Child of Light Developer Now a “Core Team” Within Ubisoft

[Squirrel Emperor]

Child of Light developer now a “core team” within Ubisoft

CVG is reporting that Ubisoft has created a dedicated “core team” within the company featuring members from the Child of Light development group.

In an interview with the site, Ubisoft Montreal’s VP of creative Lionel Raynaud said:

“We are super happy with Child of Light. The team did a good job and the game had a great reception. We were proud to deliver something new and unique – a lot of people were surprised that Montreal was delivering this kind of game. The team learned a lot about RPG mechanics during development and this has resulted in us creating a core team. The people who made this game now want to work together again, whether it’s on a small game or not. This dynamic has incredible value in the industry and it’s what we want to do: we want to create core teams that want to make great games.”​

“So yes, we will encourage other initiatives like Child of Light and there’s a chance that we will have many more games like that in the future. I already have many different projects that are in the pitch stage – I even had one in my office this morning, which was super exciting.”​

Plourde himself has “moved on” from the Child of Light team to work on a different project. However, the chance to work on a smaller game provided him with the opportunity “to grow and try something different.”

“It wasn’t the most commercial idea so it became very personal – I even did a lot of the PR myself; GDC talks, global tours etc. I have moved on. I guess I’m a special snowflake in this case, because I hate being stuck in one place. At some point somebody put me in a room and said, ‘Pat, you’re the Rainbow Six guy!’ or ‘You’re the Assassin’s Creed guy!’ but I said no, even after Far Cry.”​

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[Fleur]

It's things like this that leave me somewhat confused when I talk about Ubisoft, and why I'm in a state of love-hate when it comes to Yves Guillemot. On one hand, in light of their shoddy PC support, their DRM, and their seeming inability to be honest about the real life performance and looks of their games in promotion materials, they do things as reprehensible as its other massive triple-A brethren, albeit not as reprehensible as EA's tendency to systematically murder studios and IPs. They're also seemingly unable to deviate away from their predictable formula for open-world games (collect 300 things, go find a tower to unlock more areas of a map, etc.), and as years have flown by, I've increasingly seen them as this massive factory assembly line. Instead of thousands assembling iPhone parts, it's thousands trying to put together different segments of new Assassin's Creed games. It's an efficient environment, but not one that affords much in the way of individuality and creativity.

And yet on the other hand, Ubisoft turn round and make things like Rayman, Child of Light, and Valiant Hearts. Some of them may not be the most critically acclaimed games ever, but they're willing to greenlight projects, as small and secondary as they may be, take a modicum of risk, and recognise the virtue in garnering a small, tidy profit from something creatively beyond the norm. Never in a millennium would you turn round and see EA or Activision bother - and EA will only do it for a game starring anthropomorphic plants if it's a (very fun, admittedly) shooter in disguise, and the rest of the time their mentality appears to be "get as big of a profit as you can, or get none". I'm glad that some people have been able to explore their own niches, away from the Assassin's Creed factory, and I'm more looking forward to what they have in store than what is rolling off the assembly line.

But of course, I've not forgotten about Beyond Good & Evil 2, which they've been frustratingly reticent about...

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

I'm not really expecting Beyond Good and Evil 2 anymore. Ancel is working on that Wild game. So it'd have to be some other team I would think. But it doesn't really seem like a game Ubi Soft would really want to take a chance on I think. Kinda strange how it pops up once in a while.

“So yes, we will encourage other initiatives like Child of Light and there’s a chance that we will have many more games like that in the future.”

This is how I picture the indie scene evolving. You're going to see more big publishers putting together "indie like" teams and because they have the money to market their games, it's going to end up shrinking the indie scene a bit as it's too hard for the smaller guys to compete and make money. I don't think I'll mind too much as long as they allow creative freedom and not let the market dictate what they can or can't make.