The birth of Child of Light, Ubisoft Montreal's AAA indie game

With the indie scene growing ever-stronger, Patrick Plourde, creative director at Ubisoft Montreal, will explain how his pet project, Child of Light, began, in a presentation at the 2013 Montreal International Games Summit next week.

Plourde gave a sneak preview of his talk, titled "Going Indie in AAA", to GamesIndustry International. It's not the kind of project the studio, which is responsible for such juggernauts as Assassin's Creed and Far Cry, would normally back. But with more than ten years of experience with Ubisoft, Plourde knew how to tune the pitch to suit the company's tastes, citing the figures of indie games like Journey, Limbo and Bastion as positive examples.

"There was a certain level of risk I knew they'd be willing to take financially," he said.

The success of Child of Light could influence how Ubisoft Montreal and other AAA studios regard internal, smaller-scale games in the future.

Child of Light is a turn-based combat game coming in early 2014 to PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.