Ubisoft is reportedly closing its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios, while proposed changes at Ubisoft Barcelona and cuts across global publishing could put up to 380 roles at risk.
VGC reports that the Winnipeg and Belgrade offices are being shut down as part of Ubisoft's latest cost-saving moves. Game Developer separately reported that the layoffs are pending consultation and that the company is acting to reduce costs and focus on new strategic priorities.
The affected teams were not minor outposts in Ubisoft's production network. Ubisoft Winnipeg, founded in 2018 and opened in 2019, worked on technology for Ubisoft's Anvil and Snowdrop engines. Ubisoft Belgrade, founded in 2016, contributed to projects including The Crew 2, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Riders Republic and Skull & Bones.
Barcelona Narrows Its Focus To Rainbow Six
Ubisoft Barcelona is expected to remain open, but the studio is reportedly being restructured to focus solely on Rainbow Six. GamesIndustry.biz reported that 380 roles are understood to be at risk across Winnipeg, Belgrade, Barcelona and Ubisoft's global publishing organization, although the final number of affected jobs was not clear because redundancy processes differ by territory.
The Barcelona change is notable because the studio has been tied to several parts of Ubisoft's wider pipeline. GamesIndustry.biz said the team was most recently credited on Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, while the assigned report noted that job listings had connected it to Beyond Good and Evil 2 and multiple unannounced AAA projects earlier in the decade.
The reported cuts also land during a larger reshaping of Ubisoft's business. The publisher has been trying to reduce fixed costs by another €200 million over the next two years and reorganize its creative teams into autonomous "creative houses." That restructuring sits alongside Ubisoft's next big wave of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon projects, which makes the loss of support capacity more significant than a single-office closure.
Ubisoft's recent cuts have already reached several offices. VGC pointed to previous job losses at Red Storm Entertainment, proposed cuts at Ubisoft's Paris headquarters and layoffs at Ubisoft Toronto. Game Developer also cited earlier reductions or proposed redundancies across Abu Dhabi, Halifax, North Carolina, Sweden and other teams.
Ubisoft has not announced the Winnipeg or Belgrade closures publicly through its own news channels at the time of writing. Until it does, the exact headcount impact may shift through local consultation processes, but the reports describe another major contraction for one of gaming's largest publishers.