Ubisoft Closes Winnipeg, Belgrade Studios; 380 Jobs at Risk

Ubisoft is closing its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios and putting 380 roles at risk in the third and final phase of a €200 million cost plan that has already claimed Stockholm, Halifax, and Red Storm since January 2026. The French publisher confirmed the latest cuts on June 10, affecting its Canadian engine-development hub, its Serbian support studio, and its Spanish office in Barcelona, which will now focus exclusively on the Rainbow Six franchise.

The Two Studios Going Dark

Ubisoft is permanently closing its studios in Winnipeg, Canada, and Belgrade, Serbia, and restructuring its Barcelona office, the publisher confirmed on June 10. Up to 380 roles are at risk across the three sites and the company’s global publishing operation, GamesIndustry.biz first reported, with consultations still underway in different territories. A total count of affected roles is not yet final because redundancy processes in different territories remain open.

Winnipeg was founded in 2018 and held around 100 employees focused on developing technology for Ubisoft’s Anvil and Snowdrop game engines, per VGC. Belgrade, established in 2016, served as a support studio and most recently contributed to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The Barcelona office, which sits separately from Ubisoft Barcelona Mobile in the same city, will remain open but will be refocused on the Rainbow Six franchise after previously supporting titles such as the Rabbids series and Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Mobile operations in the same city are unaffected, and the cuts do not touch Ubisoft’s Sofia studio in Bulgaria.

How the ‘Third and Final Phase’ Adds Up

Ubisoft’s January 21, 2026 reset announcement set out a new structure in which the publisher will operate five so-called Creative Houses, each with end-to-end responsibility for its own brands and a profit-and-loss account. The latest wave lands inside the same restructuring that already shut Stockholm and Halifax in January, and per Ubisoft’s January 21, 2026 reset announcement, chief financial officer Frederick Duguet tied the closures to an additional operating loss the company will record in fiscal 2026. The closures hit three offices simultaneously and touch teams in publishing that previously sat outside the studio network.

The savings split across two identifiable rounds, with the studio closures landing in the larger one. The table below shows where the latest cuts land.

The cost of reaching that target shows up on the income statement. The reset, the game delays, and the suspension of some B2B partnerships will produce a “non-cash impact in depreciation of our capitalized R&D for around €650 million, impacting fiscal 2026, on top of a gross margin reduction of €330 million,” Duguet told GamesIndustry.biz. That adds up to roughly a €1 billion non-IFRS operating loss for fiscal 2026, against prior guidance of around zero. Duguet characterised the new spending profile as a “deliberate choice for us to refocus our resources on the projects with the strongest potential, with the objective to increase quality meaningfully in the more selective market.” The most recent financial results showed a sharp decline in revenue and net bookings, and the company said it expects the current financial year to “represent a low point in our free cash flow trajectory,” citing costs associated with redundancies.

What They Built Before the Doors Closed

Winnipeg’s roughly 100 engineers worked on the Canadian divisions of Ubisoft’s two main in-house engines, Anvil (the engine that powered the original Assassin’s Creed) and Snowdrop (which underpins games such as Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege), and on Scalar, Ubisoft’s cloud-native computing technology. Winnipeg teams had contributed to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, Watch Dogs: Legion, and the then-upcoming Rainbow Six Mobile.

Belgrade opened in 2016 as a PC-focused studio before shifting to console projects including Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, Steep, The Crew 2, and Skull & Bones. The Serbian team most recently supported Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, both slated for release later in 2026. The studio’s roughly 100 employees have been told the office will close entirely, local reporting said. Belgrade’s broader game credits also include The Crew 2, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, and Riders Republic, per VGC. The closures come as Ubisoft prepares one of its lightest release slates in years, headed by Black Flag Resynced and the recently-announced Rayman Legends Retold.

Barcelona, for its part, will remain open but will be rebuilt around a single franchise. The studio previously supported the Rabbids series and Star Trek: Bridge Crew alongside its Rainbow Six work. Local sources told GamesIndustry.biz that 61 jobs in Barcelona are affected, even though the full count of impacted roles across the company is not yet final.

In a separate but parallel decision, Ubisoft has also reduced headcount across its global publishing team, with job losses in offices the company has not yet named. The cuts form a single coordinated wave alongside the studio closures, even though they touch different parts of the company. Ubisoft did not respond to Game Developer’s request for comment on the latest round, leaving the publicly stated 380 figure as the working number. A total count of affected roles was not clear due to ongoing redundancy processes in different territories, GamesIndustry.biz reported.

A Headcount Drop From 20,000 to 16,590

The 380 roles at risk this week add to a year of cuts that has reshaped Ubisoft’s staffing map. Back in 2023, the publisher employed more than 20,000 staff; as of this year, and before this week’s changes, that figure was down to 16,590, per IGN. The Winnipeg and Belgrade closures will push the published number lower still once severance and consultation processes run their course.

The 2026 wave started in January, when Ubisoft closed its Stockholm and Halifax studios entirely, cancelled six games including the long-awaited Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, and laid off staff at its Abu Dhabi office, at Trials studio RedLynx, and at the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora outfit Massive Entertainment. A week later, the publisher proposed eliminating up to 200 jobs at its Paris headquarters, or roughly 18% of staff there. In February, 40 jobs were cut at the Toronto studio, and French unions that include Ubisoft workers staged an international strike in response to the wave; the same calendar year also saw Double Fine’s unionization filing with the CWA. Ubisoft also confirmed layoffs at its Toronto studio during the same stretch.

