Yet another Ubisoft developer has decided to leave, this time being David Polfeldt. The former Massive Entertainment studio head and managing director had taken a long six-month sabbatical before deciding to call it quits. Considering his 17-year tenure at the Sweden-based company, Polfeldt leaves behind a legacy spanning 17 years which includes the development of Tom Clancy’s The Division, Far Cry 3, and Assassin’s Creed Revelations.
The departure of Massive Entertainment studio head is only one of many
Alongside Ubisoft’s main Montreal studio, Massive Entertainment has also swelled in its operations, employing approximately 750 people and now also in charge of both a Star Wars title and an Avatar title. But the sheer immensity of the studio was part of the reason Polfeldt decided to hand in his resignation, according to an interview on Hit Points:
“I think my philosophy and my skills work well for a certain kind of group of a certain kind of size. I don’t think I’m the right manager for what the studio has become. I’m perfectly at peace with it.”
His departure is merely one of numerous resignations from Ubisoft that the publisher has faced in the past six months, an event which has collectively been dubbed a “great exodus.” Frustrations over low pay, creative direction, the inclusion of NFTs, and mishandling over workplace misconduct were all cited as reasons why over 60 workers have chosen to leave Ubisoft. Many of the developers who are no longer there worked on Far Cry 6 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
A Better Ubisoft, a group of more than one thousand current and former Ubisoft employees, posted a Tweet on February 14 that the demands they made of the company on August 11, 2021 had sadly not been met. The demands include not promoting offenders and moving them from studio to studio. In an open letter, they say that are “tired of having to repeatedly explain these seemingly obvious points to a management team who are either accidentally ignorant or simply don’t want to listen.”
In other news, Roblox has pretty much been confirmed for PS4 and PS5, and the Dead Space remake is now planned for a release in early 2023.
