Game industry veteran Jade Raymond has announced plans to depart Ubisoft after ten years with the company, giving no hint as to what she intends to do next. Raymond is stepping down from her role as managing director of Ubisoft Toronto. Alexandre Parizeau, a founding member of the studio who most recently served as senior producer on Splinter Cell: Blacklist, will be stepping in to take the reins on October 29th. “I’m confident that now is a good time for me to transition leadership of the studio to Alex and to pursue my other ambitions and new opportunities,” wrote Raymond in a statement published to the company blog this morning. Raymond’s career at Ubisoft spanned a wide variety of roles and titles, from her initial work at Ubisoft Montreal as a producer on the original Assassin’s Creed to her work helping to launch and oversee development operations at Ubisoft Toronto. While there she served as an executive producer on a number of big-budget titles, including Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Watch Dogs. Last year she told Gamasutra that AAA production houses could rein in ballooning production budgets by replicating the user-generated content and emergent multiplayer dynamics of games like Team Fortress 2 and Dark Souls. “That’s what’s going to drive hits,” said Raymond. “But also at the extreme end, it’s going to enable us to continue to create interesting content without always having such huge costs associated with it.”
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2014