In March, 105 staff were set to depart veteran Tom Clancy studio Red Storm Entertainment, which will no longer develop its own games and will instead focus on the Snowdrop engine, IT, and consumer support. Ubisoft has been making cuts for five years, GamesIndustry.biz noted, but the scale inside calendar 2026 is the largest concentration in that stretch.

• Headcount dropped from 20,000+ in 2023 to 16,590 in 2026, per IGN.
• 6 games cancelled in the reset, including the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake.
• 7 games delayed for additional development time.
• Around €1 billion in additional non-IFRS operating loss projected for fiscal 2026.
• 200 jobs proposed for Paris HQ, or roughly 18% of staff there.

Five Creative Houses Replace the Old Model

Ubisoft’s reset announcement re-organised the publisher into five so-called Creative Houses, each focused on a distinct genre and given end-to-end responsibility for the brands it controls. The model is the publisher’s answer to a market it now describes as “persistently more selective,” with rising development costs and tighter competition in AAA and shooter genres. The five houses together cover the bulk of Ubisoft’s active franchises, from Assassin’s Creed down to Hungry Shark.

CH1, branded as Vantage Studios and backed by a €1.16 billion ($1.25 billion) investment from Tencent that closed in November 2025, will scale Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six into what Ubisoft calls “annual billionaire brands.” The Tencent deal gave the Chinese company a 26.32% economic interest in Vantage, with Ubisoft retaining exclusive control. Vantage’s roster of studios includes Montreal, Quebec, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona, and Sofia. Several of those studios sit in regions affected by this year’s broader cuts, though Vantage itself is structurally protected by the Tencent deal.

CH2 handles competitive and cooperative shooters, including Ghost Recon, The Division, and Splinter Cell. CH3 runs a smaller slate of “select, sharp” live experiences such as Brawlhalla, For Honor, Riders Republic, Skull & Bones, and The Crew. CH4 covers immersive fantasy and narrative-driven worlds, with Anno, Might & Magic, Rayman, Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good & Evil.

CH5, the casual and family-friendly house, picks up Just Dance, Uno, Hungry Shark, Invincible: Guarding the Globe, and the company’s licensed Hasbro titles. The model is supported by a “Creative Network” of internal studios providing production capacity, plus a “Core Services” division handling production services, technology, and business operations. To support the new model, Ubisoft intends to return all staff to the office five days per week, complemented by an annual allowance of working-from-home days. Each Creative House will operate with dedicated leadership teams, incentives aligned to long-term value creation, and “genuine creative autonomy,” per the reset announcement. The publisher will tell staff this week which studios will fall under each Creative House, a step that will set the shape of the post-closure network.

The Bill for Post-Covid Overexpansion

The studio closures are the most visible sign yet of a reckoning that Ubisoft itself has begun to name. The publisher’s own leadership has framed the cuts as the cost of a post-Covid expansion that produced more projects than the market would support. In an email interview with Variety, CEO Yves Guillemot put it in plain terms.

Following the post-Covid period, the industry grew very quickly, anticipating sustained demand that didn’t fully materialize. On our part, this led to too many projects and increased complexity.

Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft’s co-founder and CEO, made the comment in Yves Guillemot’s email interview on the reset, which also addressed the company’s AI experiments and the road ahead for franchises like Rayman and Assassin’s Creed. The same reset is the one that has produced six game cancellations, including the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, and seven delays, alongside a return-to-office mandate that pulls all staff back to five days on site per week. The result is a smaller, more focused company in headcount and project count, but one whose fiscal 2026 income statement will show the cost of the contraction in detail; Duguet told GamesIndustry.biz that the company will also consider “potential asset divestment” as part of the cost-cutting process, and the closing press release for the Tencent investment shows how the new structure was financed before the cuts began. None of the three affected offices has a confirmed closure date yet; the consultations across multiple territories will set the calendar.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Ubisoft studios are closing?

Ubisoft is permanently closing its Winnipeg studio in Canada and its Belgrade studio in Serbia, the publisher confirmed on June 10. The Barcelona office remains open but is being refocused exclusively on the Rainbow Six franchise.

How many jobs are being cut?

Up to 380 roles are understood to be at risk across the Winnipeg, Belgrade, and Barcelona sites, and across Ubisoft’s global publishing operation. Local sources said 61 jobs are affected in Barcelona; full counts in other territories are pending consultation.

Why is Ubisoft closing these studios?

The closures are part of a €200 million cost-saving program that runs through 2028, the third and final phase of a broader restructuring announced in January 2026. The cuts also fund a shift to a five-house creative model that the publisher says is built for a persistently more selective AAA market.

What is replacing the old studio model?

Ubisoft will operate five Creative Houses, each focused on a distinct genre and given end-to-end responsibility for its own brands and profit-and-loss account. Vantage Studios, backed by Tencent, will run Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six; the other four houses cover shooters, live experiences, fantasy worlds, and casual and family-friendly games.

When did the cost-cutting begin?

Ubisoft announced its major reset on January 21, 2026, and the company has been making cuts for five years, GamesIndustry.biz noted. The current wave started with the January closures of Stockholm and Halifax, continued through February layoffs in Paris and Toronto, the March Red Storm departure, and now the June 10 announcement on Winnipeg and Belgrade.