The Creative Director behind announced by Ubisoft back in April, and Ismail has been at the forefront of the game's development.
This comes at a time when Ismail was accused of infidelity by Twitch streamer Dani Porter Bridges, also known as MatronEdea. The streamer had earlier tweeted screenshots of her messages with Ismail, which revealed that he had lied about his marital status. Soon after the tweet was posted, he got in touch with Dani, who documented those messages on her social media as well.
Ashraf Ismail revealed on his Twitter that he is stepping down from the project so that he can deal with personal issues. Wishing the team all the best for the project, he mentions that "There are hundreds of talented, ionate people striving to build an experience" and they "don't deserve to be associated with this." At the time of writing this article, the tweet is no longer available since his has been deleted. Ubisoft issued a statement to GameSpot stating that Ashraf is "stepping down from the project to take a leave of absence."
Considering the fact that a number of Ubisoft employees have been accused of such behavior recently, it raises some serious questions about the work culture prevalent in the company and its inefficiency in dealing with such important matters. When Screen Rant had ed Ubisoft earlier regarding the accusations, it stated "We are deeply concerned by these accusations. We take any allegations of abuse or harassment very seriously and we are looking very closely into the allegations to determine [sic] next steps."
It has been a while since the #MeToo movement started, but right now the focus of the movement is on the gaming industry with a large number of people accused of inappropriate behavior in the last few days. Over the past few weeks, the Black Lives Matter movement was trending in the gaming industry with a number of people ing the movement and raising their voice against racism in the industry. The #MeToo movement uncovers another ugly side of the gaming industry, one that also needs to be addressed swiftly. While Ubisoft might not be willing to part ways with Ismail entirely since he has been at the forefront of the Assassin's Creed franchise for a long time, strict action against him would surely send a strong message about its stance on such matters - though there are a number of other issues present in the publisher's culture that appear to need addressing at the same time.
Source: GameSpot
