After working on and releasing Battlefield 1 and then departing DICE, Patrick Bach has announced that Ubisoft hired him to head up a new studio in Stockholm, Sweden to assist Massive Entertainment with its upcoming Avatar game.
As studio manager for Ubisoft Stockholm, Bach stated that, “I am thrilled to be joining the Ubisoft family, where I feel I will be able to use my experience in the game industry in a new and different way. My goal has always been to create the best possible gaming experiences for players. When talking to Ubisoft about what we value most, it was clear that we share the same passion for nurturing teams’ creativity with that goal in mind.”
Ubisoft Stockholm will house up to 100 employees within its first two years and will work with Massive Entertainment on other triple A titles aside from Avatar. Massive is also based in Sweden at Malmo and developed Tom Clancy’s The Division under Ubisoft.
As a veteran in the industry, Bach has worked as general manager at DICE for 15 years and is responsible for a number of Battlefield titles and the first Star Wars Battlefront. Massive still hasn’t announced any new information Avatar but a brand new studio being involved means that its scale will be fairly huge. Perhaps even Division-esque in that respect?
Massive’s managing director David Polfeldt also issued a statement on Bach joining the Ubisoft family, noting that, “I am confident that Patrick Bach’s leadership skills, his desire to nurture the passion and creativity of the people he works with, and the attraction of Ubisoft’s renowned brands will encourage world-class talent to join Ubisoft Stockholm.
“The combination of these different elements will lay strong foundations for the new studio, enabling the team to focus on the quality and innovation of the games they create, and grow to become one of the best studios in the world.”