It looks like the former Electronic Arts and BioWare dev, Mike Laidlaw, has landed a new job after leaving BioWare in late 2017. This new job happens to be a smaller studio than Ubisoft Montreal, but still Ubisoft nonetheless. Yes, Laidlaw has landed a job at Ubisoft Quebec. Laidlaw will be helping Ubisoft on something “exciting enough” to make him “move halfway across the continent.”
Although personally, I’m not holding my breath for whatever this soon to be “woke” project will pan out to be, but it seems that the once self-employed dev (from November 2017 to December 2018) has created buzz around his latest move to join Ubisoft. If, however, you don’t know who Laidlaw is or what his portfolio contains, you’ll find out right now.
Firstly, Laidlaw has led the design team and “owned the core franchise vision” for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. He also consulted and approved content for the mobile spin-off Heroes of Dragon Age and partnered with other companies to help create smaller Dragon Age related stuff.
As of late 2018, Laidlaw has entered the AAA space once again as noted on his Twitter account below:
https://twitter.com/Mike_Laidlaw/status/1070316905922203650
As for Ubisoft Quebec, the studio has titles such as Rainbow Six: Vegas, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, For Honor, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey under its belt.
As for Laidlaw’s upcoming project with Ubisoft Quebec, we can pick up bite-sized info thanks to a blog post over on linkedin.com:
“So here’s a cool new thing: I have joined Ubisoft’s Quebec City studio as the Creative Director for a not-yet-announced project!
The most exciting aspect of consulting was the opportunity to meet many incredibly talented folks across the industry and offer insight on some truly interesting projects. One of which, in fact, is the one I’m joining here at Ubisoft.
If you’ve played the excellent Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – which was principally developed here in Quebec City – you already have some taste of what that combination can produce.
Alas, I can’t discuss exactly what I’m doing, but I will say it’s exciting enough to make me move half way across the continent.”
I’m sure we’ll learn more about this project sometime in 2019. As of now, you can stay up to date regarding this project that’ll more than likely support censorship and NPC stuff by hitting up the above links.
