“Several” Ubisoft employees have been put on leave following claims of misconduct

Maxime Béland, Tommy Francois, and “several” other employees at Ubisoft are on administrative leave following claims of sexual harassment and misconduct which arose in the last week (via Eurogamer).

“We are deeply concerned by these accusations,” said Ubisoft in a statement addressing the stories told about employees Andrien Gbinigie and Stone Chin. A number of women had levelled accusations of abuse and harassment against Gbinigie and Chin, in an outpouring of statements about toxic discrimination in the video game industry. 

On Friday, it announced that it would be launching investigations into these allegations, including those pointed towards Ashraf Ismail, Maxime Béland, and Tommy Francois. Now, Bloomberg has reported that Béland, Francois, and “several other employees” have been placed on administrative leave while it pursues these investigations. Béland has credits on the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series of games, and has also worked on Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed. Francois is the vice president of editorial at Ubisoft, and directed new IPs like Atomega, For Honor, and I Am Alive. They have received “at least three claims of misconduct” each in these recent allegations. 

Neither executive has responded to press requests for comment, but Ubisoft spokesperson Stephanie Magnier said that due to the internal investigative process, “we are not commenting further at this time.”