Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey would have originally featured only one female lead, Kassandra, if it weren’t for the belief among Ubisoft executives that female leaders would not sell.
This is in accordance with a Bloomberg report that further claims an increase in abuse allegations against high-ranking members of the company that have been widely reported in the past month.
According to the report, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was originally proposed with only Kassandra as the protagonist, before the team was told it was not an option and a male option, Alexios, was added as a playable protagonist.
This was also allegedly the case with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, in which protagonist Evie was supposed to have the same time with her brother Jacob, but instead received significantly less.
And an early sketch from Assassin’s Creed Origins saw protagonist Bayek wounded or killed from the start and his wife, Aya, playable for the rest of the story.
According to sources who spoke to Bloomberg, all of these changes were made because Ubisoft’s marketing department and its creative director Serge Hascoët stepped in, saying that the female leads would not sell games.
Although the report doesn’t mention the upcoming Assassin’s Creed title, it’s worth noting that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla also presents a choice between a male or female lead, and that the female version of Eivor was not part of any of the initial tell-tale teasers. from the game: Instead, it was initially revealed through a statue that comes bundled with the game’s Collector’s Edition, and eventually gained screen time during the recent Ubisoft Forward event.
Hascoët is one of the leaders of Ubisoft who has been accused of toxic behavior towards women and abuse, and earlier this month he left the company along with managing director Yannis Mallat, while global director of human resources Cécile Cornet resigned from his position amid reports that the company’s toxic cultivation was related to human resource dysfunctions.
Editorial vice president Maxime Béland also left the company this month after he and fellow editorial team member Tommy François were placed on administrative leave following the allegations against both.
.
