Former Assassin's Creed and Far Cry director says Ubisoft 'became very allergic' to new games, which contributed to a 'talent drain'

It's been a rough few years for Ubisoft. Skull and Bones became a $200 million folly, one of several failed attempts to capitalise on live-service popularity; staff are revolting due to layoffs, studio closures and a mandatory return-to-office command; and after years of trying to curtail the influence of Tencent, the Chinese publisher now controls more than 26% of newly-formed Assassin's Creed subsidiary Vantage Studios.

Alex Hutchinson, who served as Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed 3's creative director, before leaving Ubisoft to found Typhoon Studios in 2017, believes the company's fall is down to several factors, which have been hammering the publisher for a while now—it's why he left.

"It's a shame," he tells us. "I think a bunch of things happened. The style of development we pioneered was being able to manage big teams by letting them be individual groups with ownership of their own thing, to allow us to make bigger games faster. But then I think with the recent boom, there's been a weird five year boom in private equity and investment from people which we hadn't seen before ever. So a lot of senior people left Ubisoft and started studios or splintered off. So there was this talent drain that went out."

Ubisoft's treatment of Pioneer is the reason Hutchinson left, which allowed him to create his own sci-fi exploration game—albeit with some combat. And even when Typhoon was shuttered when Stadia was killed off, the team reformed under Raccoon Logic, giving us the excellent sequel Revenge of the Savage Planet.

The way Hutchinson frames Ubisoft's troubles makes it sound like death from a thousand cuts. "There's a million tiny things, as well," he says. "They're essentially a packaged goods business, and they had trouble figuring out digital as a whole platform." Just take a look at Ubisoft Connect, formerly Uplay, and its impotent struggle against Steam, where you will once again find all of Ubisoft's games.

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Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.

With contributions from

Jeremy PeelContributor

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