I have followed Assassin’s Creed since the days of jumping off Florentine rooftops in Assassin’s Creed II, and I will admit something plainly: Codename Hexe is the first entry in years that made me genuinely curious rather than tired. A witch trial setting, a foggy forest teaser, almost no marketing noise. That kind of restraint from Ubisoft is rare. So when reports started piling up about a director exit, then a second director exit, then fifty developers being pulled off the project, I went digging through every statement Ubisoft has actually made, rather than just the headlines. Here is the full picture, sourced and separated from speculation.
What Assassin’s Creed Hexe Was Announced As
Ubisoft revealed Codename Hexe in September 2022 with a short, moody teaser. No gameplay, no character reveal, just an Assassin symbol built from tree branches sitting in a fog covered forest. At the time, then Assassin’s Creed franchise boss Marc-Alexis Côté described the project as being further out than other announced games in the pipeline, which at that point included the eventual Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Since that reveal, Ubisoft has released almost nothing. No trailer, no protagonist name, no confirmed setting beyond fan interpretation of the German word “Hexe,” which translates to witch. That silence is unusual for a mainline entry in one of Ubisoft’s biggest franchises, and it is a big reason every scrap of internal news about the game gets amplified the moment it leaks.
The Setting Fans Believe Hexe Is Built Around
Multiple reports point to Hexe taking place during the European witch trials, likely tied to the later years of the Holy Roman Empire. That period gives Ubisoft a genuinely fresh backdrop compared to the pirate era of Black Flag, ancient Egypt in Origins, or feudal Japan in Shadows. Witch trial history is dense with fear, mob violence, superstition, and persecution, which naturally lends itself to a horror leaning Assassin’s Creed game rather than another sprawling open world checklist simulator.
According to a report from Kotaku, Hexe is said to take place in the latter stages of the Holy Roman Empire and was described internally as leaning toward a survival horror tone rather than the traditional open world Assassin’s Creed formula. That alone explains why longtime fans have held onto this project with more hope than most recent announcements.
Clint Hocking Leaves the Project He Built
The first real shake up came when creative director Clint Hocking departed Ubisoft. Hocking is not a random hire. He worked on the original Splinter Cell, was creative director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2, left Ubisoft in 2010 for a stretch at LucasArts, Valve, and Amazon, then returned in 2015 and eventually became creative director on Watch Dogs: Legion before moving to Hexe.
Ubisoft confirmed his exit directly. In a statement given to PC Gamer, a Ubisoft spokesperson said, “Clint Hocking, creative director on Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe, will be departing Ubisoft. We sincerely thank him for his vision, creative contributions, and dedication over the years, and we wish him the very best in his next chapter. Development on Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe continues with a seasoned team.”
Hocking himself had posted back in 2022, quoted by Kotaku, that he was “working in the darkness” as creative director on Hexe with a team in Montreal. His exit closed a chapter that fans had followed since the earliest teaser, and it happened without Ubisoft giving a clear reason why.
Jean Guesdon Steps In, Then Ubisoft Loses a Second Director
Jean Guesdon took over as creative director immediately after Hocking’s departure. Guesdon is well known among longtime players for directing Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Origins, two of the more fondly remembered games in the series. He was also named Head of Content for the entire Assassin’s Creed brand, giving him authority beyond a single project.
What many casual followers of the story missed is that Hexe actually lost a second key figure not long after. Game director Benoit Richer also left the project, reportedly to co-found an indie studio, according to TweakTown. That means Hexe lost two directors within roughly two months of each other, not just one. That detail rarely makes it into casual coverage of the story, but it matters because it shows the leadership turnover was broader than a single high profile exit.
Fifty Developers Were Moved Off the Project
The most talked about development came from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, citing leaker @xj0nathan, who reported that roughly 50 developers were removed from Hexe and reassigned to Ubisoft’s Interproject team, an internal holding group for staff who are between active project assignments. This was first detailed by Insider Gaming.
It is worth being precise here because a lot of coverage blurred this into a layoff story. These 50 people were not confirmed to be laid off. They were moved internally, which is a normal, if disruptive, part of how large studios reallocate staff across multiple simultaneous productions. Ubisoft currently has several Assassin’s Creed projects running at once, including Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, a multiplayer project codenamed Invictus, and reported plans for another remake, so shifting staff between them is plausible without it meaning the game is in crisis.
