It seems that the French publisher is repeating its history, because a few years ago there was a big scandal surrounding it because of harassment in the studios…

In the Indonesian subsidiary studio Brandoville, there was not only mental harassment, but also physical harassment. The studio, which was working on Assassin’s Creed Shadows, was closed down last August. Meanwhile, Ubisoft has reacted to the case. It was all brought to light by People Makes Games, and they focused on Christa Sydney. She worked for the company from 2019 to 2024, and she stated that Kwan Cherry Lai abused her emotionally and physically. Kwan Cherry Lai is the wife of Brandoville CEO Ken Lai.

Lai resorted to micromanaging Sydney (and that’s never a good thing), and got only a few minutes of sleep in four days! Lai bullied Sydney so much that he gave her a concussion. All of this information can be heard in the video embedded below. Ubisoft has responded with a statement, but it does not say whether the French publisher has reached out to the abused: “We are deeply disturbed by the recent reports concerning Brandoville Studios. We strongly condemn any form of abuse and our thoughts are with the employees involved,” Ubisoft wrote.

This is not the first time People Make Games has targeted Brandoville. In 2021, they appeared on YouTube because of the crisis, and at that time they referred to the outsourcing of the games industry. Even then, there were rumors of horrendous fake profits surrounding the company, so three years later, nothing has changed within the company. Now that the team has been disbanded, the people who used to work there have the opportunity to tell what happened to them there without any consequences.

Brandoville has provided art and animation support for a number of games, including several episodes of Assassin’s Creed and Age of Empires 4. The interviews in the video start in 2019 and run until the studio closed in 2024. Not only did Lai abuse Christa Sydney, but sadly several employees were also tortured, which then led to financial abuse and the overworking of a pregnant employee.

Shocking.

Source: WCCFTech