Developers of RPG Child of Light are now a core team at Ubisoft Montreal, and the company is open to creating more games like these.
Child of Light depicted a little princess named Aurora who finds herself in a strange land and enlists the help of an eccentric group of strangers to find a way home. It was a cute and simple roleplaying game that started as a pitch from a developer who had worked on franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry but wanted to try something new. Ubisoft loved the end results of this project, and is now open to more games like Child of Light.
Ubisoft Montreal’s VP of Creative Lionel Raynaud expressed the company’s satisfaction with Child of Light, “The team did a good job and the game had a great reception. We were proud to deliver something new and unique–a lot of people were surprised that Montreal was delivering this kind of game.” Raynaud further explains that thanks to the reception of the game and how well the developers worked together “the people who made this game now want to work together again, whether it’s on a small game or not.”
Ubisoft’s internal entrepreneurial initiative program is an avenue for employees to bring their ideas to the table and pitch it to Raynaud, which he’s very excited about continuing. “We will encourage other initiatives like Child of Light and there’s a chance that we will have many more games like that in the future. I already have many different projects that are in the pitch stage–I even had one in my office this morning, which was super exciting.” The initial idea behind the entrepreneurial initiative is how Ubisoft was pitched Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Valiant Hearts.
For Raynaud, this type of open space to express your creativity is important, “This dynamic has incredible value in the industry and it’s what we want to do: we want to create core teams that want to make great games.” Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal, feels the same way. “For me it’s important for projects like Child of Light and Far Cry: Blood Dragon to exist and to know that there is a place for them here.”
Furthermore, “It’s also important for those projects not to be suffocated at the beginning with high-level objectives. It’s a question of growing talent inside the company and giving them a chance. It allows us to try new things without breaking the balance financially.”
Source: CVG
