After several months of planning and seeking other forms of investment, Ubisoft's move to create a spin-off games company to work on some of its biggest franchises is now up and running. Coming straight from the company itself, Ubisoft and Tencent have now created 'Vantage Studios' to develop and distribute some huge Ubisoft IP.
This IP will include the likes of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six, with Vantage Studios comprising of multiple existing branches of the French game maker. The move to bring them all the under Vantage Studios roof is seemingly to decentralise the company and allow each team to be more freeform in its decision making.
"Following the recent announcement of Ubisoft's new subsidiary and its two co-CEOs, the company today announced the launch of Vantage Studios, the newly created "creative house" now responsible for some of Ubisoft's largest franchises: Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. Led by Charlie Guillemot and Christophe Derennes, Vantage Studios will take on development and expansion of these brands, building on the foundation of Ubisoft's experience and expertise, sharing services and technical resources, all while giving developers more hands-on control over the games they are building.
Vantage Studios represents a first step in Ubisoft's ongoing transformation, with plans to set up additional creative houses and group its brands and franchises under the banner of a shared DNA and development expertise. The goal of Vantage Studios, and future creative houses, is to facilitate stronger and deeper connections between developers and players. This streamlined approach allows for both 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."
Of course, Ubisoft hasn't done this out of the kindness of its own heart - financial difficulties and reports of a toxic work culture have seemingly led them here. Still, we're hoping that this move can lead to a more consistent output for these storied franchises, and hopefully better working conditions for the folks bringing these games to life.
At the moment, we don't have much information on the next mainline entries in these franchises, but we'll be monitoring the situation to see how this all plays out between Ubisoft and Vantage Studios. In the meantime, you can read up on some of the history behind this new Ubisoft & Tencent endeavour down below.