14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft Toronto's Jade Raymond has shared a bit of insight into a new strategy that's picking up steam inside the large French publisher, that of using an independent approach when creating smaller games besides big ones like Assassin's Creed, for example.
Ubisoft is working on plenty of announced and unannounced projects right now but, besides blockbuster ones like The Division, it's also preparing smaller titles like Valiant Hearts or Child of Light.
This new trend is also followed by Ubisoft Toronto, which has five projects in development right now. Two are bigger multi-studio collaborative efforts, while three are smaller scale ones.
According to Managing Director Jade Raymond, this new strategy is paying off, as the team can explore new possibilities and ideas when working on smaller games.
"They are smaller [projects]. One will be smaller always. One of them is only a 20-person team. So don't expect that out of Ubisoft Toronto and the five projects that you'll see five new Assassin's Creeds," she told GamesIndustry.
"I think that's great because when you look at the industry these days the products like Assassin's Creed are still doing well, we can have them every year and innovate and they'll grow, but there are also other interesting opportunities to explore and they can be done with smaller teams and you can keep some people really motivated because they want to have the experience of doing both things."
The whole Toronto staff and the developer community in the city benefit from Ubisoft's new approach, as there’s no longer a division between the large publisher-owned teams and the small independent groups.
"I think it's a win-win if you can figure out a way to have the more indie-style development work within a bigger structure. I think that's an advantage we have in Toronto too, because there's a really great indie scene so it would be dumb of us not [to leverage that]."
Raymond then went on to highlight how smaller independent developers, such as Capybara, often come and visit the studio in order to check out their work and share feedback from a better position.
"Lesley [Phord-Toy] is one of the producers at [Ubisoft] Toronto and is also the president of the IGDA in Toronto and really involved in the game development scene. Nathan [Vella] from Capybara comes and hangs out, and there's so much interesting stuff going on and we want to leverage that and take the best of what's going on in the industry in general."
As of yet, however, it's unclear just what projects are underway at Ubisoft Toronto and when they might see the light of day.