Ubisoft has announced the launch of Vantage Studios, a new “creative house” overseeing some of its biggest franchises.
This division is the official name of the new Tencent-backed subsidiary Ubisoft originally confirmed in March. As part of that deal, the Chinese conglomerate has invested €1.16 billion (about C$1.9 billion) into Vantage, giving it a 25 per cent stake in the division.
The Vantage umbrella will include Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six under the purview of five Ubisoft studios: Montréal, Quebec, Sherbrooke and Saguenay (all in Canada) and Barcelona. As previously confirmed, Vantage will be led by Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot, the latter of whom is the son of Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot.
Interestingly, Ubisoft claims that Vantage will actually “giv[e] developers more hands-on control over the games they are building.” The company says the division provides a “streamlined approach” for development to create a “higher level of autonomy for developers and a shorter pathway between gathering and implementing player feedback, while still offering the benefit of Ubisoft’s expertise, services, tools, and tech.” Ubisoft says Vantage is a “first step” in its “ongoing transformation” as it plans to form “additional creative houses” that group its “brands and franchises under the banner of a shared DNA and development expertise.”
It remains to be seen what this will actually mean for Ubisoft’s teams, especially those in Canada. For context, roughly 2,300 employees from across these teams are working at Vantage, according to Eurogamer. It should be noted, however, that this doesn’t include all of the staff at these respective teams. For instance, Ubisoft Montreal, the French gaming giant’s largest studio by far, has around 4,000 employees who work on a variety of titles that aren’t a part of Vantage, including the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake.
In addition to developing many of the flagship games in the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six series, Ubisoft Montreal is also behind the likes of Watch Dogs, Splinter Cell, For Honor and Child of Light, among other titles. Meanwhile, Ubisoft Quebec just launched Assassin’s Creed Shadows earlier this year, while the Sherbrooke, Saguenay and Barcelona teams provide support to various Ubisoft titles.
Vantage also doesn’t include studios like Ubisoft Toronto, which worked on Star Wars Outlaws and is leading development on the Splinter Cell remake, or Sweden’s Massive Entertainment, the main developer of Outlaws and The Division series. Given Ubisoft’s talk of “additional creative houses,” it remains to be seen what, if anything, might be done with these other studios.
This all comes amid an ever-changing time for Ubisoft. Amid a decline in business, there has been speculation that a major company would acquire Ubisoft. Tencent, in particular, had reportedly been eyeing a Ubisoft buyout, following its 10 per cent stake in the company. Of course, that could still happen at some point, but for now, at least, the two companies have Vantage.
Ubisoft isn’t the only major gaming company with Canadian connections on unstable ground. EA announced earlier this week it was going private as part of a US$55 billion (about C$76.6 billion) acquisition by an investor group composed of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (which already holds nearly 10 per cent investment in EA) and the U.S.’ Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. EA owns several Canadian studios, and it remains to be seen what impact the move will have on those workers.
Image credit: Ubisoft
Source: Ubisoft
