Ubisoft stops game development at Red Storm – 105 jobs affected
As part of its austerity program, Ubisoft is ending game production at the traditional studio Red Storm Entertainment in North Carolina.
With VR adaptations of major Ubisoft brands like "Assassin's Creed", it is likely to be definitively over after the closure of Red Storm.
(Image: Ubisoft)
For Red Storm Entertainment, game development is coming to an end for now after 30 years. As GamesIndustry.biz first reported, citing a company source, 105 employees are losing their jobs. However, the Ubisoft studio is not disappearing entirely. The remaining employees are to focus on IT and customer service tasks and the further development of the in-house Snowdrop engine in the future. This was most recently used in games such as “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” and “Star Wars Outlaws”. Ubisoft confirmed the report when asked by heise online.
Red Storm Entertainment was founded in 1996 and was a leader in the development of “Tom Clancy” brand games for many years. Most recently, in 2023, Red Storm released “Assassin's Creed Nexus VR”, an exclusive VR game for Meta Quest. Previously, the studio worked on a VR spin-off of the popular stealth action series “Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell”, which was discontinued in 2022. Work on the free-to-play shooter “Tom Clancy's The Division Heartland” also ended in 2024 without results.
Ubisoft's cost-cutting continues
Red Storm already saw job cuts in 2024 and 2025. In January, Ubisoft also cut 55 jobs at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm. Ubisoft completely closed its Canadian development studio in Halifax, resulting in the loss of another 71 jobs. The current layoffs are part of Ubisoft's global cost reduction program.
The French publisher plans to save 200 million euros in the next two years – in addition to 300 million euros that had already been realized. CEO Yves Guillemot spoke of a “great reset” and a “decisive turning point” in a statement. The announcements are causing increasing uncertainty on the stock market. Ubisoft's share price lost more than 30 percent of its value shortly after the realignment was announced.
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In addition to the numerous jobs, at least six games that were already in development are also falling victim to the savings. However, only the remake of “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time” is officially known. With the end of Red Storm, further virtual reality projects or a possible porting of “Assassin's Creed Nexus VR” to other VR platforms are likely to be definitively off the table.
(joe)
