French publisher Ubisoft has cancelled Dragon Age Designer Mike Laidlaw’s fantasy King Arthur game at the behest of its former Chief Creative Officer, Serge Hascoët.
Mike Laidlaw joined Ubisoft’s Québec studio in 2018 to work on a fantasy King Arthur game codenamed Project Avalon, only to leave one year later without anything coming to fruition.
As Bloomberg reports, Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoët – credited for the publisher’s popular Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed series – canceled Project Avalon because he didn’t have much faith in the fantasy genre.
Dragon Age Designer’s Fantasy King Arthur Game Cancelled by Ubisoft Creative Lead
He had also told the team that Project Avalon had to be “better than Tolkien” if it were to come out, people familiar with the project told the outlet.
Serge Hascoët held a disproportionate amount of power compared to his peers in the industry that allowed him to single-handedly cancel games.
Despite Project Avalon progressing well and featuring a cooperative multiplayer world that echoed Monster Hunter World’s, it only took Hascoët to dislike the setting before it was on track to be canceled.
In 2019, Laidlaw and his team tried pitching different settings that moved Project Avalon’s action to a science fiction world or one inspired by Greek mythology. Neither impressed the former CCO.
Project Avalon was canceled in Fall, people with inside knowledge told the outlet. Mike Laidlaw’s departure followed in January 2020.
News of the cancellation of Ubisoft’s fantasy King Arthur game comes at a time when the publisher is under scrutiny following reports of multiple cases of sexual misconduct.
Serge Hascoët was one of several executives that resigned from their roles earlier this month, following multiple allegations that painted a rather grim picture of Ubisoft’s company culture.
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