Ubisoft announced this week that it is shutting down its Halifax-based studio just weeks after the team voted to unionize, a move the company insists is unrelated to labor organization and instead part of a broader, ongoing effort to cut costs and restructure its business (h/t IGN). The timing, however, has made that distinction difficult to ignore.
According to Ubisoft, 71 employees were impacted by the closure of Ubisoft Halifax, which had been responsible for mobile projects including Assassin’s Creed: Rebellion and work on Rainbow Six Mobile. The publisher told IGN that the decision was part of a two-year company-wide plan to “streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs,” and cited declining revenues from Assassin’s Creed: Rebellion, which will also be winding down.
The shutdown comes just three weeks after 61 of the studio’s 71 employees voted to unionize with the Game & Media Workers Guild of Canada, itself part of the Communications Workers of America. That vote marked Ubisoft’s first officially recognized union in North America, following months of organizing and a certification process that concluded in late 2025.
Ubisoft has been clear in its messaging: the closure, it says, has nothing to do with the union. From a purely corporate standpoint, that explanation aligns with the company’s recent history. Ubisoft has spent the last several years laying off staff in waves, canceling projects, shuttering studios, and restructuring its business amid disappointing releases and declining revenues. In 2025, the publisher even spun up a new business entity to oversee major franchises Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, with Tencent acquiring a 25% stake.
Still, context matters.
Closing a studio mere weeks after a successful union vote creates uncomfortable optics, regardless of intent. For labor advocates and industry observers, it raises questions about how secure unionized teams can realistically feel in an environment where cost-cutting remains the overriding priority.
Those concerns are amplified by Ubisoft’s own history. Two years ago, it was reported that there was an unsuccessful unionization effort at Longtail Studios’ Quebec branch during 2008-2009, when sources at the time alleged management engaged in union-busting tactics, including mass layoffs attributed to economic conditions. Both the Quebec and Halifax branches of Longtail were later folded into Ubisoft after the company acquired the studio in 2015.
Unsurprisingly, the newly formed Ubisoft Workers of Canada: Halifax expressed devastation at the closure and has said it is exploring all available options to fight for its members’ rights. Whether that effort leads to any formal challenge remains to be seen.
What is clear is that Ubisoft now finds itself at the center of a familiar tension in the games industry: a growing push for worker organization colliding with publishers under intense financial pressure. Ubisoft may insist this closure is totally not union-busting, but in an industry already skeptical of corporate assurances, the timing ensures the debate is far from settled.
