This news has just come out, but it immediately made a tremor in the gaming world. Marc-Alexis Côté, the main director of the Assassin’s Creed series, has finally parted ways with Ubisoft. Yes, this person who has been the main reason for the birth and growth of the series over the years is simply… no more. According to IGN’s article, this is a formal end, but the cause behind it is still quite unclear. Did he resign or was he thrown out? We still don’t know, but the situation is really making the current status of the AC universe interesting.
Who is the guy anyway? Marc-Alexis Côté was not an obscurity. He was a fixture in the Assassin’s Creed team for a long time, working his way up to the point where he was the executive producer of the franchise. He was the major visionary for the entire series, paving the way for the diverse games such as the recent biggest and largest ones. He was there right from the beginning of the RPG-style games shift that started with Origins, and he was the one who handled Valhalla that turned out to be a total win for Ubisoft. Nonetheless, he was also the one who sometimes got the company maybe the most divided over certain… less popular titles.
To put it simply, the gamers’ reaction over the internet was strange and, frankly, pretty mixed. Many gamers are very happy, saying it is the “best news we have received for the franchise” according to one comment. In contrast, others respond, “don’t the mean crashing the series for a number of years?” which is seriously tough but still they are not totally wrong. There surely is a part of the AC community that feels the saga has lost its way under his control, as one player put it even “Assassin’s Creed as a franchise is going nowhere” and was wishing a “hire someone with vision” that could replace him.
However, it is not only a question of negativity around Côté. There are some gamers who come to his defence, saying he was part of the team that made the most acclaimed games in the franchise. For example, one user said that he was “in charge for 3 and 4” – meaning Assassin’s Creed III and Black Flag – and had “vocally defended the need for narrative in AC lately.” So it is not that the man was indifferent to the narrative aspect, even if recent scripts have not totally won over all the fans.
The writing quality has become a main theme of comments in the replies and what players want from the franchise in the future. A lot of players have been saying the writing in the latest titles is “god awful”, and that the voice acting is “less than impressive” and adding “Ubisoft writing has not been good since Far Cry 5” which is quite a claim. Others hope for a return to form with “someone that really knows and cares about sci-fi conspiracy lore” instead of “mimicking every trend.”
Linking it back to Shadows of… situation, It was as if the whole community was unanimous in the belief that the recent Assassin’s Creed Shadows installment was the worst hit to the franchise. An indifferent player said the plot was “painfully disappointing” another went on to point out that the series “declined with Shadows.” The truth is that there is a noticeable need for change which many players have even gone as far as calling for a complete reboot of the series because it has “lost all direction.”
In addition, Ashraf Ismail is a name that keeps being mentioned in the comments and some gamers are even nostalgingly asking for his return. Even though he was the creative director on Black Flag and Origins, Ismail’s exit from Ubisoft was marred by a scandal. It is almost comic how players fantasize about the past administration as possibly being the savior the series needs now.
What is really striking is that the community is that divided even in their expectations from Assassin’s Creed. On the one hand, gamers say they like the RPG direction and, for instance, one player remarked that “RPGS are the best In the series there’s more to do and lots of beautiful places” while on the contrary, others are clearly looking forward to the trilogy of stealth-based gameplay coming back just like the earlier titles. Besides, there is even a dispute going on whether the series should split into different games types to satisfy everyone’s need.
What implication does that have for the franchise? By the time the dust of Côté’s departure has settled, Ubisoft will have to occupy one of the biggest leadership voids in the company concerning one of the most profitable IPs. It will be vital to find a person who can possibly unite such a divided fanbase while at the same time creating games that bring in millions of sales. That is definitely not an easy task considering the high expectations for every new Assassin’s Creed release anyway.
The correlation with Côté’s exit is also interesting as we have entered this transitional phase in the series that is a bit weird. The games that are RPG-style have been the most popular for the past several years but at the same time, there are, like, Mirage, attempts to recreate the classic AC gameplay. It is very clear that the franchise is going through an identity crisis and the very guide who was supposed to lead is now gone.
The next step could be the very one that will shape the destiny of Assassin’s Creed for the next decade. Is there a chance that Ubisoft will promote from within? Or are they going the route of the past simply by bringing back someone from the franchise’s past? Or are they going to hire someone entirely new to offer a fresh take? Regardless of what they choose, they are facing a major problem – how to win over both the old-school fans who prefer the simplicity of the earlier games and the new players who fell in love with the vast RPG worlds of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla.
The only thing that is for certain is that the Assassin’s Creed community will not miss it and will be watching very closely who is going to fill those big shoes. The franchise means a lot to many people, and after almost twenty years, it is at a very critical crossroad. Let us just wish that whatever comes next, it not only does justice to the legacy of this great series but also pushes it forward in significant ways. Change might be scary, but sometimes it is exactly what a franchise needs to regain its standing. The future of gaming on platforms like PlayStation and Xbox will be watching closely.
