Ubisoft has announced they are laying off 45 more employees.
As reported by GameSpot, the company shared this statement on the planned releases:
“Over the past few months, every team within Ubisoft has been exploring ways to streamline our operations and enhance our collective efficiency so that we are better positioned for success in the long term.
In this context, today we announced that we are further reorganizing our Global Publishing central and APAC structures to adapt them to the market evolution with a more efficient and agile approach. Those changes will impact 45 positions overall.
These are not decisions taken lightly and we are providing comprehensive support for our impacted colleagues. We also want to share our utmost gratitude and respect for their many contributions to the company.”
Ubisoft’s studios across the Asia Pacific include studios in China, in Shanghai and Chengdu, in India, in Mumbai and Pune, in Osaka, Japan, and three in SouthEast Asia: Da Nang, in Vietnam, Philippines, and Singapore.
Ubisoft Singapore will likely stick to most gamers’ memory, as the studio tied to the development of Skull & Bones. As the story goes, the studio showed a proficiency in naval combat game design in their work for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Ubisoft management, seeing an opportunity, put them to work on what was originally an expansion, which kept growing in scope and later spinning off completely into a new project, after they had to switch technology.
Skull & Bones, Ubisoft’s first self-proclaimed AAAA release, was a critical and financial failure upon its release last February 16, 2024. Given the behind the scenes story of its development, one could argue that it was a miracle that it got released at all.
Unfortunately, this outcome has clearly affected Ubisoft Singapore. But we can’t say that they are the only studio that is being hit by these layoffs. It must be said, as easy as it is for some gamers to ascribe cause and effect to developers being laid off after their games flop, that good or bad, we should treat developers with a baseline level of respect.
At the end of the day, developers are working to entertain gamers, to help them forget their everyday worries. And of course, the industry is going through circumstances were developers who make good games don’t necessarily get rewarded for them either. If anything, we should all be concerned that this industry wave of layoffs continues.
GameRanx wishes the best for the outgoing employees at Ubisoft, and we hope they can find placement back into the video game industry.
