Following a string of misfires, 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, isn’t any extra because the writer is scuttling the 50-person studio. It's additionally shedding staff in Stockholm; Düsseldorf, Germany; and Newcastle, England (Ubisoft Reflections).
"As a part of our ongoing efforts to prioritize tasks and cut 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," Ubisoft advised Eurogamer in an announcement. "Sadly, this could impression 185 staff general. We’re deeply grateful for his or her contributions and are dedicated to supporting them by this transition."
Ubisoft purchased the Leamington studio from Activision in 2017. It was beforehand referred to as FreeStyleGames and the staff was behind Guitar Hero Reside 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 not too long ago, as the corporate is coping with the fallout of a number of underperforming video games, akin to Star Wars Outlaws, which didn't meet gross sales targets. Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown fell in need of Ubisoft's gross sales expectations too, and the corporate shifted most of the recreation's builders to different groups. Ubisoft can also be shutting down 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 current woes, there have been quite a few stories that Ubisoft is looking for a purchaser or that it might create a three way partnership with Tencent with a few of its belongings included. The corporate stated earlier this month (PDF) that it will "proceed to drive important value reductions" and it had "appointed main advisors to evaluation and pursue varied transformational strategic and capitalistic choices to extract the perfect worth for stakeholders."
Suffice to say, there's loads using on the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows. Murderer's Creed has been a reliably bankable sequence for Ubisoft and it's arguably the corporate's flagship franchise at this level. Based mostly on my early impressions, the sport appears to be like adequate and performs properly 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, but it surely's a mighty tall order for a single recreation to proper a ship that's as giant and unsteady as Ubisoft.
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