Electronic Arts has a new shake-up in its Montreal studio today, as Motive studio founder Jade Raymond is leaving EA and a new executive is taking over.
Samantha Ryan, who runs EA’s mobile, Maxis, and BioWare studios, will now add responsibility for Motive in Montreal as well. She will oversee all of EA’s North American studios, with the exception of Respawn and EA Sports.
Raymond joined EA a few years ago after a long stint at Ubisoft, where she helped build the Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell franchises.
Ryan will continue to report to Laure Miele, head of global publishing at EA. Raymond was in charge of an unnamed Star Wars title, and her studio also contributed to Star Wars: Battlefront II, which came out in 2017. That game sold millions of units, but it received heavy criticism for its aggressive monetization.
“EA Studios is focused on bringing more creative new games and content to players. Laura Miele and her team have taken several steps internally to better support our game makers in this pursuit, such as expanding Samantha Ryan’s portfolio to lead additional studios, including Motive,” said John Reseburg, head of communications at EA, in a statement. ” Samantha is known for driving creative design and supporting game teams so they can bring their visions to life. She is a deeply experienced game-maker with a gameography that spans from The Sims to Batman: Arkham City to No One Lives Forever to the highly-anticipated Anthem.”
He added, “With this change, Jade Raymond has decided to leave Electronic Arts. In her time with us, Jade helped to build great teams, and our projects underway at Motive and other studios continue unchanged. We’re appreciative of all of her efforts, and we wish Jade all the best as she moves on to her next adventure. We are driving greater creativity into everything we do across EA Studios, and we’ll look forward to sharing more in the months to come.”
Reseburg declined to comment on further reasons for the change.