Still, according to TweakTown, the report characterized the move as a cost cutting measure, and Ubisoft responded to that specific claim in a statement given to Rock Paper Shotgun. Ubisoft has not denied that developers were moved, only pushed back on the framing of why.
Reported Creative Changes: The Cat Companion and the Magic System
This is the part of the story that gets the least attention but tells you the most. According to AllKeyShop, citing reporting from April 2026, new creative lead Jean Guesdon decided to remove a rumored companion animal feature, sometimes described as a cat companion, along with elements of the original magic system. The reported pivot is toward a grounded, chemistry based gameplay approach rooted more firmly in historical fiction rather than overt supernatural power fantasy.
If accurate, this is a meaningful creative shift, not just a staffing story. Hocking’s version of the game reportedly leaned into supernatural abilities and fear mechanics. A pivot toward a more grounded, chemistry based system under Guesdon suggests the new leadership wants Hexe to feel more historically credible and less like a fantasy game wearing an Assassin’s Creed skin. Whether that is a smart move depends entirely on execution, and neither direction has been confirmed by Ubisoft itself.
The Release Window Keeps Sliding
Ubisoft has never announced an official release date for Hexe, so technically nothing has been delayed in an official sense. But the reported internal targets tell a story of their own. Early expectations placed the game around 2026. That shifted to an internal target of June 2027, according to GamerMarkt, with sources suggesting the team cuts and creative direction changes make a slip to the 2027 holiday season likely.
More recently, respected insider NateTheHate went further. In a report covered by Insider Gaming, the insider stated plainly that the game “won’t launch until second half of 2027, at earliest,” adding that Ubisoft does not need to rush a reveal or announcement. That lines up with the broader pattern here. Every fresh leak pushes the expected window later, not earlier.
Eric Baptizat Returns to Lead the Whole Brand
While Hexe was going through its own upheaval, Ubisoft reorganized leadership across the entire Assassin’s Creed franchise. Eric Baptizat, who spent 16 years at Ubisoft working as lead game designer on Black Flag, senior game designer on Unity, project lead on Origins, and game director on Valhalla, left the company in 2021 to direct the critically praised Dead Space remake and later work on Battlefield 6 at EA Motive. He has now returned to Ubisoft as Game Director for the entire Assassin’s Creed brand, announced by Jean Guesdon on LinkedIn and reported by VGC.
It is important to understand what Baptizat’s title actually means. He is not the director of Hexe specifically. His role sits above individual game teams, overseeing creative standards and consistency across every Assassin’s Creed project in development at once. According to a detailed breakdown from Tech Times, this appointment fits into Ubisoft’s new Creative Houses structure under Vantage Studios, the Tencent backed subsidiary that now runs Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. Under that structure, Martin Schelling handles overall brand strategy, Jean Guesdon leads content direction, François de Billy oversees production, and Baptizat now sits at the execution layer, setting creative standards that individual game directors like Guesdon on Hexe would work within.
This matters for a very practical reason. It means decisions about Hexe are no longer made in isolation by one project team. They now sit inside a larger governance structure built specifically to prevent the kind of drifting, unfocused development that reportedly hurt Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which according to GamerMarkt sold an estimated 4 to 5 million copies against a development and marketing budget reported around 350 million dollars, numbers that reportedly did not satisfy internal expectations.
Why the Previous Franchise Leadership Was Replaced
None of this happened in a vacuum. Marc-Alexis Côté, the executive who originally announced Hexe back in 2022 and who had pushed the franchise toward more fantastical, live service styled experiences, left Ubisoft in October, according to VGC. He later stated he intended to sue his former employer, claiming he did not resign and was instead asked to step aside. Ubisoft has not offered a detailed public rebuttal to that claim as of this writing.
In his place, Ubisoft installed a leadership trio built around the team behind Black Flag: Martin Schelling, Jean Guesdon, and François de Billy. That trio, now joined by Baptizat, represents a clear stylistic bet by Ubisoft. Rather than continuing down the more experimental, service driven path Côté favored, the new leadership appears to be steering Assassin’s Creed back toward the grounded, character focused, historically rooted storytelling that defined the games this same group made a decade ago. Hexe’s reported pivot away from magic and toward a grounded system fits that pattern exactly.
