The UK gaming scene just got a bit smaller. Ubisoft's Leamington studio, the team that helped bring us games like The Division and Far Cry 5, is shutting its doors. It's not just Leamington feeling the impact – Ubisoft's cutting a total of 185 jobs across several European studios, including teams in Düsseldorf, Stockholm, and Newcastle.
For those who don't remember, Leamington's got quite the history in British gaming. Back in 2002, some veterans from Rare and Codemasters got together and created FreeStyleGames. If you ever spent time with DJ Hero, that was their work. After Activision picked them up, they jumped into Guitar Hero and Call of Duty before Ubisoft brought them into the fold in 2017.
While a handful of Leamington devs will keep working remotely, the cuts are hitting other studios too. The Düsseldorf team (the folks behind Anno and The Settlers), Stockholm (who just wrapped up Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora), and the Newcastle-based Reflections studio are all seeing downsizing.
The timing here is rough. Star Wars Outlaws hasn't taken off, XDefiant's servers sit empty, and Assassin's Creed Shadows' development seems stuck in limbo. The layoffs are just part of Ubisoft's ongoing transformation. Two years ago, they had a massive team of 20,279 developers. Now? Just 18,666 remain. There's buzz about Tencent making moves to acquire the company, but founder Yves Guillemot isn't interested in giving up the publisher his family built. Meanwhile, the veteran developers who crafted hits like The Division and Far Cry are packing up their desks, joining the growing crowd of talented game makers looking for their next project.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft's offering the standard corporate response about being "deeply grateful" to affected staff and promising transition support.
March 20th looms large on Ubisoft's calendar. That's when Assassin's Creed Shadows drops - and given everything happening at the company, its launch feels more crucial than ever.
We'll update this story as we learn more about what these changes mean for both Ubisoft and the broader gaming landscape.
