Ubisoft shuts down a assist studio and lays off 185 employees

Following a string of , Ubisoft is shutting down a assist studio and downsizing elsewhere, with the corporate firing round 185 employees in its newest cost-cutting measure. Ubisoft Leamington, located within the English city of Royal Leamington Spa, is not any extra because the writer is scuttling the 50-person studio. It is also shedding workers in Stockholm; Düsseldorf, Germany; and Newcastle, England (Ubisoft Reflections).

“As a part of our ongoing efforts to prioritize tasks and scale back prices that guarantee long-term stability at Ubisoft, we’ve got introduced focused restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the everlasting closure of Ubisoft Leamington web site,” Ubisoft advised in an announcement. “Sadly, this could impression 185 workers total. We’re deeply grateful for his or her contributions and are dedicated to supporting them by way of this transition.”

Ubisoft from Activision in 2017. It was beforehand referred to as FreeStyleGames and the group was behind Guitar Hero Dwell and the DJ Hero sequence. Since becoming a member of Ubisoft, the studio has assisted with improvement on the Tom Clancy’s The Division video games, Star Wars Outlaws, Cranium and Bones and Far Cry 5.

Issues have been tumultuous at Ubisoft lately, as the corporate is coping with the fallout of a number of underperforming video games, similar to , which did not meet gross sales targets. Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown fell wanting Ubisoft’s gross sales expectations too, and the corporate most of the sport’s builders to different groups. Ubisoft can also be XDefiant within the coming months, with the writer shutting three studios and shedding 277 employees as a part of that call. As Eurogamer notes, Ubisoft’s headcount dropped from 20,279 to 18,666 by the top of September.

Maybe aligned with these latest woes, there have been quite a few experiences that Ubisoft is looking for a purchaser or that it might create a three way partnership with Tencent with a few of its property included. The corporate stated earlier this month () that it will “proceed to drive important price reductions” and it had “appointed main advisors to assessment and pursue varied transformational strategic and capitalistic choices to extract the very best worth for stakeholders.”

Suffice to say, there’s rather a lot using on the upcoming . Murderer’s Creed has been a reliably bankable sequence for Ubisoft and it is arguably the corporate’s flagship franchise at this level. , the sport seems to be adequate and performs nicely sufficient for what the corporate wants it to do, and it appears to cater to each long-standing followers and sequence newcomers. There’s an opportunity that Shadows may very well be profitable for the corporate, nevertheless it’s a mighty tall order for a single sport to proper a ship that is as giant and unsteady as Ubisoft.