Désilets "fighting" Ubisoft for control of 1666: Amsterdam
"I hope to get it back and finish it for you."
Ex-Ubisoft director Patrice Désilets is "fighting" his former employer to regain control of his mysterious open-world project 1666: Amsterdam.
Ownership of the IP is thought to currently remain with Ubisoft despite it being Désilets' creation, and despite Désilets being unceremoniously fired from Ubisoft last month. Ubisoft's statement on the matter talked of "good faith discussions" ending "unsuccesfully". Désilets' account described him being frogmarched from the building by security.
"I'm fighting for it, and that's all I can say for now," Désilets explained today at Spanish conference Gamelab, attended by Eurogamer sister site GamesIndustry International.
"I'm sorry guys, it was amazing. And it still is amazing, and I hope to get it back and finish it for you - and for me."
Désilets rose to fame when he helped create Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise, working as creative director on that series' first two titles.
He recently found himself back at the company when it bought his Montreal-based studio from defunct publisher THQ. It was there that Désilets had been working on 1666, a pet project which had yet to be publically revealed.
Désilets today described the game as being the product of "all those years of experience put together".
1666: Amsterdam is now officially "suspended", a state of affairs which allows Ubisoft to keep the project (and its IP) on the back burner without it being officially cancelled. Désilets' contract apparently notes that if it was, he would get the IP back.
"The medium is really in its infancy," Désilets concluded, speaking today about the evolution of videogames in general. "It's so much easier in terms of production and coding to just blow stuff up than to create an interaction about human beings. It's so much more subtle than killing. Eventually we'll get there, and it's really a shame that I cannot finish 1666, because it was about all of that."