Ex-Assassin's Creed Developers Join Stadia's First-Party Dev Team

There seems to be something of a Ubisoft exodus in the works, as several former Assassin's Creed developers leave the company to join Google's first-party Stadia studio, "Stadia Games and Entertainment".

Originally reported in VGC, its story outlines three main figures who have joined the already established Jade Raymond —executive at Stadia Games— at Google's development team: Sébastien Puel, who spent ten years as Executive Producer for the Assassin's Creed series and now takes on the role of Director General with Stadia; Francois Pelland, who acted as executive producer and director for titles like Assassin's Creed III, Odyssey and South Park: The Fractured but Whole and now takes charge of Google's first-party game strategy; and Mathieu Leduc, who worked as Art Director for titles such as the Watch Dogs series and the original Assassin's Creed , now continues his position as Art Director at Google's Stadia Games and Entertainment.

All of Stadia's exclusive content will be coming from first-party studios like Stadia Games and Entertainment, although reports suggest that any work on a significant title would be in its early stages and wouldn't see a release for a number of years. With Stadia's poor initial reception considered, Google won't be able to rely on a distant "must-have" release to entice players. The platform will need to use alternative strategies to warm public perception of the game streaming service.

The hiring of industry veterans, if nothing else, implies that Google intends to create high-quality, AAA exclusives for its platform. Time will tell what the ex-Ubisoft talent will bring to Stadia as, despite its underwhelming launch, the service is still in its very early days.