Assassin's Creed Valhalla game director leaves Ubisoft to join EA Motive

Veteran designer and game director Eric Baptizat has left Ubisoft after 16 years at the company to join EA Motive.

Baptizat was part of the team that rebooted Ubsioft's tentpole Assassin's Creed franchise, and worked as lead designer on Assassin's Creed Origins, and game director of Assassin's Creed Valhalla. EA has not publicly shared what projects Baptizat will be working on and according to Axios (thanks, VGC), "neither EA nor Baptizat are commenting on the move" which, naturally, has only stoked those speculative fires even more. 

It's an interesting – and timely – development, not least because EA Motive is the studio thought to be behind the rumored Dead Space reboot, unsubstantiated reports of which began to circulate last week. EA is reportedly set to announce a new installment of an established IP at next month's EA Play event, and an industry insider teased that while they "don't know everything" about the upcoming event "they] do know one thing [...] It's that one – it's the one – and we're gonna see it… If we're not dead first". 

That "dead first" bit? It's sent horror fans reeling, with many speculating-slash-hoping that it pertains to Dead Space, which hasn't seen a fresh installment since Dead Space 3, which released back in 2013.

"I'll have to ask and see if, like, I could really start teasing that one," the insider said at the time. "I know there's someone on ResetEra who has been teasing it a lot, so I feel like it's probably close enough that I could start saying… but it's going to be exciting, I think. It's gonna be exciting. We'll talk about it more pretty soon."

The original, critically-acclaimed horror game sees you play as Isaac Clarke, an engineer who is trapped on a deserted spaceship with just a load of blood-thirsty aliens and his trusty plasma cutter for company. It was developed by the now defunct EA studio Visceral, which had previously been known as Redwood Shores. 

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