Four months after the former head of Assassinâs Creed abruptly exited the company after allegedly being forced out, Ubisoft has tapped three veterans of the series who have worked on or led entries like Origins, Black Flag, and Revelations to take charge of the franchise inside its new Tencent-backed home at Vantage Studios.
On February 23, Ubisoft announced that Martin Schelling, Jean Guesdon, and François de Billy are being handed the keys to Assassinâs Creed, the French publisherâs very successful and long-running historical-based open-world stealth action franchise. These three have been connected with Assassinâs Creed for many, many years and have been involved in some of the franchiseâs most popular games.
Schelling is now the head of the Assassinâs Creed brand. Ubisoft says heâll be responsible for the âoverall strategy and long-term visionâ of the series. Previously, he was Ubisoftâs chief production officer after spending 17 years in various production roles on games like Assassinâs Creed Revelations, Black Flag, Origins, and Valhalla.
François de Billy has been named Assassinâs Creedâ âHead of Production Excellence,â which is a wild title to put on a resume. François was the production director on Assassinâs Creed Black Flag, Origins, and Valhalla. Before that, he was an associate producer on Assassinâs Creed 2 and later an executive producer of the brand. Ubisoft says that in this role he will âoptimize processes and remove friction across complex production workflowsâ for the franchise. Sounds like François de Billy is here to help the series avoid delays.
Finally, Jean Guesdon has been named the head of content for Assassinâs Creed. Heâll lead the franchiseâs âoverall creative directionâ while supporting âindividual gamesâ and guiding the âfuture of Assassinâs Creed.â Previously, Guesdon was the creative director on Assassinâs Creed Black Flag and Origins. Interestingly, this is essentially the same role he had at Ubisoft for many years while working on numerous titles.
He previously left Ubisoft for Behaviour Interactive back in 2023. At the time, Kotaku reported he had been leading development on a new, Minecraft-like voxel-based game called âRenaissanceâ that had yet to be announced. It was described by sources back then as being one of the more promising IPs incubating within Ubisoft at the time, with the possibility of appealing to existing fans of franchises like The Sims and Animal Crossing. But it later became a casualty of Ubisoftâs ongoing development struggles, especially around creating new IP.
Ubisoft has multiple Assassinâs Creed games in development
Schelling, de Billy, and Guesdon are now set to fill a void created by recent departures, including Marc-Alexis CĂŽtĂ©âs break with the company in 2025 after leading Assassinâs Creed for nearly 20 years. He is suing the publisher for a forced dismissal, but Ubisoft claims he was offered a leadership role at Vantage Studios and declined it.
It is very clear that Ubisoft leadership wants to ensure that arguably its biggest, most important franchise continues to be popular and grow. In recent years, the series has struggled to tell a larger meta-narrative and ship on time. There have also been plans to intertwine future installments as part of a larger initiative, but those plans have so far seemed half-baked. 2025âs Assassinâs Creed Shadows was a big hit for Ubisoft, helping keep the company afloat as it limped towards a massive buyout with Tencent.
The ramifications of that deal have been lots of layoffs and cancelled projects. It has also created new co-owned subsidiaries, like Vantage Studios, that are now in charge of Ubisoftâs big franchises like Rainbow Six and Assassinâs Creed. In a recent interview with Variety, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot said there are multiple Assassinâs Creed games, including both multiplayer and single-player titles, currently in development. One of those is the previously reported Black Flag remake.
