despite the ship used not having said bonuses.

• Fixed a crash that happened after one player demolishes a building that is in the process of being moved with the multirelocate tool by the other player.

• [PS5] Fixed the issue that new custom ship names are not being saved in multiplayer game modes.