Not one, but two high-profile Assassin’s Creed developers are gone from Ubisoft.
It was confirmed earlier this week that Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Désilets had departed from the company, but official comments from Désilets imply that he was forcefully removed.
Assassin’s Creed producer and former THQ Montreal colleague Jean-François Boivin is also out from Ubisoft, Désilets confirmed via Twitter:
Thinking of my good friend and producer @jfboivin who also got fired yesterday. I’m sharing your support with him…
— Patrice Desilets (@PatriceDez) May 8, 2013
Boivin’s initial run with Ubisoft began in 2005, and eventually took over as production manager and associate producer on Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Boivin moved on to THQ Montreal in 2010.
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is, in many ways, identical to the original Wii version. However, one small element that the 3DS release lacks is idle animations.
Some of you may remember that Donkey Kong pulled out a DS if you left him alone for a small period of time. You won’t be seeing that in the 3DS game, unfortunately. It’s not a big omission, but you have to wonder why it was removed.
15 EA games are going to skip Wii U due to its lack of support for Frostbite 3
Madden is out the door, FIFA is up in the air, and now we’re hearing that a total of 15 games are set to skip out on Wii U due to the console’s poor testing when put up against EA’s ‘Frostbite 2’ and (consequently) ‘Frostbite 3’ engines. We don’t know for sure which games will be skipping the console, but it’s a safe bet that Battlefield, Mass Effect, and some of the studio’s Star Wars titles won’t be hitting Nintendo’s home console when they come to PS4 and the next generation Xbox.
So when it comes down to it, much like with Wii, Wii U owners may just have to give up on multiplatform support. We’ll certainly have good third party games (it’ll be much cheaper to developer for Wii U than PS4, after all) and great indie titles, but when it comes to these big-budget action games, we seem to be missing out on pretty much everything! Which may not be much of a loss given that most of us bought a Wii U for Nintendo first party titles and other games like that anyway.
“I think Peter Molyneux takes a lot of risks. He’s got this vicarious thing about dealing with little worlds full of little people which very much matches my sensibilities in a way.”
“I’ve always enjoyed [Sid Meier’s] games. His games are just playable, they’re just like a comfortable chair you sit in. I grew up playing board games, and Sid did as well. Sid in some ways is recapitulating our youth, the kind of games we would play back then.”
– Will Wright
Despite some player apprehension regarding the choice of Peter Molyneux, I think Wright has made three very good choices on an idealogical level. These three developers don’t always deliver on their promises and don’t always live up to what Wright has said about them, but when they do they truly make some fantastic games. They’re the type of people that the gaming industry should be all about!
Update: Regarding Europe:
News of Mudds Deluxe submission to Europe to come soon. Sorry for the delay.
— Jools Watsham (@JoolsWatsham) May 9, 2013
Mutant Mudds Deluxe is now in Nintendo’s hands. Renegade Kid co-founder Jools Watsham confirmed via Twitter that the Wii U eShop game has been submitted to Nintendo of America.
Watsham said:
Mutant Mudds Deluxe has been submitted to NOA! We always try to make it as bug-free as possible, but it could come back. Fingers crossed. 🙂
— Jools Watsham (@JoolsWatsham) May 9, 2013
When might we be seeing Mutant Mudds Deluxe? If all goes well, it looks like it’ll pop up on the eShop in June.
A June release is looking good! 🙂
— Jools Watsham (@JoolsWatsham) May 9, 2013
Interesting… is this kind of like Nintendo’s replacement for Nintendo Show 3D?