Big-name developers don’t usually jump from one big publisher to another, but that’s exactly what is happening with Jade Raymond.
The former Ubisoft Tornoto managing director announced today that she has opened a new development house called Motive Studio in Montreal under the Electronic Arts umbrella. She will act as the director of Motive while simultaneously overseeing Dead Space developer Visceral Games. Raymond will also work closely with the Mass Effect studio BioWare in Montreal. The first game that Raymond and Motive will work on is the new, untitled Star Wars adaptation that Visceral is making under creative director Amy Hennig.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1766608,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"A"}']Raymond’s move from Ubisoft to EA is atypical of someone of her stature. Similarly recognizable names like Gears of Wars’ Cliff Bleszinski, Mega Man’s Keiji Inafune, and Assassin’s Creed’s Patrice Désilets have all left their cozy jobs at big companies to start independent studios. But Raymond has broken from that trend to start fresh at EA.
“I feel honored to be working with such a talented team led by studio general manager Scott Probst,” Raymond wrote in an EA blog post. “I’m thrilled that the first big project that we will work on in Montreal will have Amy as creative director. An opportunity to work with her and the Visceral team, and to play in the Star Wars universe, is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
Raymond is best known for working on the Assassin’s Creed series at Ubisoft, which she joined in 2004. She helped mold that franchise into the annual behemoth that it is today and acted as executive producer of Assassin’s Creed II, which many still consider one of the best releases in that series. Before departing Ubisoft in October, she also worked on Watch Dogs.
But this move to open Motive is also a return to EA for Raymond. She previously worked at the publisher as a producer on The Sims Online. But now, she is back and in a much more senior role.