Ubisoft has announced staff cuts at its Swedish studios, with 55 jobs expected to be lost at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm.
The news follows the announcement of a voluntary redundancy program in 2025, which GamesIndustry.biz understands had some takeup, but “additional steps” were deemed necessary following a “mapping of the future roadmap.”
An internal email said that the job losses were not related to performance issues and “the long-term direction for the studios remains unchanged”. Massive will continue to work on The Division franchise and its expansions, with development continuing on The Division 3 and the Survivors extraction shooter mode for The Division 2. Only this week a Ubisoft producer promised that The Division 3 would “have as big an impact as The Division 1”, although the game has yet to be shown to the public.
The same email also stated that the studios are also working on “an unannounced innovative tech project”, and will “play a central role in the development” of the Snowdrop game engine and Ubisoft’s player network Ubisoft Connect. Snowdrop has been used for other Ubisoft titles including Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the upcoming Splinter Cell title being developed at Ubisoft Toronto (which had its own layoffs in 2024.
It’s Ubisoft’s second round of job cuts this year, following its closure of mobile studio Ubisoft Halifax last week, with the loss of 71 jobs. That team, which lead development of Assassin’s Creed Rebellion, had formed what was the company’s only American workforce union in December.
The company announced the planned loss of 60 jobs at fellow European developer RedLynx, home of the Trials series, in October.
Ubisoft has been in cost-cutting mode for the last three years, cancelling multiple titles and laying off hundreds of staff. It is in the process of restructuring itself into new business units called Creative Houses, following a major investment from long-term backer Tencent into a new entity called Vantage Studios. That will serve as the home of the Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six and Far Cry franchises, with other Creative Houses being formed to handle the company’s other brands and operations. The company has previously said these will be announced this month.
The comopany recently acquired a new studio and unreleased MOBA from Amazon, reuniting it with a development team largely composed of senior figures who’d worked on previous Ubisoft titles.
