Splinter Cell creative director to rejoin Ubisoft

Former Splinter Cell creative director Maxime Beland will rejoin Ubisoft after less than a year at Fortnite developer Epic Games, VGC understands.

The creative director will return to become part of the company’s reorganised editorial team, which has been expanded and restructured partly in attempt to make its games line-up more varied.

Beland spent over 20 years at Ubisoft working across is biggest franchises, before his departure in 2019.

He is best known for his work as lead designer and creative director for 2006’s Rainbow Six: Vegas, before becoming game design director for the original Assassin’s Creed.

Beland was creative director for two Splinter Cell titles, 2010’s Conviction and 2012’s Blacklist, the latter of which was the first game by Ubisoft Toronto, the studio he co-founded.

Beland was also the creative director of the Toronto-made portions of Far Cry 4, Far Cry 5 and Far Cry Primal, including 4’s Shangri-La sections.

In his new role, Beland will act as a new vice president for Ubisoft’s influential editorial team, helping guide various games across the company.

The restructuring of Ubisoft’s editorial team follows the disappointing sales performance of 2019 titles The Division 2 and Ghost Recon Breakpoint, which resulted in the delay of several games to ensure quality, including Watch Dogs Legion.

Commenting on the delays, Ubisoft said it would implement “significant changes” to its production processes across the company.