Jade Raymond Leaving Ubisoft

One of gaming's most visible women in development is leaving the company she's spent the last decade with. Jade Raymond, a producer on everything from Assassin's Creed to Watch Dogs, is moving on from Ubisoft.

Alexandre Parizeau is taking over Raymond's role as the head of Ubisoft Toronto starting October 29.

“This is one of the hardest decisions of my career, but the Toronto studio is strong and on a solid path," said Raymond in a press release. "I’m confident that now is a good time for me to transition leadership of the studio to Alex and to pursue my other ambitions and new opportunities."

Raymond hasn't given any indication on what's next, but indicated on Twitter that she's staying in games.

It feels like a lifetime passed since I last heard/read her name. Last gen was long!

Best of luck to her in the future, though.

I could have sworn she had already left Ubi. Maybe I am thinking of her departing the Assassin's Creed franchise? Looking forward to whatever she's working on next (build another Great Canadian Game Studio! The march of Canuck domination continues!!!)

I applaud talented people who leave strong and steady studios. It gives them an opportunity to build up an even more awesome studio in the future. It takes a lot of courage and strength to do that. Use the skills to spread the knowledge.

@hobozero: Maybe you're confusing her with Patrice Désilets who had some trouble leaving Ubi only to have the studio he ended up at bought out by them.

she doesn't want to stay with Ubisoft and make Assassin's Creed games for the rest of her life? Weird.

To work on Shadow of Mordor 2. Dynamite.

Having gotten Ubisoft fully invested into her agenda, she now looks to implement parkour into other major game publishers' entire library as well.

In all seriousness, good luck to her and wish her the best.

@divergence: Well she was at Ubisoft Toronto which was the main studio for Splinter Cell Blacklist but with the way Ubisoft "outsources?" (insources?) who knows what Ubisoft Toronto did on anything.

My bet is that she starts her own indie development studio, Ryan Peyton-style.

I wish her the best of luck in any and all future endeavours. Always seemed like a chill person and an ambitious developer.

@oraknabo: That's exactly what I was thinking of! Thanks!

I think big names leaving big studios to do their own smaller thing is probably good for everyone.

Ideally, this will allow Jade to have some real freedom to take risks without hundreds of jobs being on the line, as well as allowing new blood at Ubi to flourish.

Huh?

Keeping an eye on her next project should be pretty interesting. I'm curious what direction that'll go in generally. Though the last time I actually watched interviews and promos with her was when she did PR for the first Assassin's Creed so it's been a while.

Well said!
I'm very interested in finding out what she is doing next. I wish her the best of luck!

She completely disappeared from public eye since the first Assassin's Creed it feels like. Hopefully she makes something cool post-Ubisoft.

Thanks for reminding me she existed. The hype train for AC1 was a fun time. I really like that game.

Curious to see what she does next.

@mb said:

I think he's making a reference to the certain similarities Shadow of Mordor shares with Assassin's Creed.

I heard when she left she jumped 8 stories off the roof at Ubisoft Toronto. She was fine obviously, there was a pile of hay next to the building.

I hope she goes to Bioware and makes Jade Empire 2.

Also whatever happened to Will Wright?

I hope we see something cool from her in the future. Best of luck, Jade!

@tpoppapuff: That made me laugh way more than it should have

As far as I know he left games to pursue robotics and other pet projects. According to wikipedia he's also on the board for Linden Labs who do Second Life, that seems like a decent fit to me. I'd love some kind of ultimate sim game from him, maybe what Spore was supposed to be but never quite materialized.

Those are the best laughs.

Is she running and jumping to a new career?

Hopefully she lands somewhere where she can spread her wings.

Ubisoftquitous smiley faces.

Surprised I'd never heard of Ubisoft Toronto... Wow, I could walk there from my apartment, how have I never heard of it? I thought their only Canadian office was Montreal for some reason.

Just went to read her bio on the site. As i scrolled down I looked over at the "top user lists" And em.... hmm

Was she really that visible after Assassin's Creed shipped though? She was all over the place to promote that game. But after AC was out, I never saw much of her again. I definitely got the feeling that she didn't want to be a front person like Michel Ancel and continued to work on Ubisoft behind closed doors.

Well if she's leaving to join something much smaller and more creative, I'm all for it. Best of luck.

Assassin's Creed died when Patrice left.

I actually thought she left Ubisoft years ago. I guess she just backed out of the spotlight after Assassin's Creed shipped.

A good leader for a great franchise. Love them all. Look forward to what she does next.

@joetom: Splinter Cell Blacklist was their first game

"Jade Raymond" always sounds like the most cliché character name I've ever seen. Good thing she's a rad real person and not a video game character. ;)

Now that she's free from Ubi, maybe Ken Levine needs a producer for his next game project?...

Glad that the mess around the first Assassin's Creed didn't kill her career. Best of luck to her.

Talion with Dynamite skills. DY-NA-MITE.

I haven't heard that name in forever. Interested to see what she has in store for us next. A creative break must be needed pretty badly by this point.

Good luck Jade, I hope you the most success in the future. This industry needs some more female presence at the top of the chain.

She was never a developer, she never "made" a video game. Just to get the facts right, she's a business women, not a developer.

Being involved in development makes you a developer by definition.

For example, Gary Whitta is technically a game developer for his work on Walking Dead. I'm not sure if John Drake would be though. PR is kind of on the outside of that again. I'd try do some other examples, but I am awful with names and pretty much just know the people passing through Giant Bomb. Tim Schafer is a dev. The business guy in the Double Fine documentaries is a dev, cause he throws money and people at stuff to make it develop.

Probably not a PC thing to say nowadays ... but damn, she is really attractive. Best of luck to her.

@mb: just making a joke about what someone with her background could work on. Also implying Shadow of Mordor is da bomb.

Good for her. I hope she has a long and reward career. While my interest in AC has fallen waaaaay off, it was an amazing franchise.

That's because there was a bit of a negative response to her being at the forefront of the AC1 PR campaign. Let me put on my tin foil hat for a minute here:

Like murdoc_ says, Jade Raymond wasn't the creative visionary behind Assassin's Creed; Patrice Desilets was. But, Jade's really pretty, right? So Ubisoft parades her around as the "face" of Assassin's Creed because that's a good idea. To Jade's credit, she was always super humble and quick to point out and reiterate that the game is from Patrice's head, not hers, and she always talked about how awesome her entire team was. She never claimed to be on the creative side of the game's development and clearly stated that she was just the producer (not to belittle her contributions). But it all felt super sleazy on Ubisoft's part and people responded poorly towards it. I like to think that Ubisoft realized that they had been caught and decided to let the actual creative director of the franchise run the PR circle for the follow up games, like they should have done in the first place.

Anyway! I hope that Jade Raymond goes off and does something cool again.

Sure, technically. But my statement still stands she hasn't "made" a video game. Using Gary Whitta as an example of technically a game developer is silly, of course he is, they're games rely heavily on narrative and dialog, so any writer is completely a developer.

While I may be a minority here, but as someone who has spent a decade working in "AAA" development, I consider a game developer as a content producer.

So yes, it's a lose term and open for interpretation, but I think my personal definition listed above holds up.

Also a disclaimer: This does not in any way diminish her actual role and achievements, I just don't consider her a developer.

You're allowed to find people attractive duder... don't believe the PC insanity

I still stand behind Assassins Creed 1 being a good game and most true to what I think they were aiming at before the series went off the rails with Enzo.