Ubisoft has been shaken by a wave of sexual abuse and harassment allegations in recent weeks, leading to the resignation of several high-profile executives and a pledge from boss Yves Guillemot to reform Ubisoft’s processes and editorial board. One of the executives who has since resigned, chief creative officer Serge Hascoët, has been accused of enabling and facilitating a culture of toxicity and misogyny – along with blocking plans for a solo female protagonist in the Assassin’s Creed series.
Yet beyond the allegations of misogyny, it seems Hascoët also stifled creativity in other ways, as a new report claims he cancelled a potential King Arthur game led by Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw.
According to the report from Bloomberg [paywall], Laidlaw was hired by Ubisoft in 2018 to work on an RPG code-named Avalon. Made by a team at Assassin’s Creed Odyssey studio Ubisoft Québec, it was intended to be a big-budget adventure about King Arthur and his Round Table, focused on telling their stories in a fantasy world “full of knights and legends”. Those who worked on the project felt it had been progressing well, and Avalon would have featured a cooperative multiplayer world similar to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series.
