Ubisoft co-founder and Guillemot Corporation chief executive officer Claude Guillemot, brother to Ubisoft's chief executive officer Yves Guillemot, has died in a plane crash. First reported by French outlet Ouest France and later spotted by Bloomberg, the French businessman was one of two passengers on a small, twin-engine Cessna 421 plane. Both passengers died in the crash.
Ubisoft is a rarity in the video game industry in that it began as a family business and is still, to this day, as much of a family business as it can be while also being a massive, global corporation. Claude Guillemot was 69 years old at the time of the crash this past Friday, June 19, 2026. The plane went down in La Baule, Brittany.
"Ubisoft was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the group and chairman of Guillemot Corp., in an accident," a spokesperson for Ubisoft said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. No further statements will be made at this time."
Christian, Gérard, Michel, Yves, and Claude Guillemot all co-founded Ubisoft back in 1986 under the Guillemot Corporation, which the brothers had initially started as a technology hardware distribution company.
Ubisoft's first game on record is Zombi for the Amstrad CPC, though it would be almost a decade before its first iconic series, Rayman, arrived in 1995. A little more than another decade later, while Ubisoft had become known for Rayman, Prince of Persia, and its Tom Clancy games, the franchise that would catapult the company to becoming one of the biggest publishers in the industry arrived in 2007 with the first Assassin's Creed game.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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