{"id":417872,"date":"2026-01-18T19:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T19:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417872\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T19:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T19:11:07","slug":"ex-assassins-creed-boss-sues-ubisoft-over-alleged-forced-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417872\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Assassin’s Creed Boss Sues Ubisoft Over Alleged Forced Firing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2025 Marc-Alexis C\u00f4t\u00e9, the head of the Assassin\u2019s Creed franchise <\/a>and a 20 year veteran of Ubisoft, abruptly left the publisher following the launch of Assassin\u2019s Creed Shadows<\/a>. Three months ago he broke his silence to claim that he didn\u2019t leave voluntarily but was pushed out of the company. Now he\u2019s suing Ubisoft for nearly $1 million over what he alleges was a \u201cconstructive dismissal\u201d after being demoted from leading the publisher\u2019s biggest franchise.<\/p>\n

Radio-Canada reports<\/a> that the lawsuit was recently filed in the Superior Court of Quebec and claims $1.3 million Canadian dollars in damages, or roughly $935,000. In it, C\u00f4t\u00e9 details the events leading up to his departure from the company, including a meeting in the summer of 2025 when it apparently became clear that he would no longer remain in charge of Assassin\u2019s Creed, the franchise he had led sine a 2022 strategy reboot<\/a> outlined its ambitious future.<\/p>\n

Last year, Ubisoft launched a subsidiary called Vantage Studios<\/a> backed by $1.25 billion in funding\u00a0 from Tencent that would house the publisher\u2019s most profitable franchises: Rainbow Six Siege, Far Cry, and Assassin\u2019s Creed. It\u2019s led by North American studios head Christophe Derennes and CEO Yves Guillemot\u2019s son,\u00a0Charlie Guillemot<\/a>. Prior to the move, C\u00f4t\u00e9 reported directly to Yves Guillemot.<\/p>\n

An Assassin\u2019s Creed veteran allegedly demoted <\/p>\n

But under this new model, Ubisoft was looking to hire a Head of Franchise that would oversee all of its major IP, including Assassin\u2019s Creed, effectively demoting C\u00f4t\u00e9, according to his lawsuit. The new position would also only be located in France, meaning C\u00f4t\u00e9 wouldn\u2019t be eligible unless he was willing to relocate his life across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

The veteran developer was reportedly offered a new position of franchise production head or an ambiguous role leading a \u201cCreative House\u201d overseeing a separate, lesser franchise within the company\u2019s portfolio. When he declined and requested his severance for effectively losing his position in October, he alleges that Ubisoft took the surprise step of both internally<\/a> and publicly<\/a> announcing his \u201cvoluntary\u201d departure the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe past 24 hours have been deeply emotional,\u201d he wrote on LinkedIn at the time<\/a>. \u201cMany of you have expressed surprise that I would choose to leave Assassin\u2019s Creed after so many years, especially given the passion I still hold for it. The truth is simple: I did not make that choice.\u201d\u00a0C\u00f4t\u00e9 is now asking the Quebec court not only for damages and his severance, but to be released from a non-compete clause that limits the roles he can take elsewhere in the video game industry.<\/p>\n

Longer dev cycles, fewer games <\/p>\n

The lawsuit comes on the eve of Assassin\u2019s Creed Shadows\u2018 one-year anniversary, the last game in the franchise to ship with C\u00f4t\u00e9, who has been working on the historical action series since 2010\u2019s Assassin\u2019s Creed: Brotherhood, at the helm. That game was originally supposed to come out in 2024 but was delayed to provide additional development time after already marking the longest lull ever between new releases in the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also shifting our development model to make it more sustainable for our teams, as previously we used to average about three years for each development cycle on Assassin\u2019s Creed,\u201d C\u00f4t\u00e9 announced<\/a> back in 2022. \u201cSo we\u2019re moving to longer dev cycles to make them more sustainable from a human and technological point of view, so that we can truly build on the shoulders of one another and then support our games for a longer period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the franchise would evolve along two separate tracks, with Shadows representing the continued evolution of the open-world RPG formula that began with Assassin\u2019s Creed Origins and the next entry, Assassin\u2019s Creed Hexe directed by Clint Hocking, taking an approach that would feel \u201cfresh and different.\u201d Years later, however, some projects like the multiplayer spin-off Invictus and the mobile \u201cAAA\u201d game Jade remain MIA. A remake of Assassin\u2019s Creed IV: Black Flag, meanwhile, is rumored to be launching in the next few months.<\/p>\n

Ubisoft and C\u00f4t\u00e9 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025 Marc-Alexis C\u00f4t\u00e9, the head of the Assassin\u2019s Creed franchise and a 20 year veteran of Ubisoft,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[175463,99775,49,48,61,1012],"class_list":["post-417872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-assasins-creed-shadows","tag-assassins-creed","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology","tag-ubisoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}