Ubisoft has had a new round of layoffs, albeit at a smaller scale than what has recently been in the news.
As reported by IGN, Ubisoft confirmed they laid off 19 employees at Red Storm. Ubisoft provided this statement:
Today, Ubisoft made the decision to eliminate 19 roles at Red Storm Entertainment. This step is part of our ongoing, targeted restructuring and global cost-saving efforts, and reflects the needs on the studio’s projects. While this was not an easy decision, it was a necessary one given our operational priorities.
We remain committed to supporting those affected with comprehensive severance packages, extended health-care benefits, and career transition assistance. We deeply appreciate their hard work and the impact they’ve had on Ubisoft.
Ubisoft itself is in an uncertain state as the company navigates how to survive after an extended series of financially unsuccessful game releases. They had layoffs of 185 employees at the start of this year, before announcing plans this March to make a new subsidiary in partnership with TenCent.
Red Storm was the key game studio founded by Tom Clancy himself to make Tom Clancy licensed video games. While their last release was VR game Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, their latest high profile project was Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland, a 3rd person PvPvE survival multiplayer game.
As you know, Ubisoft cancelled Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland over a year ago, in May 2024. Ubisoft also had layoffs in Red Storm in August 2024. Since that time Red Storm has been visibly doing support work for other games, but they may be working on unannounced games of their own to be revealed in the future.
These layoffs may be partly caused by the plans to build that subsidiary with TenCent. If the Tom Clancy games are part of the IPs that will be licensed by that subsidiary, TenCent may want the Tom Clancy studios to be under that subsidiary. And Ubisoft may have chosen to streamline Red Storm staff to make it easier to ‘sell’ to TenCent as part of that package in that subsidiary.
If this is what happened, it likely also means that Ubisoft may hold future layoffs for similar reasons, as part of the process of building that subsidiary. We do wish the staff about to leave Red Storm the best, and we hope that if they want it, they can find placement back in the video game industry.
