But it’s already canceled
Here is the TL; DR in this case because the summary of a sentence is so ridiculous that it deserves to be front and center: Ubisoft hired was of the dragonThe creative director made a new fantasy game and then canceled it because an executive did not like fantasy games.
In a Bloomberg report, we learn that Ubisoft had a King Arthur-themed project underway in Ubisoft Quebec, which was the leading development studio in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Ubisoft had hired Mike Laidlaw from BioWare to direct the project; Laidlaw has prestige to his name, as he was accredited as lead designer in was of the dragon and its sequel before serving as creative director at Dragon Age: Inquisition. Internally, the game was codenamed “Avalon“
Ubisoft was looking for an interesting market with Avalon. It was structured as a multiplayer action cooperative RPG similar to Monster hunter. It is easy to imagine how Assassin’s Creed OdysseyThe core combat infrastructure could be adapted and expanded to fit the Monster hunter mold.
However, all was in vain. Laidlaw left Ubisoft in early 2019 and the project was canceled shortly thereafter. Reportedly, Ubisoft Creative Director Serge Hascoët hated the fantasy scene and had ridiculous mandates that he be “better than Tolkien”. Suddenly, this Round Table fable “full of knights and legends” had to slam on the brakes to appease an executive. The development team tried to change to a new configuration to no avail.
Hascoët has now left Ubisoft. It was one of the high-profile outings earlier this month following the departure of Ubisoft as a company that routinely concealed and protected sexual abuse and harassment, and facilitated a toxic and misogynistic workplace. Stubbornly putting this game to canning is a far cry from Hascoët’s worst crime. But, it seems she had rigid expectations of what a Ubisoft title defined (as evidenced by similar over-games during her reign) and was unwilling to be flexible on that front. We can only ask ourselves “what if” in retrospect.
Ubisoft’s planned King Arthur game was mixed by former creative chief [Bloomberg]
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