David Michaud-Cromp, head of Ubisoft Montreal's level design team, was fired just a few days after receiving disciplinary action for publicly criticizing his employer's policy.
As a reminder, in January Ubisoft announced major changes to its corporate structure, implemented with financial support from Tencent. These measures have already led to the cancellation of a number of projects, including the long-suffering remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, as well as new staff cuts. One of the key points of the plan was the requirement to bring all employees back to the office for a full five-day workweek.
This decision caused discontent among developers. Michaud-Cromp was among them, and on January 23 he published on his page on the professional social network a post criticizing the initiative of mandatory return to the office. A few days later, he reported that the company had taken disciplinary measures against him — a three-day unpaid "corrective" suspension from work. It has now become known that Ubisoft went further and terminated his contract.
Today I was fired from Ubisoft, effective immediately. This was not my decision.
The developer added that for now he would not comment on the internal circumstances and would take a pause to decide on his next steps.