The producer of the first Assassin’s Creed continues to face misfortunes.
Photo: Bloomberg
What happened?
Jade Raymond, the founder and head of Sony-owned game developer Haven Studios, has left the company.
“She was an incredible partner and visionary in building Haven Studios. We are very grateful for her leadership and contributions. We wish her all the best in her future career,” stated the PlayStation press release.
Was she fired or did she leave on her own?
It's unknown.
Jason Schreier from Bloomberg writes that Raymond left the company a few weeks after the external tests of the online shooter Fairgames, which her studio was developing.
“Some developers at Haven were concerned about how the game was received and the progress of its development,” Schreier writes, citing his own sources.
What is important to keep in mind?
Fairgames is one of many service projects that Sony had previously launched into production.
Let us recall, the corporation had plans to release a dozen such games. However, this course was partly adjusted after the resignation of PlayStation boss Jim Ryan in 2023, who was one of the ideologists of the service direction.
Initially, the new management of Sony’s gaming division reduced the number of service games planned for release. At that time, the multiplayer project related to The Last of Us was scrapped.
Then came the notable failure of Concord. It is likely that this was among the events that led to the cancellation of several more service games this January. One of the games that was halted was the service-based God of War.
Evidently, Fairgames, whose release was postponed three months ago from fall 2025 to spring 2026, might also have been at risk. However, instead of canceling the project, Sony seems to have decided to appoint a different manager to the project, parting ways with Raymond.
Who is Jade Raymond?
Jade Raymond started her career in the '90s as a programmer at Sony. There, she helped create the first R&D group for the company's online division. After this, Raymond worked as a producer on The Sims Online at Electronic Arts.
She gained worldwide fame when she led the development of the first Assassin’s Creed as a producer. At Ubisoft, Raymond also helped launch the first Watch Dogs and worked as a managing director on several other projects, including Assassin’s Creed Unity and Far Cry 4.
Afterwards, a wave of misfortunes began to follow her.
In 2015, Raymond founded Motive Studio within EA and worked with Visceral Games on a subsequently canceled Star Wars game. In 2019, she became a vice president at Google and headed the Stadia gaming division. However, after the closure of internal development studios, Raymond left the company and launched Haven Studios in 2021. That same year, it was acquired by Sony.
Now, seemingly, she is being ousted from her own studio. And it turns out that since 2014, the top manager has not released a single game.
What is the Fairgames project?
Details about the new release are sparse. All that can be found online are a brief description and CG trailers. There are no gameplay videos or even screenshots available publicly yet.
According to the available information, it is an extraction shooter where teams of three players compete against each other to steal valuable items from the homes of the wealthy.