We must ask ourselves if the French publisher will be able to recover from this.

Clint Hocking, a Ubisoft veteran and creative director of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe project, has left the company. WCCFTech received the following statement: “Clint Hocking, creative director on Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe, will be departing Ubisoft. We sincerely thank him for his vision, creative contributions, and dedication over the years, and we wish him the very best in his next chapter.” “Development on Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe continues with a seasoned team. The game will deliver something distinctive within the Assassin’s Creed franchise.” Jean Guesdon, Head of Content for the Assassin’s Creed brand, is now acting as the Creative Director on the project. “We look forward to sharing more information in the future,” wrote Ubisoft.

Since Hexe was announced in 2022 alongside other future Assassin’s Creed titles, there have only been rumors about the upcoming game. Most recently, we heard that its release had been postponed until 2026. Following the company’s major restructuring announced last month and Hocking’s subsequent departure, it seems likely that Hexe is one of the titles delayed as part of Ubisoft‘s portfolio restructuring. This restructuring also resulted in the cancellation of the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake.

Hocking worked at Ubisoft during two significant periods of his career. The first was a nine-year period during which he served as creative director and led the development of Far Cry 2 and Chaos Theory. He then left in 2010 to work at LucasArts for two years, followed by a one-year stint at Valve and a one-year position at Amazon Game Studios. In 2015, he returned to Ubisoft, where he led the Ubisoft Toronto team in developing Watch Dogs: Legion. He then joined the Montreal team to work on Hexe.

Unlike another recently departed Ubisoft veteran, Marc-Alexis Côté, Hocking was not part of the Assassin’s Creed franchise throughout his Ubisoft career. However, as creative director of two of the company’s most iconic titles, his departure signals that the company’s reboot continues to involve replacing the old guard, at least in terms of key creative positions. Côté, Julian Gerighty, and now Hocking are senior creative leaders who have led successful Ubisoft projects and have now left the company. While we know that Gerighty will be working on the Battlefield franchise, it’s unclear who will hire Hocking and Côté.

After all, at a large company like Ubisoft, the success or failure of a project cannot be attributed to one person. Nevertheless, it is not a good sign that people who have worked at Ubisoft for years are looking for work elsewhere in the industry.

Source: WCCFTech