Serge Hascoe, the former chief creative officer of Ubisoft who recently resigned amid multiple allegations of abuse, exercised tremendous influence over Ubisoft games, using it to minimize female protagonists and, according to a new Bloomberg report, disliking He reportedly crushed games in the genre.

Earlier this year, Dragon Age designer Mike Laidlaw, who had worked on Ubisoft's mystery game since 2018, left the company. The game was never announced, but according to Bloomberg's sources familiar with the project, it was a King Arthur RPG codenamed "Avalon," which was canceled in 2019; the game was "a game about the world of the Arthurian king," and "a game about the world of the Arthurian king.

The team, with Laidlaw as game director, envisioned a sword-and-sorcery style fantasy epic, but soon faced major obstacles. The creative boss was said to have had difficulty with the genre and set a very high bar for the team, demanding that it be "better than Tolkien."

Haskoe had rejected several fantasy projects before "Avalon" and apparently continued to reject the "Avalon" team's ideas after development began. According to development officials, although things were going well, Haskoe was not satisfied.

In 2019, to appease him, some fairly significant changes were made, including a science fiction setting and another based on Greek mythology. All of these changes were rejected, but Ubisoft announced another RPG inspired by Greek mythology, Gods & Monsters, around the same time. Originally scheduled for release in February 2020, the game was postponed indefinitely.

By fall 2019, Avalon was finished and Laidlaw left a few months later; Hascoët was accused of stifling creativity and allegedly told the marketing team that women would not sell. This led to creative changes in various games, such as Bayek becoming the main character in Assassin's Creed Origins instead of his wife Aya, who was originally supposed to be the top baiter.

Last month, abusers across the industry were accused, many of them against Ubisoft employees and executives: Hascoët, Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat, human resources director Cécile Cornet, and vice president Maxime Béland all resigned, and creative director Ashraf Ismail resigned his position and took a leave of absence.

Rather than take responsibility for the long-term problems and abuses at his company, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot attempted to evade responsibility by saying that other employees had "betrayed his trust." Guillemot has also promised a structural shift to address workplace toxicity, but the last time Ubisoft reformed, it promoted two people who were subsequently accused of harassment, Beland and vice president of editing Tommy Francois.

Guillemot is now chief creative officer, but this is apparently temporary. It remains to be seen what form the structural changes will take and whether they will be able to undo what appears to be a deep-seated problem.