Valiant Hearts director’s insights after leaving Ubisoft: “Something was missing”
Yoan Fanise has been working at Ubisoft since the early 2000s, contributing to modern classics like Beyond Good & Evil as well as more recent titles like the Assassin’s Creed franchise and Valiant Hearts. After 14 years with the studio, Fanise as decided to move on to smaller, not bigger, things.
“Beyond Good & Evil was a 30+ team production with a unique, creative mood that Michel Ancel is able to bring,” Fanise told Gamasutra. “The more we grew, the more this mood diminished. 100, 250, 500 people…it was necessary due to the technical evolution and AAA requirements, but on the creative and human side something was missing.”
He added, “I mean the industrial scale and organization of a giant project like Assassin’s Creed removes some direct connection between people from different job categories, for example. Your interactions are limited, and it is really difficult to have a global vision of the finished game. But at that scale, it would be very hard to make it different.”
“Like a gastronomic food truck on the parking of a giant restaurant”
Today, Ubisoft is known for its massive AAA titles like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, but it also occasionally turns out smaller, more artistic titles such as From Dust, Child of Light, and Valiant Hearts. These games have all received critical acclaim, but Fanise says that creating small games at Ubisoft is “like a gastronomic food truck on the parking of a giant restaurant.”
“I mean, business-wise, even if the game is a success, with over a million players and many awards, this is still small revenue compared to blockbusters,” Fanise said. “That’s the harsh reality. Maybe a better metaphor would be like, a successful chain of restaurants allows some of its cooks to install a foodtruck on the parking lot, then asks them to go back inside; what would you do?”
Fanise’s answer to that question, apparently, is to leave the company for good. While he has not announced any official plans for his next venture, Fanise says that he may become an real indie developer after being called “fake indie” by gamers during his time at Ubisoft.
Image Credit: @yfanise/Twitter
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