Marc-Alexis Côté, the former boss of the Assassin’s Creed franchise is currently taking Ubisoft to court for CAD $1.3 million in lost severance pay and damages after his surprising exit from the company which happened in last year. The lawsuit was first confirmed by Radio Canada which states that Côté has filed against Ubisoft due to the way his departure was resulted from the Assassin’s Creed series which was, as per the words of the lawsuit, an “unacceptable demotion” in the form of a “disguised dismissal.”
Several months ago Ubisoft had announced Côté’s departure from the studio, a claim that the veteran developer himself denied later in a Linkedin post, stating: “Many of you have expressed surprise that I would choose to leave Assassin’s Creed after so many years, especially given the passion I still hold for it. The truth is simple: I did not make that choice.”
“But I also owe it to my teams, past and present, to say this plainly: I did not walk away. I stayed at my post until Ubisoft asked me to step aside.”
Côté had been involved in the making of Assassin’s Creed for more than 20 years before he was promoted as the official boss for the open world stealth action adventure franchise in 2022. And after Ubisoft handed development duties of Assassin’s Creed to the newly formed Vantage Studios, Côté was offered a role in the leadership position which he declined.
But according to the lawsuit, it seems Côté was actually replaced by Vantage Studios’ current leadership, Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot — the cousin and son of Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. The lawsuit also claims that Côté had came to know in 2025 that Vantage was also on the lookout for a new boss for the Assassin’s Creed series which he later enquired about but was told by the company that he was not suitable for the role for a number of reasons.
Huge companies have demonstrated in the past that they can be way too quick to dismiss developers who were instrumental to their games for a lot of years which makes the current lawsuit relevant in more ways than one.
