Assassin’s Creed makers Ubisoft continue 2023’s gutting of the games industry as they lay off over 100 staff

98 people - cut from its Canadian business administrative services and IT departments, along with the Montreal-based VFX studio Hybride. The numbers represent around 2% of its total Canadian team.

Hybride is predominantly focused on providing visual effects for TV shows and movies, with credits on multiple Star Wars shows and films - including The Mandalorian, Ahsoka and Andor - Disney’s live-action Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast remakes, and sci-fi movie Arrival. The studio’s video game credits include prehistoric FPS spin-off Far Cry Primal.

The latest layoffs follow 60 job losses at Ubisoft’s UK and US customer service teams in May, as well as the planned closure of its London mobile studio - made up of over 50 devs - reported in September.

There has been continued unrest at the publisher this year, which kicked off with their first staff strike in January in response to employees' unhappiness over pay and working conditions. That’s accompanied the controversial unveiling of plans to use an AI dialogue-writing tool and Ubisoft’s ongoing dabbling in NFTs, which have been met with widely negative responses by both developers and players.

So TLDR: Workers strike for better pay/conditions, Board responds with lay offs and AI. As a result, a lot of employees get laid off and replaced with AI, and the remaining have to work harder. Gamers get worse games too (AI, NFTs) and customer service, but its Ubisoft, so that was expected. As long as short-term profits go up, the Shareholders are happy and the Board gets bonuses.