As in she's left EA and the studio she helped form in 2015 and lead in subsequent years. With the only release credit to Motive's name being the single-player campaign to the somewhat tainted Star War Battlefront II, the studio was also helping out with the cancelled Star Wars project at the now defunct Visceral, as well as a talked about but still-to-be-seen open-world action game along the lines of Assassin's Creed.
A game and franchise that Jade Raymond was key producer on over at Ubisoft before departing to form Motive with EA. It's been a somewhat rocky few years for Motive with the studio also absorbing BioWare Montreal after the release and subsequent backlash following the release of Mass Effect Andromeda.
Taking over will be Samantha Ryan, who will report to Laure Miele, the head of global publishing at EA - as per the following statement which uses the nonsense word 'gameography'.
“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. ”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.”
“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.”
No reason was given by EA or Jade for the sudden departure, but leaving years after starting a big new development studio prior to the release of any game - doesn't bode well for the status of any potential future Motive projects.