Ubisoft lay off another 185 people and shutter one of the studios behind Star Wars: Outlaws and The Division 2

Assassin’s Creed publishers Ubisoft are making another round of layoffs as part of wider efforts to persuade their investors to stop yelling at them. They’re letting 185 people go across their European operations, and will be closing UK-based Ubisoft Leamington, whose recent projects include supporting development of Star Wars Outlaws and Skull And Bones. All this less than two months after jettisoning the hundreds of people who worked on free-to-play shooter XDefiant.

“As part of our ongoing efforts to prioritize projects and reduce costs that ensure long-term stability at Ubisoft, we have announced targeted restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the permanent closure of Ubisoft Leamington site,” reads a statement sent to VGC. “Unfortunately, this should impact 185 employees overall. We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition.”

Ubisoft are currently in rather dire straits. Their share price fell precipitously last year, thanks in part to mixed reactions to Star Wars Outlaws. Earlier this month, their executive board announced that they were not only delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows to boost its chances, but “[appointing] leading advisors to review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders”. In short, they might be about to sell the company off.

It’s claimed by Bloomberg that the company’s founding Guillemot brothers and Chinese publishers Tencent – both minority stakeholders – are trying to found a new venture of some kind made up of Ubisoft corporate assets.

Ubisoft Leamington used to be FreeStyleGames, founded in 2002 by former Rare and Codemasters developers. They made break-dancing sim B-Boy for the PSP. Activision bought them in 2008 and put them to work on various music games, including the well-regarded DJ Hero in 2009 and Guitar Hero Live in 2015. Amid declining interest in peripheral-based rhythm games, Activision cut FreeStyle back and eventually sold them to Ubisoft in 2017. Since then, they’ve worked alongside Newcastle-based Ubisoft Reflections as a support studio.

Other Ubisoft developers have been paying tribute to the team on social media, including Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 narrative director Lauren Stone. “If you liked the Classified Assignments, the Leamington Spa team led that feature,” she wrote. “It was a pleasure to work with them, and I consider this a huge loss. They were some of my favorite collaborators. I hope they find safe harbors soon to set anchor.”

Best of luck to everybody affected by all this, in Leamington, Newcastle, Düsseldorf, Stockholm and elsewhere.