Within Ubisoft's 3rd Party Publishing division, I served as an embedded external design director – traveling onsite to partner studios, conducting in-person build reviews, and providing actionable design and production guidance to help titles meet Ubisoft's quality standards and ship on schedule.
The role combined creative assessment, design direction, and production coordination. I reported findings directly to publishing leadership and executive producers, with my assessments feeding into milestone decisions and go/no-go calls. Where a title needed more than assessment, I could move into active intervention – embedding through late-stage development to close quality gaps and stabilize launches.
Ghost Recon Commander
Ubisoft – 2012 – iOS / Facebook
A free-to-play social/mobile strategy game set in the Ghost Recon universe. I served as onsite design director for Ubisoft, working with the external development team to ensure the title met publishing standards and shipped on schedule. Coordinated across business development, legal, marketing, and licensors to keep all stakeholders aligned on creative direction and schedule.
Toy Soldiers: War Chest
Ubisoft / Signal Studios – 2015 – PS4 / Xbox One / PC
A tower defense action game featuring licensed toy soldier factions including G.I. Joe, He-Man, and Assassin's Creed. I served as onsite design director for Ubisoft – conducting title reviews, assessing builds against publishing standards, and providing design guidance to Signal Studios' leadership on creative and production direction.
The Expendables 2 Videogame
Ubisoft / Zootfly – 2012 – PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC
A co-op action game tied to the Expendables 2 film release. I served as onsite design director for Ubisoft, working with the external studio to close quality gaps and keep the title aligned with the IP and on track for its film-tied release window – a hard deadline with no flexibility.
Being Ubisoft's eyes on the ground at an external studio is a specific kind of work. You land at a studio that has its own culture, its own creative director, and its own way of doing things – and your job is to help them make a better game, not impose a different one.
The practical work: reviewing builds against Ubisoft's quality bar, writing actionable reports that went directly to publishing leadership, facilitating conversations between the studio and Ubisoft's business development, legal, and marketing teams, and – when a title needed it – rolling up your sleeves and helping fix problems rather than just documenting them.
The skill it builds: reading a game's problems quickly, communicating findings clearly to both creative teams and executives, and building enough trust with an external studio to actually influence their decisions. Titles that got the most value from embedded direction were ones where the studio saw me as a resource, not an auditor.