Ubisoft has reportedly let go of an Assassin’s Creed team lead after he publicly criticized the publisher’s return-to-office policy. The developer, David Michaud-Cromp, says he was terminated shortly after being placed on unpaid leave, while Ubisoft maintains that respectful feedback is not grounds for dismissal and points to its code of conduct. The situation unfolds alongside union pushback, planned strikes, and broader frustration over a full-time office requirement—turning a workplace policy into a flashpoint for trust, culture, and the future of how big studios build games.
What happened, in plain terms
- A senior developer associated with Assassin’s Creed said he’d been suspended and then fired after criticizing Ubisoft’s new return-to-office plan.
- Ubisoft states that employees won’t be dismissed for sharing respectful opinions, framing disciplinary action as a response to conduct issues, not criticism itself.
- French unions representing Ubisoft workers are organizing actions in opposition to the mandate, citing the pressure it places on staff who built their lives around hybrid or remote work.
Why this matters beyond one studio This isn’t just about one company or one policy. The entire industry has been navigating shifting ground since the pandemic, with remote pipelines proving they can ship large-scale games—and also exposing where communication, tooling, and culture aren’t robust enough. When a major publisher tightens in-office requirements, it sends a message across the industry: the pendulum may be swinging back. For many devs, that introduces tough choices about commutes, cost of living, caregiving responsibilities, and whether they can stay with the teams and projects they love.
At the same time, studios are under financial pressure: cancellations, restructures, and attrition have rattled many teams in the last couple of years. Leadership often views co-location as a way to speed decision-making and reduce the friction that creeps into distributed work. The rub is that forcing a shift without rebuilding trust can backfire—talent leaves, morale drops, and institutional knowledge scatters. It’s a delicate balance.
The RTO debate, broken down for game development
- Collaboration and creativity: Whiteboards, quick desk checks, and audio over a shared build are easier when everyone is nearby. Rapid iteration in level design, combat tuning, animation blocking, or live-ops triage can benefit from in-person energy.
- Documentation and tooling: Remote work pressure-tested pipelines. Teams that invested in clear specs, versioning, automated builds, and async reviews often saw fewer blockers—regardless of location. Where those fundamentals lag, remote is frustrating.
- Mentorship and onboarding: Juniors and new hires thrive on proximity. Ambient learning, overhearing a senior engineer’s debugging process, or a producer’s stakeholder call—these are harder to replicate online without intentional structure.
- Wellbeing and retention: Commutes can drain hours. Parents and caregivers, or devs with accessibility needs, can be disproportionately affected by rigid office policies. Flexibility is often a key retention lever for senior talent.
- Security and secrecy: AAA projects guard builds and content closely. Some teams view controlled office environments as crucial. Others have adapted secure remote setups successfully, but it requires investment.
Where trust fits in Return-to-office is ultimately a trust test. Employees ask: do leaders trust me to deliver wherever I am? Leaders ask: can I trust that communication, accountability, and craft quality will remain high without the office as glue? When communication spirals into public conflict, each side tends to dig in. That’s why this story resonates—because it’s as much about how decisions are made and discussed as it is about where people sit.
What unions and workers are pushing for Based on public statements and strike calls, organized groups want:
- A voice in policy changes that reshape daily life
- Meaningful hybrid options, not just a narrow set of exception days
- Clear, consistent criteria for any disciplinary actions tied to policy
- Transparency about project timelines and workloads so expectations align with reality
Even if you’re not unionized, these are useful talking points for team retros or 1:1s with leadership. The ask isn’t merely “let us work from home”—it’s “design policies around outcomes, not optics.”
Lessons for studios navigating RTO
- Anchor decisions in data: Look at delivery metrics, quality bars, and employee surveys. If projects shipped successfully with hybrid setups, isolate why. If they struggled, identify whether it was location or process.
- Invest in fundamentals: Clear goals, strong documentation habits, stable tooling, and tidy communication rituals lift performance in any work model.
- Codify mentorship: Pair programming hours, design guilds, demo days, and deliberate shadowing can recreate office learning in hybrid or remote contexts.
- Offer targeted flexibility: Critical co-location moments (vertical slice, alpha stabilization, live-ops crisis) can be in-office sprints, not a blanket five-day mandate.
- Communicate early and often: If policy changes are coming, share the why, the evidence, the timeline, and the appeal process. Surprise moves erode buy-in.
What this means for Assassin’s Creed fans If you’re watching from the player’s side, you’re probably wondering how this impacts release schedules and quality. The honest answer: it depends on how well teams handle the transition. Sudden policy shifts can cost a project key people at tough moments, but strong leadership can re-stabilize quickly if they address morale, clarify goals, and protect build pipelines from churn. The Assassin’s Creed franchise has a deep bench across multiple studios; continuity is possible, but it takes thoughtful coordination.
The human side of policy Behind every headline is a person who’s weighing a paycheck against their family, a commute, or health needs—and a manager trying to hit milestones with moving targets. When termination enters the picture, it raises the stakes for everyone else who might speak up. Even if a company’s official line separates respectful critique from code-of-conduct breaches, the perception among staff can be very different. Perception drives behavior, and behavior drives culture.
What to watch next
- Whether Ubisoft refines the RTO policy, clarifies exemptions, or maintains the current line
- The scale and duration of union actions and how they influence future negotiations
- Talent movement: departures, hiring bottlenecks, and how competing studios position their own flexibility
- Project milestones and whether any schedules shift in the next couple of quarters
If you work in games, here’s a quick checklist for your team
- Define done: Make “done” criteria explicit for each discipline and milestone.
- Keep specs living: A single source of truth for docs reduces Slack archaeology and meeting bloat.
- Automate boring stuff: CI/CD for builds, standardized profiling suites, and linting free your brain for creative problems.
- Timebox meetings: Default to async updates with clear owners; use live sessions for decisions and creative jams.
- Protect heads-down time: Whether at home or in a studio, focus blocks are sacred.
- Be kind and clear: Disagreement is healthy; hostility is not. The difference is often tone and specificity.
Final thoughts The Ubisoft story hits a nerve because it compresses years of industry tension into a single incident: creative ambition versus production reality, flexibility versus control, speech versus conduct, and above all, trust. However this particular case resolves, the bigger lesson for game makers is evergreen—strong teams are built on clarity, respect, and processes that scale across locations. If studios lead with those fundamentals, the where becomes less combustible, and the work—and the games—can speak for themselves.
