Ubisoft recently fired long-time CCO (Chief Creative Officer) Serge Hascoët, among other executives, for the numerous allegations of misconduct and sexism levied by former employees.
However, it seems like he also made some questionable choices in the creative department as well. You might recall that former Dragon Age designer Mike Laidlaw had a brief stint at Ubisoft, joining in 2018 (he had left BioWare in 2017) before leaving earlier this year.
No game was ever officially announced, but a report published yesterday on Bloomberg suggests that Laidlaw and the team at Ubisoft Quebec were working on an open world fantasy RPG codenamed Avalon. As easily guessed by its codename, this game would have been directly inspired by the Arthurian legends.
According to the sources cited in the report, the development was actually progressing well. Avalon would have featured cooperative multiplayer elements similar to CAPCOM's highly successful Monster Hunter World. However, Hascoët reportedly held the project to impossible standards, claiming that the fantasy world would have to be 'better than Tolkien's Lord of the Rings' in order to be funded until its release. Apparently, Hascoët ditched plenty of fantasy game pitches within Ubisoft in previous years and didn't budge even when Laidlaw and his team tried different settings such as Sci-Fi and Greek mythology. Avalon was eventually canceled last Fall, with Laidlaw leaving the company a few months later.
Hascoët was known to be the most powerful person at Ubisoft when it came to deciding the fate of a game project. Hopefully, all the power that was previously concentrated in a single person will be now split more evenly among several creative officers.
For the time being CEO Yves Guillemot has taken on the role of CCO, though it is expected that someone will eventually fill this position on a permanent basis.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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