Ubisoft's chief creative officer is stepping down from his position amidst the company's new decentralization efforts. Whereas Ubisoft has recently been making headlines due to its flagship IP, Assassin's Creed, undergoing a substantial change in how it will handle future releases with AC: Infinity, it appears that there are big changes underway in the background, too.

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With rumors about Ubisoft's potential acquisition being seemingly put on hold, the publisher's main goal currently seems to be an improvement in how efficient its creative departments are, and this means it's going to lose some people along the way. Ubisoft's chief creative officer, Igor Manceau, is going to step down next month after spending just over a year in his current position. Ubisoft's official press release says that Manceau will help with the ongoing restructuring of the creative offices, the goal of which is to move away from the current centralized model of game development.

Riders Republic Overlooking Canyon

Manceau had previously worked on Ubisoft's Riders Republic, which found success as one of the best multiplayer games of 2021. The reasoning behind his departure isn't obvious on its own, but Ubisoft did reveal that it was Manceau himself who expressed a desire to step away from the company. It's possible, of course, that this had something to do with Ubisoft's ongoing efforts at decentralizing the company, though this hasn't been outright confirmed.

A few weeks back, Ubisoft announced a huge investment from Tencent, which granted the holding company a 49.9% stake in the publisher's operations, though the deal did not include a board seat. While it's unlikely that the newly announced simplification and streamlining of Ubisoft's creative endeavors has something to do with this investment, the timing behind the announcement is curious and could point to Ubisoft attempting to make itself even more interesting to other potential investors.

The exact results of this restructuring won't be known for some time yet, but Ubisoft has big diversification plans for its next couple of years, and it wouldn't be a big surprise to see that they tie into the process somehow. In the short term, it may be more important to ask whether Manceau leaving will end up being a major hit for Ubisoft's creative endeavors, but only time will show if this is the case.

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Source: Kotaku