Ex-Assassin’s Creed lead sues Ubisoft for around $1 Million, alleging his exit was a disguised dismissal

Former Assassin’s Creed series lead Marc-Alexis Côté is suing Ubisoft for damages, alleging that his abrupt October departure from the company after 20 years wasn’t a matter of personal choice, but a case of “constructive dismissal”. That, in non-legalese, means that the developer believes he was left with no choice but to resign, having been offered new roles he viewed as demotions amid a round of corporate musical chairs.

As reported by CBC Radio-Canada, Côté’s lawsuit against Ubisoft has been filed in Quebec and seeks $1.3 million Canadian dollars – around $935,000 in US currency – in damages on his behalf. That cash is designed to cover two years worth of the developer’s salary, plus moral damages and an additional lifting of a non-compete clause which currently limits his games industry job options.

According to the lawsuit, Côté learned in a summer 2025 meeting that as part the Ubisoft rearrangement which came with the company setting up a new Tencent-backed subsidiary called Vantage Studios to oversee the running of Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry, they’d be installing a “head of franchise” based in France. According to Canada-based Côté, that gig absorbed lots of his duties as Assassin’s Creed series head, and he was subsequently offered roles as Assassin’s Creed production head reporting to that new head of franchise or as the leader of a “creative house” overseeing another Ubisoft game series.

Seeing that as a demotion, Côté’s lawsuit asserts that he took two weeks to think about things, then declined and asked for his severance pay. Ubisoft are cited by the suit as having responded by telling him not to show back up to work, then announcing his departure in a fashion which painted it as being your standard voluntary parting of ways.

I’ve reached out to Ubisoft for comment.

When RPS reached out to the publishers for comment following Côté’s initial comments about his departure back in October, we received the following response:

Following the organizational restructuring announced in March 2025, Marc-Alexis Côté has chosen to pursue a new path elsewhere outside of Ubisoft. While we are saddened to see him go, we’re confident that our talented teams will carry forward the strong foundation he helped build. We are deeply grateful for the impact Marc-Alexis has had over the years, particularly in shaping the Assassin’s Creed brand into what it is today. His leadership, creativity, and dedication have left a lasting mark on our teams and our players. We thank him sincerely for his many contributions and wish him continued success in all his future endeavors.”

We’ll see how these legal wranglings shake out.