- Two more executives have left
Ubisoft following aninvestigation intosexual misconduct at the company, Ubisoft announced Sunday. - Chief creative officer Serge Hascoët and the managing director of Ubisoft's Canadian branch Yannis Mallat have resigned, effective immediately.
- The company's global head of HR Cécile Cornet is also stepping down from her position, but remains at the company.
French games company Ubisoft on Saturday announced two more of its executives are leaving the company of sexual misconduct allegations and another is stepping down from her role, right after the company geared up for a big virtual event showing off its upcoming games.
The company announced on Sunday its chief creative officer and second-most senior executive Serge Hascoët had resigned effective immediately, along with the managing director of its Canadian branch Yannis Mallat.
Hascoët's role will be temporarily filled by CEO Yves Guillemot.
"During this time, Mr. Guillemot will personally oversee a complete overhaul of the way in which the creative teams collaborate," the company said in its statement.
With regards to Mallat, the company said: "The recent allegations that have come to light in Canada against multiple employees make it impossible for [Mallat] to continue in this position."
Ubisoft's global head of HR Cécile Cornet is also stepping down from her role, but remaining inside the company per a statement given to GameSpot.
Reports of sexual assault and misconduct at Ubisoft started to surface in late June, after community manager Andrien Gbinigie was publicly accused of rape. Gbinigie denied the allegation in a Medium post, which has since been taken down.
On June 26 Bloomberg reported the company had placed two executives plus an unspecified number of other employees on administrative leave as part of an investigation into the allegations. On June 27, CEO Yves Guillemot wrote a letter to Ubisoft employees promising to "personally follow" each reported case of misconduct at the company.
"Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees," Guillemot said in a statement.
The news came the same day the company hosted its big virtual event Ubisoft Forward, where it hyped up its upcoming next installment in the "Assassin's Creed" franchise "Assassin's Creed: Valhalla," and announced another installment in its popular "Far Cry" series "Far Cry 6."
The company did not address the allegations, however, saying the event had been pre-recorded.
"Ubisoft Forward comes during a time of big internal change. Because all of the content has been pre-recorded, we wanted to recognise that the issues we're currently dealing with won't be addressed directly in the show. We still have significant work to do and are committed to this process. We will provide more updates soon," Ubisoft said in a statement.