Ubisoft Halifax Closes: Unions on War Footing
Team employees had recently joined the union
2026 begins on the wave of the leitmotif of 2025 - and 2024 - namely the progressive closure and/or reorganization of various internal development teams within larger software houses, with consequent layoffs of employees.
The latest to join the plethora of teams that have shut down is Ubisoft Halifax, the team based in Nova Scotia (Canada) dedicated to developing titles for the mobile market. Among Ubisoft Halifax's works are Rainbow Six Mobile and Assassin's Creed Rebellion.
"Over the past 24 months, Ubisoft has taken company-wide actions to organize operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs - reads a statement reported by Gamesindustry - As part of this, Ubisoft has made the difficult decision to close its Halifax studio. 71 positions will be impacted." The statement continues with the usual reassurances that the company will support former employees in their transition by providing special benefits and assisting in finding new positions - phrases we have read elsewhere many times.
Unions react to layoffs
While the Franco-American company claims that the closure had been planned for some time and was hypothesized as early as 2020, it comes at a very bad time just weeks after 61 of the 71 members of Ubisoft Halifax - perhaps secretly informed of impending layoffs - joined the union Game & Media Workers Guild of Canada, which is part of the Communications Workers of America Canada (CWA).
In a statement published on its website, the union promises to fight against Ubisoft, accusing it, among other things, of having taken the path of layoffs precisely to eliminate unionized employees from its ranks.
"Today's news is devastating - states CWA President Carmel Smyth unequivocally - We will pursue all legal avenues to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed upon in any way."
The closure of Ubisoft Halifax, as we mentioned, is just the most recent piece detached from an increasingly shrinking mosaic and follows that of other internal studios including Massive and RedLynx. Since Ubisoft signed the agreement with Tencent, cost-cutting operations have been significant: when possible, the software house has sold IPs to others, such as Atari; when it was not possible...
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