Four former Ubisoft developers responsible for Rainbow Six Siege among other games have left the company to join Amazon in Montreal for the tech and retail giant's new studio crafting an all-new game.
The departing developers include head of production Luc Bouchard, creative director Xavier Marquis, head of product Alexandre Remy, and content director Romain Rimokh. These developers and others will work on new intellectual property for Amazon from Montreal, joining the company's other first-party teams in Seattle, Orange County, and San Diego. The team's first project will be - you guessed it - an online multiplayer game.
“Montreal’s rich vein of creative talent will be a valuable asset as we continue building our development and publishing teams,” said Christoph Hartmann, VP, Amazon Games. “The highly skilled and experienced team at our new Montreal studio shares our commitment to creating best-in-class online games, and brings with them a wealth of knowledge and passion for building deep, community-focused multiplayer experiences. I look forward to watching them invent on behalf of customers as they grow their team and develop their first project.”
Amazon hasn't had a great start on its game development path. Its MMO, New World, was delayed last year until April, then again til August of this year, and given the pandemic, it wouldn't be shocking if it got pushed again. Its hero shooter, Crucible, launched in 2020 before reverting to a beta state in a rather strange move, all before being canceled entirely. Amazon has "several unannounced projects" currently in the works across the world, and perhaps we will learn more about some of those later this year.
