Ubisoft appoints former Amazon Games head to lead its Tom Clancy studio.

      Ubisoft has appointed Christoph Hartmann, who recently served as vice president of Amazon Games, to lead the division overseeing its Tom Clancy franchises. He will take on the role of general manager of Creative House 2, the division focused on The Division, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell, as stated by Ubisoft.

      This appointment comes at a challenging time for Ubisoft, which experienced the loss of co-founder Claude Guillemot in a plane crash last year and has spent the subsequent months restructuring into three Creative Houses.

      Creative House 2 will also include March of Giants, a multiplayer battle arena game that Ubisoft acquired in December, giving Hartmann a diverse portfolio that includes both well-established shooters and a new live-service title.

      The broader gaming industry has been undergoing a similar transformation over the past year, with publishers restructuring their divisions and, in some cases, negotiating studio spin-offs instead of closing them outright.

      Ubisoft's response has been to organize its portfolio into semi-autonomous Creative Houses, each led by a general manager responsible for specific franchises, rather than managing the entire publishing operation as a single entity.

      Hartmann's background reflects a significant history in the publishing field. He spent twenty years at Take-Two Interactive, where he co-founded 2K Games and served as its president until 2017, overseeing major titles like Borderlands, BioShock, Civilization, NBA 2K, and XCOM.

      He joined Amazon Games in 2018 as vice president, where he was in charge of the studios responsible for New World and the North American release of Lost Ark. In 2023, he secured rights from Embracer Group to develop a Lord of the Rings MMO, although its future under Ubisoft remains uncertain.

      CEO Yves Guillemot, one of the five Guillemot brothers who founded the company in 1986, described the hire in terms of building franchises rather than focusing on turnaround efforts. “Christoph has an exceptional track record of assembling strong creative teams and leveraging the best development and publishing skills to create enduring franchises,” Yves Guillemot stated.

      Hartmann's statement emphasized sentiment over strategy, highlighting the shared experiences in gaming. “Some of the strongest memories in games come from overcoming challenges together, the missions you barely survive, the unexpected comebacks, and the moments a team clicks,” he noted. “The talented teams at March of Giants, Massive, Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Paris, and Ubisoft Toronto are crafting game worlds filled with these memorable moments for millions of dedicated players. With Creative House 2, our aim is to honor their passion, closely listen to what they cherish, and create intense, high-quality experiences they will want to return to.”

      The formation of Creative House 2 is part of a larger, costlier restructuring. Ubisoft separated its three largest franchises—Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six—into a new subsidiary called Vantage Studios, in which Tencent invested €1.16 billion in a deal finalizing last November.

      This left the Tom Clancy games and other titles organized within the remaining Creative Houses, with Hartmann’s being one of them. Additionally, Ubisoft's overall restructuring has not been without challenges, facing similar tensions between publishers and studios seen elsewhere in the industry, exemplified by the recent bonus dispute that led to the departure of Krafton's chief executive of Unknown Worlds.

      What Hartmann inherits, aside from the organizational structure, is a collection of franchises with mixed histories. The Division and Ghost Recon have not released significant new mainline entries in years, while Splinter Cell has remained dormant as a AAA series since a remake was put into development.

      Although this is not new information, it outlines the practical challenges that Hartmann faces as a general manager, given his background in publishing and franchise management rather than turnarounds. Ubisoft has not announced when Hartmann will begin or whether any of Creative House 2’s franchises have scheduled release dates.

      The company's upcoming financial update is expected to provide the first insights into how the new structure and its new leader are performing.