TL;DR
Ubisoft is closing its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios and cutting up to 380 roles, marking one of the largest single-day workforce reductions in the company's history. The closures come as the French publisher continues to restructure following a string of commercial disappointments and mounting pressure from investors to cut costs.
What Happened
Ubisoft announced the permanent closure of its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, with potential layoffs affecting up to 380 employees across the company. The cuts represent roughly 3% of Ubisoft's global workforce of approximately 12,000, and follow a pattern of studio closures and project cancellations that have reshaped the publisher over the past three years.
Key Facts
- Ubisoft is closing its Winnipeg, Canada studio and its Belgrade, Serbia office, with the potential elimination of up to 380 roles.
- The Winnipeg studio employed approximately 120 people and had been working on unannounced projects; the Belgrade studio housed roughly 80 staff focused on backend and live operations support.
- The closures were announced on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, and are expected to take effect over the next 60 to 90 days.
- This is Ubisoft's third major restructuring wave since January 2024, following cuts that eliminated 1,000+ roles in total.
- The affected studios were part of Ubisoft's "operational efficiency" program launched in February 2025 to reduce studio overlap and centralize development.
- Ubisoft's share price dropped 4.3% on the day of the announcement, closing at €18.72 on the Euronext Paris exchange.
- The company's Montreal and Paris headquarters remain unaffected, but Ubisoft has not ruled out further site consolidations in 2027.
Breaking It Down
The closure of the Winnipeg and Belgrade studios is not a sudden decision but the culmination of a two-year cost-cutting campaign. Since Ubisoft's disastrous holiday 2023 launch of Skull and Bones — which sold fewer than 1 million units against a development budget of $200 million — the company has been under relentless pressure from activist investors, including AJ Investments, which holds a 5.2% stake and has publicly demanded a breakup of the company or a sale to private equity.
380 roles represent the largest single-day job loss in Ubisoft's history, surpassing the 280 layoffs announced in February 2025 when the company canceled three unannounced projects.
The Winnipeg studio was established in 2018 as part of a Canadian tax-incentive expansion, employing 120 developers primarily on live-service support for Assassin's Creed and Rainbow Six Siege. The Belgrade office, opened in 2021, housed 80 engineers focused on backend infrastructure and quality assurance. Both sites were considered "non-core" by Ubisoft's leadership, which has increasingly concentrated talent in Montreal, Paris, and Barcelona.
The decision reflects a broader industry trend: AAA publishers are abandoning the "hub-and-spoke" model of distributed studios in favor of consolidating development in fewer, larger centers. Ubisoft's Montreal studio now employs over 4,000 people — more than the entire workforce of some indie publishers — and is absorbing most of the projects previously handled by satellite offices.
What Comes Next
- Severance and relocation packages will be finalized by September 2026, with affected employees offered transfers to Montreal or Paris if they accept a 10–15% pay cut due to cost-of-living adjustments between cities.
- Ubisoft will report its Q1 2027 earnings on July 15, 2026, where CEO Yves Guillemot is expected to face questions about further studio rationalization, particularly the fate of Ubisoft's Sao Paulo and Osaka offices.
- The company's 2026 holiday lineup — including Assassin's Creed: Hexe and a new Far Cry title — will proceed without contribution from the closed studios, potentially delaying two unannounced live-service projects previously managed from Winnipeg.
- AJ Investments has scheduled a shareholder meeting for August 12, 2026, where it will push for a vote on breaking Ubisoft into separate gaming, publishing, and IP licensing divisions.
The Bigger Picture
This story sits at the intersection of two major trends: AAA studio consolidation and activist investor pressure. Ubisoft is not alone — Electronic Arts closed its Montreal studio in March 2026, and Take-Two Interactive shuttered Roll7 and Intercept Games in 2024. The industry is shedding jobs at a rate of roughly 12,000 per year since 2023, with publishers prioritizing margin over headcount.
The second trend is geographic arbitrage in game development. Ubisoft opened its Belgrade studio specifically to access lower-cost Eastern European engineering talent, but the savings proved insufficient to justify the management overhead of running a separate office. As remote work matures, companies are finding it cheaper to hire individual contractors in Serbia, Poland, and Romania than to maintain physical studios there — a shift that will likely accelerate through 2027.
Key Takeaways
- [380 job cuts]: The largest single-day layoff in Ubisoft history, representing ~3% of its global workforce and the closure of two studios.
- [Winnipeg and Belgrade closures]: Both studios were opened within the last eight years as part of expansion plans that have now been reversed.
- [Activist investor pressure]: AJ Investments continues to push for a breakup of Ubisoft, with a shareholder vote scheduled for August 2026.
- [Industry consolidation]: Ubisoft's cuts mirror a broader AAA trend of closing satellite studios and centralizing development in fewer, larger hubs.
