author: Michael Kulakowski
Ubisoft Canceled an Arthurian RPG From Dragon Age Creator
In 2019, Ubisoft is said to have canceled a fantasy RPGs based on arthurian myths. Mike Laidlaw, creator of the Dragon Age series, worked on the game. This decision was entirely the responsibility of Serge Hascoët, who left the company this month after a series of scandals.
Mike Laidlaw is co-creator of the success of the Dragon Age series and its creative director, who left BioWare in 2017. A few months later he joined the Canadian team at Ubisoft Quebec, where he was to take care of a new high-budget project. Thanks to an article by Jason Schreier, we already know that it was supposed to be an original fantasy RPG called Avalon. The game was to be based on arthurian myths and its protagonists were knights of the round table, traversing a magical world inspired by classical medieval legends.
However, the project was canceled. According to Schreier, the decision was entirely the responsibility of one person. It was Serge Hascoët, the creative director of Ubisoft, who had an extremely strong influence in the studio and no one was able to oppose his opinions. Hascoët was largely responsible for the success of the Far Cry and Assassin's Creed series. He also gave the final shape to the open-world formula, for which both franchise are known, becoming its greatest defender. The developer is also to be known for his great aversion to fantasy genre. Prior to Laidlav's proposal, he was to regularly reject all game designs containing elements from this genre.
- Avalon was an original RPG developed by Dragon Age devs in 2019.
- Avalon was based on arthurian myths, but was disliked by Ubisoft's creative director Serge Hascoët, who did not like any fantasy games.
- The developers did not manage to satisfy the influential boss, so the project was quickly canceled.
Serge Hascoët was the master of life and death of new projects in the studio, practically independently deciding their fate and direction.
Due to Laidlaw's reputation, Hascoët couldn't immediately get rid of Avalon. Instead, he started to cause troubles for its developers. Among other things, he was supposed to have put an ultimatum to Dragon Age devs, saying that if Avalon was to be a fantasy game, it must be "better than Tolkien". Despite the efforts of Quebec devs, their project was rejected in autumn 2019. Before that, for many months they tried to approach it from different sides in order to satisfy Hascoët, who was causing problems. Among other things, they proposed to take inspiration from Greek myths or to transfer the story to SF setting. Laidlaw, disappointed with how things turned out, left Ubisoft in January, this year.
Serge Hascoët left Ubisoft this month, but for completely different reasons. It was due to a series of scandals and information about the company's toxic working climate, to which he made a major contribution. For some developers, this is a good sign, because, with his departure, the French company has been announced to change its structure. Creative decisions on future projects are now not to depend on the opinion of one person, but to be made as a team. This will enable the publisher to diversify its offer and the titles it publishes, which have become increasingly homogeneous in recent years.