Ubisoft Halifax, the studio responsible for developing Assassin's Creed Rebellion and working on games like Rainbow Six Mobile, has been shut down less than three weeks after it became Ubisoft's first North American location to unionize.
According to an internal staff email seen by VGC, the decision to close the Halifax location was made as part of "company-wide cost-cutting and restructuring measures" (that's VGC's wording, not Ubisoft's), and not because of its recent unionization.
In a statement given to VGC (which is full of the usual corporate fluff), Ubisoft said the closure was due to a company-wide push to "streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs", and that Halifax's 71 employees are being offered "comprehensive severance packages and additional career assistance".
Ubisoft Halifax's best-known export is probably the mobile game Assassin's Creed Rebellion, and Ubisoft will apparently be halting live operations for Assassin's Creed Rebellion following "a steady decline in the game's revenues", according to Gamesindustry.biz.
As such, while the timing of Halifax's shutdown might seem a little suspicious, I'd be inclined to believe Ubisoft when it says the decision has been made for cost-cutting reasons, as callous as that might sound. After all, it's been...
