Julien Merceron

Julien started as a programmer on the Atari Jaguar in the early 90s at Shen Technologies in Paris. He then joined Ubisoft to work on games and engines before becoming the worldwide technical director of Ubisoft Entertainment in 1999. In this role, he played a major part in the studio's creation, organization, technology, production pipeline design, and multi-platform strategy, as well as in AAA features integration, on brands such as 'Rayman', 'Far Cry', 'Splinter Cell', 'Prince of Persia', and 'Assassin's Creed'. He also took responsibility for Game Engines and Game development strategies, internal collaboration approaches, as well as external relationships. At the end of 2005, Julien pursued his career at Eidos, where he served as the worldwide CTO working on the technology strategy, before getting involved in initiating Eidos Montreal and Eidos Shanghai Studios. Julien became the worldwide technology director for Square Enix Group, working on a wide variety of engines and franchises including 'Tomb Raider', 'Final Fantasy', 'Hitman', 'Deus Ex' and 'Kingdom Hearts'. In 2013, he joined Konami as the worldwide technology director to oversee Fox Engine, work directly on the acclaimed 'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain', and advance other games including 'Pro Evolution Soccer' 2016 which got a better Metacritic than FIFA that year. Julien joined Bandai Namco Studios early 2016, where he now serves as their CTO, involved in AI, R&D, and titles like Tekken8 and Elden Ring.