Ubisoft announced it was shutting down another studio and is laying off around 185 people across its entire business.
Tom Phillips at Eurogamer reports that Ubisoft shut down Ubisoft Leamington, which was located in Warwickshire, England. The studio’s 50-person staff is being disbanded.
According to Moby Games, Ubisoft Leamington’s most recent releases included Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Watch Dogs: Legion. It also worked on Hyper Scrape, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
Eurogamer reports the studio “worked as a support studio on the Tom Clancy’s The Division series, and also assisted development on games such as Star Wars Outlaws, Skull and Bones and Far Cry 5.”
The studio was acquired by Ubisoft in 2017.
On top of Ubisoft Leamington being shut down, Phillips also shared that “other Ubisoft offices in Düsseldorf (formerly Blue Byte), Stockholm and the Newcastle-based Ubisoft Reflections will be downsized.”
An Ubisoft spokesman confirmed the closure and layoffs, “As part of our ongoing efforts to prioritise projects and reduce costs that ensure long-term stability at Ubisoft, we have announced targeted restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the permanent closure of Ubisoft Leamington site.”
The spokesman added, “Unfortunately, this should impact 185 employees overall. We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition.”
This announcement comes in the wake of Ubisoft announcing it would shut down XDefiant last month and transition half of the XDefiant team to other positions within the company.
At the same time it also announced it would be closing “San Francisco and Osaka production studios.” Furthermore, the company shared it would be ramping down its Sydney production site.
Ubisoft shared that 143 people be laid off in San Francisco and a combined 134 from Osaka and Sydney.
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In a leaked email from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot to Ubisoft employees, he indicated more layoffs would be on the way.
He said, “I am well aware that, given the current context, such announcements may worry you, and that’s understandable. The entire industry is facing similar difficult decisions, yet often the scale of the impact is much larger. Our organization has allowed us to limit the impact of these kinds of decisions and make more targeted restructurings, and all our efforts are focused on trying to maintain this course and philosophy. We will continue working on evolving our organization to adapt it to market changes, and with a long-term perspective in mind.”
Ubisoft had a terrible 2024 with the company admitting that Star Wars Outlaws had “softer than expected sales” after it released in August.
When it arrived on Steam, the game only hit a peak concurrent player count of just 2,492.
It was also rumored that Ubisoft shut down its Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team.
Using YouTube’s translate function, the host of YouTube channel ORIGAMI shared, “In recent days at Ubisoft Montpellier, we are transporting boxes from one floor to another and it is quite a symbol because it is that of dissolution, not announced to the public, but completed of the team Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.”
Maybe the biggest disaster for the company was Skull and Bones. YouTuber Endymion reported that Ubisoft allegedly spent between $650 million and $850 million to develop the game.
Endymion shared, “I was also told that the project that ruined Ubisoft was not actually Outlaws or Shadows. It was actually Skull and Bones.”
“My sources told me they have seen multiple different versions of the game that were each completely different over the years. They said that they were told that the budget that was spent on Skull and Bones, it ranged somewhere from $650 to $850 million over 10 years,” he added.
“And that Skull and Bones failed so badly for Ubisoft it was the actual reason why they’re dying the way that they are,” he said. It’s not actually Outlaws and Shadows if you can believe it. So they sunk a legendary amount of resources into that game and it clearly did not work out for them at all.”
The game released on Steam in August of this year and only hit an all-time peak of 2,615.
What do you make of Ubisoft shutting down another studio and laying off another 185 people?
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They need to close their French studios. Those are the really expensive ones, led by Union goons. Remember when they strikes because Ubisoft had the audacity to ask if they could please be so kind as to come to work at the office a few days a week?
há há great news