Ubisoft has confirmed the closure of its growth studio in Leamington, first reported by Eurogamer, in addition to “focused restructurings” at its Düsseldorf, Stockholm, and Ubisoft Reflections studios, that can see 185 folks put out of labor.
“As a part of our ongoing efforts to prioritize tasks and scale back prices that guarantee long-term stability at Ubisoft, we’ve introduced focused restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the everlasting closure of Ubisoft Leamington website,” a Ubisoft consultant informed PC Gamer. “Sadly, this could affect 185 workers total. We’re deeply grateful for his or her contributions and are dedicated to supporting them via this transition.”
Ubisoft Leamington was based in 2002 as FreeStyleGames, and was acquired by Activision in 2008. It developed the DJ Hero video games and Guitar Hero Dwell, none of which had been launched on PC, however the decline of curiosity within the music recreation style ultimately led to layoffs and a sale of the studio to Ubisoft in 2017. Renamed to Ubisoft Leamington, it contributed to quite a few video games together with Hyper Scape, Watch Canine: Legion, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Cranium and Bones.
The closure of Ubisoft Leamington and layoffs throughout three different studios is the most recent in what Ubisoft described in a strategic replace launched earlier this month as “decisive steps to reshape the Group as a way to ship best-in-class participant experiences, improve operational effectivity and maximize worth creation.”
These steps had been motivated by an “completely dire 2024,” as we put it, a yr riddled with delays, and cancellations, and video games failing to satisfy expectations: Most notably, gross sales of Star Wars Outlaws had been “softer than anticipated,” whereas Murderer’s Creed Shadows—the sport Ubisoft completely, positively wanted to salvage the yr—was pushed out of 2024 and is now set to reach in March 2025. In December 2024, Ubisoft introduced the closure of its San Francisco and Osaka studios and a “ramp down” of operations at its Sydney studio, leading to near 300 folks dropping their jobs.
The prolonged tough stretch compelled Ubisoft to make a full-scale return to Steam in September 2024—it had spent the earlier a number of years working solely with the Epic Video games Retailer—and, extra considerably, has additionally reportedly sparked talks of a buyout of some type involving Tencent. Eventually report, negotiations on that entrance had been continuing however had hit a bump over who can be left in management within the occasion of such a deal: The Guillemot household, which based Ubisoft in 1986, needs to stay in cost however Tencent, which is at the moment Ubisoft’s second-largest shareholder, needs extra say in executive-level selections.
A better take a look at Ubisoft’s future could also be shared as a part of the corporate’s subsequent monetary report, which is scheduled to happen on February 13.
