Desilets ends legal fight with Ubisoft, regains rights to 1666

Longtime game designer Patrice Désilets took to Twitter today to announce that his ongoing legal fight with former employer Ubisoft is over, and he's regained rights to his onetime game project 1666 Amsterdam.

This heralds the end of a long-running tussle between Ubisoft and Désilets, who was fired from Ubisoft Montreal in 2013 and subsequently sued the company for roughly $400,000 in damages plus the rights to the 1666 project if Ubisoft chose to terminate it.

Désilets had been working on 1666 for some time, having started in on it after leaving Ubisoft Montreal in 2010 (where he played a central role in the Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed games) for THQ Montreal.

When THQ went under in 2013, Ubisoft acquired THQ Montreal and, in the process, Désilets and his project. Following his departure, Ubisoft retained rights to the project; now the company has ceded him all rights to 1666, according to a press release published by Désilets, and Désilets is ceasing his legal action against Ubisoft.

"I’m glad Ubisoft and I were able to come to an agreement that will allow me to obtain the rights to project 1666 Amsterdam,” Désilets stated in the press release. "“I will now devote myself entirely to the development of Ancestors: the Humankind Odyssey, my next game with Panache Digital Games."

Panache, of course, is the Montreal indie studio he cofounded in 2014 after he was fired from Ubisoft Montreal. Last year the studio announced it was working on Ancestors, with Désilets noting that games "cannot always be about space marines."