Former Ubisoft creative director Serge Hascoët reportedly canceled a medieval role-playing game by former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw.
As reported by Bloomberg (via PC Gamer), the project was a fantasy RPG with magic and swordplay elements that would have been loosely based on the historical figure of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Called Avalon, the project was canceled late last year after disputes with Hascoët on the fantasy stage.
Apparently, the creative chief was not the biggest fan of fantasy games, and after turning down further releases from the development team, he settled on Avalon with the kicker that he would be better “better than Tolkien”. Laidlaw and his team reportedly made several commitments to appease Hascoët, but to no avail. To the surprise of several of the developers, the executive’s influence finally prevailed and Laidlaw left Ubisoft Quebec in January of this year. Hascoët himself left Ubisoft in July this year after allegations of misconduct.
Too bad Avalon has never seen the light of day. With Laidlaw at the helm, a sizable budget to finance the game, and elements of the online cooperative more or less similar to Monster Hunter, the fantasy RPG Arthurian could have been something really special. Hopefully, with a new creative leader at Ubisoft, developers won’t be so limited by the likes of a superior who doesn’t even work on the project.
Fortunately we have these upcoming ps5 games and upcoming xbox series x games yearn.
