Today we brought you the news about the opening of THQ's new Montreal studio and that former Assassin's Creed creative director Patrice Désilets will be spearheading the formation of a team at the new studio to work on original IP. It's a big win for THQ, but it's clearly a loss for Ubisoft and the Assassin's Creed group. Patrice sent a brief letter about the move to Kotaku, and CVG got some reaction from Patrice's former co-workers.
Assassin's Creed producer Vincent Pontbriand noted that his group will be fine without Patrice but it's still unfortunate to lose him. "What I can say is that we were sad to see him leave. He is a personal friend so it was a shocker for us. If you look at it... I might have done the same thing. He was at Ubisoft for a long time and hadn't explored anything else so he felt the moment was right to do that," he said. "For us, Assassin's Creed is a team effort on the creative side. He was the creative director but was working as part of a team. He didn't come up with all the ideas himself, there is a fifteen person core team. We're fine."
Senior international brand manager Eric Gallant added, "Patrice was a key member of a team and a good friend and his decision to leave is unfortunate for us but we're happy for him. For Brotherhood it doesn't really have a big impact since the creative decisions were made way before this, these decisions are always coming out from different conversations with different people... It's not only one person that drives the entire ship, it's a team - and the core team remains the same on Brotherhood. Some core members will always stay on Assassin's Creed and we're adding new people as we get bigger."
"We have a strong vision for the future of the brand and are confident," he concluded.
