Monday, July 12, 2010

AC's Jean-Francois Boivin details "Patrice Desilets's unexpected departure"

Last month Ubisoft announced that Assassin's Creed's Creative Director Patrice Desilets had suddenly and unexpectedly left the company, telling us that Patrice had "decided to take a creative break from the industry".

Assassin's Creed's Production Manager Jean-Francois Boivin when asked how Patrice's departure had affected things at the studio, and whether it was possible that he could return to Assassin's Creed further down the line.

"Patrice is a dear friend of mine," said Boivin. "I know his family and I have supper with him, he comes to my house, I knew his daughters, and I totally got where he was coming from because he's been talking about taking a break for a long time.

"Taking the ploughing the field analogy from earlier, he just needs to take a creative break and resource himself."

"In regards to Brotherhood, he did everything that he needed to do; he was at the recording sessions, he did the script, he did the casting with me, and he just said 'here's the port, bring it home'. All there is to do right now for Brotherhood is to just bring it home.

"Patrice is a very public figure for the franchise, and he's very much the visionary for the Assassin's Creed license, but he's not the only visionary. It wasn't Patrice who did game design necessarily, and we have over two hundred very talented and creative people that work on the license.

"We know what we're doing; we've had a plan for a long time where this license is going to go and so I'm not at all afraid of the future quality of Assassin's Creed games. The only thing is maybe you'll be seeing more of me and less of him."

So could Patrice return to Assassin's Creed one day?

"Yeah, well I don't know. He doesn't even know himself. Right now he's watching the World Cup, and if you were to talk to him he'll say 'yeah, I'm watching the World Cup, I'm going to the park with my daughter, maybe take a nap or read a book, and yeah, that's it'. That's all he's doing.

"He's been doing Assassin's Creed for six years and doing games for thirteen and the guy's taking a well deserved break. Who knows what the future will hold for him."

Patrice's been around since the start of the AC franchise and has been pretty much its main man.

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