Ubisoft Montreal lays off staff amidst larger company reductions

Ubisoft is reducing staff at its various Canadian offices, including Ubisoft Montreal. The French developer confirmed to Kotaku that it's let go of 98 employees spread across its IT department, along with general and administrative teams and the special effects studio Hybride. 

More layoffs will be conducted across those Canadian subsidiaries. In total, 124 positions are said to be cut when all is said and done. This marks the fourth round of layoffs for Ubisoft specifically this year, following cuts in its customer service and community teams and the full-on closure of its London studio.

"By consolidating these functions Canada-wide, Ubisoft will be able to optimize its resources to be more sustainable in the long term," it wrote in a notice to the Quebec government. It went on to call the layoffs "a collective dismissal in its Montreal establishment within the framework of a reorganization of its production support services across Canada."

The Montreal office is one of Ubisoft's largest studios, and best known for 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla and 2022's Rainbow Six Extraction. Earlier this year, it revealed it'd rebooted the remake of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, which is in development alongside an Assassin's Creed game codenamed Project Hexe. 

In October, Ubisoft revealed Montreal (the city) would serve as the production hub for its various North American offices. The news came weeks after an IGN report alleging discord at Ubisoft Montreal following the parent company's semi-reversal on its remote work policy initiated during the early days of the pandemic. 

Employees must now come to the office two days of the five-day work week, which many speculate was part of a larger effort to get staff to leave without having to pay severance. They further claimed that pre-pandemic, working at the office could be taxing due to noise complaints and lack of accessibility accommodations. 

Many told IGN they doubt Ubisoft will improve its workplace conditions, both in terms of the physical office space and the larger cultural issues that still hang over the larger company.