Dragon Age Director Mike Laidlaw Departs Position at Ubisoft

Mike Laidlaw, the lead designer of the Dragon Age trilogy, is no longer working at Ubisoft Quebec. Laidlaw made the announcement through Twitter and Linkedin on Friday. He said he will probably turn to consulting work for now, and wished good luck to the team at Ubisoft Quebec. "I’d like to thank the talented and welcoming folks at the Ubisoft Quebec City studio for the time I spent there, and wish them all the best of luck with future ventures including the upcoming Gods and Monsters," Laidlaw said on Linkedin. "I’m not 100% sure what my next steps are just yet, but returning to consulting for a while seems likely. In the meantime, a chance to relax, take stock and enjoy this gorgeous city while continuing to practice my French." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=gods-and-monsters-e3-2019-announcement-trailer-screenshots&captions=true"] Laidlaw joined Ubisoft Quebec in December 2018 after working as a consultant at Ubisoft for months, according to a post on his Linkedin. He joined the studio to work as a creative director on a yet-to-be announced project. The studio would later announce Gods & Monsters in June 2019, but Laidlaw said on Twitter at the time that he was not working on that game. The acclaimed director began working at BioWare and Electronic Arts in 2003. During his time there, Laidlaw served as the senior creative director on the three Dragon Age games and was the lead story developer for Jade Empire. He would leave the position at EA in 2017. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/20/the-biggest-games-coming-in-2020"] Gods & Monsters was set for a release in February, but Ubisoft took it off the date in October 2019. It's now set to come out sometime before April 2021. Representatives for Ubisoft Quebec have called the game their "most open game ever." Ubisoft itself is going through some level of reconstruction. The company is restructuring its editorial team in an effort to encourage more diversity among its games, particularly after the poor sales of Ghost Recon Breakpoint and The Division 2. It's unclear if Laidlaw's departure is a part of those overall changes, and Ubisoft has yet to make any such statement on the matter. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who really needs to get around to playing those Dragon Age games.