Ubisoft’s Planned King Arthur Game Was Nixed by Ex-Creative Head

Serge Hascoët set a high bar for fantasy games: Be “better than Tolkien.”

Photographer: Troy Harvey/Bloomberg
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When Ubisoft Entertainment SA hired Mike Laidlaw, the well-respected designer of the Dragon Age video game series, in late 2018, expectations were high. Fans were excited to see what kind of game he might be dreaming up next.

In fact, Laidlaw was directing development of a role-playing game code-named Avalon, according to people familiar with the project. It was a big-budget adventure involving stories of King Arthur and his Round Table in a sword-and-sorcery fantasy world full of knights and legends. But just over a year later, before releasing any games, Laidlaw quit.