Red Storm Entertainment – the storied game development studio behind the Ghost Recon game series – has reportedly been shifted to a tech support role by Ubisoft. As a result, 105 developers have lost their jobs.
According to VGC, the news was broken internally at Ubisoft and will see Red Storm Entertainment continue as as global IT and Snowdrop support studio. As such, all game developers have been made redundant.
The North-Carolinian studio was founded in 1996, and first adapted the Tom Clancy novels into a number of military games including Tom Clancy’s Politika and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. Its last published game was Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, released in 2023. Since then it had also worked on Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland, which was cancelled in 2024.
Acquired by Ubisoft in 2000 – the studio continued its work creating adaptations and expansions on the Tom Clancy franchise – including Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. It also assisted in the development of several Far Cry games during its run.
However, in recent years, the IP has been primarily handled by a number of Ubisoft studios such as Ubisoft Montreal and Massive Entertainment. As such, recent releases by Red Storm Entertainment had been focused on VR, including the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR as well as Werewolves Within and the excellent Star Trek Bridge Crew.
These cuts come as major cancellations and layoffs are being made at Ubisoft. This includes the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake which was cancelled earlier this year. The company also closed development offices including Ubisoft Halifax and Ubisoft Stockholm. It also restructured its offices in Abu Dhabi, the Redlynx studio, and Massive Entertainment resulting in job losses.
The reasoning behind this “major organisational, operational and portfolio reset” is to respond to a “persistently more selective AAA market and an increasingly competitive shooter landscape”. Many of its biggest IPs have been moved under new creative houses.