Is Hexe Actually in Trouble?
This is the question everyone actually wants answered, and the honest response is that it depends on your definition of trouble. There is no official statement from Ubisoft saying the game is cancelled, paused, or in crisis. Development is confirmed to be continuing. What has genuinely changed is the leadership, the reported creative direction, the size of the team, and the likely release timing.
Losing two directors within a couple of months is not normal for a flagship project, and reassigning 50 developers away from a game that is still years from release raises legitimate questions about scope. At the same time, none of that automatically means the final product will be worse. New leadership frequently uses a transition period to cut features that were not working, tighten scope, and refocus a team around a clearer vision. Whether Hexe ends up stronger or weaker because of this will only be visible once Ubisoft actually shows the game.
What a Grounded Direction Could Mean for Players
If the reports about removing overt magic and the cat companion are accurate, Hexe is shifting from a supernatural power fantasy toward something closer to psychological horror rooted in real historical persecution. That is not necessarily a downgrade. Games built around fear, paranoia, and being hunted by a mob tend to work best when the mechanics stay grounded rather than turning the protagonist into an obviously superpowered figure. A witch trial setting practically demands restraint, because the horror comes from being accused, not from being invincible.
Personally, having played through Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which Baptizat directed, I remember it as a game defined by scale rather than focus. If his new brand level role pushes Hexe toward a tighter, more disciplined experience instead of another sprawling checklist map, that would be a genuine improvement for the series, not a compromise.
Why Ubisoft’s Silence Makes Every Report Feel Bigger
A large part of why this story has spread so widely comes down to Ubisoft’s own communication strategy. Four years after the reveal, there is still no gameplay footage, no character name, and no confirmed release window. That vacuum means every leak, every LinkedIn post, and every insider claim gets treated as a major event because it is genuinely all the information fans have. A single proper trailer showing the tone, setting, and basic structure of the game would do more to settle speculation than any statement Ubisoft has issued so far.
What to Watch For Next
- Whether Ubisoft confirms an official release window once the internal June 2027 target either holds or slips further.
- Whether Eric Baptizat takes on direct oversight of Hexe specifically, or focuses his brand role on other titles like the reported Codename Jade.
- Whether the reported removal of magic and the companion animal system holds through the rest of development, or gets partially reversed once the team stabilizes.
- Whether Ubisoft breaks its silence with an actual gameplay reveal rather than another teaser.
The Bottom Line
Assassin’s Creed Hexe has not been cancelled, and Ubisoft has confirmed development is continuing under experienced leadership in Jean Guesdon, now supported by a returning franchise veteran in Eric Baptizat. What has changed is significant: two directors gone within two months, roughly 50 developers reassigned, reported creative changes pulling the game away from its original supernatural pitch, and a release window that keeps drifting toward late 2027 rather than 2026.
None of that guarantees the final game will be worse. Restructuring during a long development cycle is common, and a tighter, more grounded vision under new leadership could easily produce a stronger game than the one originally pitched in 2022. What matters most now is whether Ubisoft protects the atmosphere and setting that made Hexe interesting in the first place, and whether the studio finally breaks its silence with something concrete for players to actually see.
Sources cited in this article
- PC Gamer, on Clint Hocking’s departure and Ubisoft’s official statement
- Kotaku, on Hexe’s setting and Hocking’s 2022 announcement post
- VGC, on Marc-Alexis Côté’s exit and the new Black Flag era leadership trio
- Insider Gaming, original report on the 50 reassigned developers
- TweakTown, on Benoit Richer’s exit and Ubisoft’s response to the cost cutting claim
- AllKeyShop, on the reported removal of the cat companion and magic system
- GamerMarkt, on Assassin’s Creed Shadows sales and budget figures
- Insider Gaming, on NateTheHate’s second half of 2027 release claim
- VGC, on Eric Baptizat’s return and career history
- Tech Times, on Ubisoft’s Creative Houses structure under Vantage Studios
This article combines confirmed Ubisoft statements with reporting from named outlets and insiders. Sections describing reported creative changes, staff reassignment reasons, and release timing are based on unofficial reporting and insider sourcing, not confirmed Ubisoft announcements, and are labeled accordingly above.
