Ubisoft is closing its development studios in Winnipeg, Canada and Belgrade, Serbia as part of another round of cost-cutting that will eliminate up to 380 positions across the company, according to reporting from IGN.
The closures represent the latest blow to a publisher that has spent the past four years in near-constant restructuring. The Barcelona studio will be refocused exclusively on Rainbow Six titles, shedding its work on other franchises like Rabbids and Star Trek: Bridge Crew.
Additional layoffs are expected in Ubisoft's global publishing division and at the Barcelona location, as the company continues to shrink its workforce. The French publisher had more than 20,000 employees in 2023 but reported just 16,590 staff members earlier this year before announcing today's cuts.
The studio closures cap a devastating start to 2025 for Ubisoft. In January alone, the company canceled six games including the long-gestating Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, shuttered studios in Stockholm and Halifax, and cut jobs at offices in Abu Dhabi and at the studios behind Trials and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. That same month, Ubisoft announced plans to eliminate 200 positions at its Paris headquarters, sparking protests from French workers.
February brought further cuts to Ubisoft Toronto following the elimination of 40 positions there, though the company moved quickly to assure fans that the Splinter Cell remake remained in active development. In March, Red Storm Entertainment, the veteran studio behind the Tom Clancy franchise, saw 105 departures as part of a permanent downsizing that marked the studio's third major layoff since 2022.
The relentless pace of closures and job losses reflects broader struggles at Ubisoft, where profit margins have thinned and the pipeline of blockbuster releases has slowed considerably. The publisher has cycled through multiple leadership transitions and strategic pivots, yet the financial pressure continues to mount.
Author Emily Chen: "At some point, closing studios and cutting hundreds of jobs at a time stops looking like smart business and starts looking like a company in freefall. Ubisoft needs to prove it still knows how to make games people want to play, not just how to cut faster."
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