Assassin’s Creed 3, Far Cry 4 Creative Director Believes Ubisoft is “Allergic” to Making New Games

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Alex Hutchinson, who helped lead the creative direction of games like Far Cry 4 and Assassin’s Creed 3, thinks Ubisoft has become hesitant to take risks on completely new game ideas. He recently told PCGamer that he left Ubisoft in 2017, and also discussed a broader loss of skilled employees at the company.

Honestly, it’s a bit of a bummer what’s been happening in the industry. I think a lot of things came together at once. We used to be really good at making big games quickly by letting smaller teams really own their parts of the project. But then, over the last five years, there was this huge influx of private investment, which was new to us. It caused a lot of experienced people to leave Ubisoft – they either started their own studios or just moved on. It really felt like a big talent drain, you know?

According to Hutchinson, Ubisoft’s current challenges stem from a combination of factors. Losing skilled employees and having extremely large development teams – sometimes with 800 people – made things difficult. The shift to remote work during the pandemic also hindered the development of less experienced team members, as they lacked opportunities to learn from others and ask questions.

Managing a large team – especially one with 800 people – is challenging, even when everyone is in the office. It’s even harder when people aren’t coming to work, making it difficult to oversee their activities and ensure work is getting done. He also believes remote work hinders the development of junior employees, who may be less likely to ask questions and learn from more experienced colleagues, ultimately slowing their progress.

Regarding the shortage of original games, Hutchinson explained that Ubisoft continues to release sequels but also attempts to create new titles with innovative concepts. However, this focus on new ideas has recently decreased, resulting in several game cancellations.

The studio traditionally relied on continuing existing franchises while also trying out new projects. However, they started to avoid taking risks on anything original, and unfortunately, many of our concepts were rejected – I experienced this firsthand while working on Pioneer. They just weren’t open to fresh ideas anymore.

Jonathan Hutchinson was working on a science fiction game called Pioneer that prioritized exploring new worlds over intense fighting. A glimpse of the game was actually included in the 2016 game Watch Dogs 2. Sadly, Pioneer was ultimately never released. Hutchinson was removed from the project in 2016, and the game was officially canceled in 2019.

According to Hutchinson, the development of Skull and Bones took an unusually long time, especially considering its core sailing and naval combat systems were originally created for Assassin’s Creed 3 back in 2012. He found it strange to see essentially the same features released after 14 years. He believes the main reason for the delay was that the development team at Ubisoft Singapore didn’t have enough experience creating a multiplayer game based on Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.

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2026-02-26 19:11