Ubisoft’s newest bout of government musical chairs continues with a record that Clint Hocking, ingenious director of A ways Cry 2, Watch Canine Legion, Splinter Cellular: Chaos Idea and the drawing close Murderer’s Creed Codename Hexe, has left the corporate.
Now we have Very Gary Computing to thank for this little bit of scuttlebutt. It seems that, Hocking’s departure used to be communicated to body of workers this week by way of Murderer’s Creed’s new management group. Jean Guesdon, the logo’s just-appointed head of content material, will take over as ingenious director for Hexe.
“We sincerely thank [Clint] for his imaginative and prescient, ingenious contributions, and determination over time, and we want him the perfect in his subsequent bankruptcy,” a spokesperson has informed VGC. “Building on Murderer’s Creed Codename Hexe continues with a seasoned group. The sport will ship one thing unique throughout the Murderer’s Creed franchise. We sit up for sharing additional information someday.”
You may know Hocking as the man who coined the time period “ludonarrative dissonance”, describing the war between the sport you play and the tale it tells you. You may additionally know him as patron saint of the “grenade rolled backpedal hill” species of immersive/emergent sim. Fascinating fellah. Right here’s a piece from an essay he wrote for RPS, many moons in the past:
I imagine that the gamers’ company is sacred. I imagine there is not any a part of a sport too essential to play with. Whilst some search to make a straw guy of this stance by way of suggesting I’m in favour of transport uncompiled code and calling it a sport, I in finding that to be a grasping aid of the argument. The sport does no longer lie in code – compiled or in a different way. The sport is what is occurring within the participant, and the truth is it used to be by no means ‘our sport’ to give protection to from wreck within the first position.
Whilst I’m combined on Hocking’s more moderen video games, I used to be vaguely taking a look ahead to listening to him discuss Hexe. Introduced in 2022, apparently to take Ubisoft’s covert stabbing sequence into the world of occult horror, with twisty wicker trademarks. In line with reporting on the time of announcement,the sport is ready all over the witch trials of the Holy Roman Empire.
Assuming VGC are at the degree, and so they have a tendency to be, Hocking’s departure is a part of Ubisoft’s bloody transformation into a bunch of “ingenious properties”. The publishers have cancelled a number of video games, closed studios, and laid a lot of builders off within the procedure. One departed Murderer’s Creed exec, Marc-Alexis Côté, is now suing Ubisoft for £1 million, claiming he used to be pressured out. Corporate CEO Yves Guillemot has stressed out the significance of “disciplined group of workers control, whilst Ubisoft appoint his son to co-run the corporate’s new flagship studio.
