Assassin's Creed Hexe is undergoing a sweeping creative reset that strips out magical abilities from the witch-trials-themed action game, according to insider reports that reveal major leadership changes at Ubisoft's flagship franchise.
The shift comes after Jean Guesdon took over as Head of Content for Assassin's Creed and stepped in as creative director for Hexe, replacing Clint Hocking who recently departed. The decision arrived alongside the exit of game director Benoit Richer, who left both the project and Ubisoft entirely.
Reliable franchise insider j0nathan disclosed that Guesdon's appointment triggered a creative purge. "He decided to get rid of everything that was 'magical' in Hexe," the source revealed, providing a concrete example: "We were supposed to control a cat, well, ultimately that's been canceled."
The move represents a tonal recalibration for a series that has historically embraced otherworldly elements. From the franchise's DNA-memory foundation to Eagle Vision and ancient artifact powers, Assassin's Creed has long blended sci-fi conceits with historical settings. Recent titles swung hard in different directions: Assassin's Creed Odyssey leaned into supernatural leveling systems that made protagonist Kassandra nearly divine, while Assassin's Creed Mirage pulled back to a grounded, smaller-scale adventure that felt more grounded and street-level.
Given Hexe's 17th-century European witch trial setting, witchcraft-adjacent powers seemed like obvious design territory. The franchise has explanatory frameworks ready for such abilities through series lore: special artifacts like the Apple of Eden, bloodline-inherited skills, or simply the series' willingness to let gravity-defying cathedral dives into hay bales slide. Animal control mechanics have existed since Assassin's Creed Origins introduced the eagle drone warg ability, which carried through Odyssey and Valhalla. Ditching the cat control suggests Guesdon wants Hexe stripped to something more historically grounded and mechanically conventional.
The leadership shakeup arrives as Ubisoft reshuffles its franchise strategy. A separate leak from j0nathan also disclosed that an Assassin's Creed 1 remake has been in development, though the project's current status remains unclear. Ubisoft previously confirmed multiple remakes were coming beyond Black Flag Resynced, and fan reception to Mirage's back-to-basics design has apparently encouraged revisiting the series' dated original entry. The 2007 game sits as the franchise's most aged installment, even if its backward-compatible Xbox 360 version runs at higher frame rates on current hardware. A proper remake could combine its large sandbox areas into one cohesive open world while expanding its narrative with callbacks to later entries and protagonist Altaïr's legacy.
Before Hexe's 2027 window arrives, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launches July 9.
Author Emily Chen: "Stripping magical powers from a game literally called Hexe feels like a swing and a miss, but Mirage proved that smaller and grounded can work in this series."
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