Ubisoft

Ubisoft
Information
Type	Public company
Industry	Video games
Founded	28 March 1986
Founder	Christian Guillemot, Claude Guillemot, Gerard Guillemot, Michel Guillemot, Yves Guillemot
Headquarters	Saint-Mande, France
Notable Personnel	Yves Guillemot (Chairman and CEO)
Products	Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Just Dance
Website	https://www.ubisoft.com

Ubisoft is a French video game publisher and developer founded on 28 March 1986 by five brothers of the Guillemot family: Christian, Claude, Gerard, Michel, and Yves Guillemot. It is headquartered in Saint-Mande, in the Paris region of France, with Yves Guillemot as chairman and chief executive. The company is best known for franchises such as Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, and it operates development studios across several countries.

Between 2016 and 2023 Ubisoft was one of the few large publishers to invest in Virtual Reality game development, releasing original titles including Eagle Flight, Werewolves Within, Star Trek: Bridge Crew, Space Junkies, and Assassin's Creed Nexus VR, alongside location-based VR escape rooms set in its Assassin's Creed universe. The publisher scaled back its VR commitment after the disappointing sales of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR, and in March 2026 it closed Red Storm Entertainment, the studio that had developed most of its VR catalogue.

Company background

The Guillemot family ran an agricultural support and distribution business in Brittany before the five brothers moved into computer software, and Ubisoft was incorporated on 28 March 1986. The company grew into one of the largest video game publishers in Europe and listed on the Paris stock exchange. Yves Guillemot remains chairman and chief executive. Ubisoft reported 17,097 employees as of 30 September 2025, down from 18,666 a year earlier.

In 2025 Ubisoft restructured its largest franchises into a new Tencent-backed subsidiary, Vantage Studios, which became operational on 1 October 2025 and took over development of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Tencent invested about 1.16 billion euros for a roughly 26 percent economic interest in the subsidiary, which Ubisoft continued to control and consolidate.

Virtual reality games

Ubisoft announced its first slate of VR games in 2016 and supported cross-platform multiplayer across the major PC and console headsets of the period. Its titles ran on the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive through SteamVR, and the PlayStation VR, with later releases moving to standalone Meta Quest 2 hardware.

Title	VR release	Developer	Platforms	Status
Eagle Flight	18 October 2016 (Rift); 8 November 2016 (PSVR); 20 December 2016 (Vive)	Ubisoft Montreal	Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, HTC Vive	Released
Werewolves Within	6 December 2016	Red Storm Entertainment	Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR	Released
Star Trek: Bridge Crew	30 May 2017; 16 December 2019 (Quest)	Red Storm Entertainment	Oculus Rift, SteamVR, PlayStation VR, Oculus Quest	Delisted 14 February 2022
Space Junkies	26 March 2019	Ubisoft Montpellier	Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR	Post-launch support ended 2019; PC servers retired September 2022
Assassin's Creed Nexus VR	16 November 2023	Red Storm Entertainment	Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro	Released
Just Dance VR: Welcome to Dancity	15 October 2024	Ubisoft Paris with Soul Assembly	Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S, Meta Quest Pro	Released

Eagle Flight

Eagle Flight was Ubisoft's first VR game. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, it places the player in control of an eagle flying through a Paris reclaimed by nature fifty years after humanity has vanished, competing in aerial territory battles. Players steer by tilting their head, a control scheme the team designed to reduce motion discomfort. It launched for the Oculus Rift on 18 October 2016, for the PlayStation VR on 8 November 2016, and for the HTC Vive on 20 December 2016. The game won the Immersive Reality Technical Achievement award at the 20th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards in February 2017.

Werewolves Within

Werewolves Within is a multiplayer social deduction game developed by Red Storm Entertainment, adapting the hidden-role party game format to VR. Up to eight players assume medieval village roles and debate to identify hidden werewolves among them. It released on 6 December 2016 for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR with cross-platform play between all three headsets. A live-action film adaptation of the same name, unconnected to the VR gameplay, was released in 2021.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew

Star Trek: Bridge Crew, developed by Red Storm Entertainment, casts up to four players as the bridge officers of the Federation starship USS Aegis, with cooperative roles for captain, helm, tactical, and engineering. It is set in the alternate timeline of the 2009 Star Trek film. The game launched on 30 May 2017 for the Oculus Rift, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR, and a standalone Oculus Quest version with cross-play arrived on 16 December 2019. Ubisoft delisted the game from Steam and the Oculus Store on 14 February 2022, a removal attributed to the expiry of its Star Trek licensing agreement with the franchise's rights holder.

Space Junkies

Space Junkies is a VR-exclusive multiplayer arena shooter developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, set in zero gravity. It released on 26 March 2019 for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR with cross-platform play. Ubisoft ended post-launch development of the game in 2019 and cancelled a planned non-VR version. The PC online servers were retired on 1 September 2022 as part of a broader Ubisoft shutdown of online services for older titles; because Space Junkies has no single-player mode, the game became unplayable on PC at that point.

Assassin's Creed Nexus VR

Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is the Assassin's Creed franchise's first dedicated VR game, developed by Red Storm Entertainment with support from several other Ubisoft studios. It released on 16 November 2023 for the Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Meta Quest Pro. The game lets players relive missions as three series protagonists, Ezio Auditore in Renaissance Venice, Kassandra in ancient Greece, and Connor during the American Revolution, using full physical movement for climbing, stealth, and combat. It received generally favourable reviews, with a Metacritic score of 78 out of 100. It won Best AR/VR Game at the 16th Unity Awards.

On a 9 February 2024 earnings call, Yves Guillemot said Ubisoft had been "a bit disappointed" by what it achieved with the game commercially: "It did okay, and it continues to sell, but we thought it would sell more, so we are not increasing our investment on VR at the moment, because it needs to take off."

Just Dance VR

Just Dance VR: Welcome to Dancity is a VR adaptation of Ubisoft's Just Dance rhythm series, developed by Ubisoft Paris in association with Soul Assembly. It released on 15 October 2024 as a Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S, and Meta Quest Pro exclusive. An earlier version had been planned for the Pico 4 headset before that effort was scrapped, after which Ubisoft moved the project to a Meta Quest release with a new partner.

Location-based VR escape rooms

Ubisoft also produces room-scale VR escape rooms under the Ubisoft Escape Games brand, built by Ubisoft Blue Byte (Ubisoft Dusseldorf) for commercial entertainment venues rather than home headsets. Teams of two to four players wear VR headsets and cooperate to solve puzzles within a time limit.

The first, Escape the Lost Pyramid, is set in the world of Assassin's Creed Origins and opened in July 2018 at eight locations before expanding more widely. A second experience, Beyond Medusa's Gate, is tied to Assassin's Creed Odyssey and tasks players with escaping a coastal cave that holds the ship of the Argonauts; by May 2019 it was available at more than 100 location-based entertainment centres across the United States and Europe.

VR strategy and pullback

Ubisoft entered VR earlier and more heavily than most large publishers, but framed its early titles as a learning exercise in a small market rather than a core business. In 2020 the company announced two Oculus VR projects with Facebook, an untitled Assassin's Creed VR game and a Splinter Cell VR game, both led by Red Storm Entertainment. The Assassin's Creed title eventually shipped as Assassin's Creed Nexus VR in 2023, but Splinter Cell VR was cancelled in July 2022, alongside several non-VR projects, as part of a cost-optimisation drive. After Assassin's Creed Nexus VR underperformed commercially, Guillemot said in February 2024 that the company would not increase its VR investment until the market grew further.

In March 2026, as part of a wider cost-reduction reset, Ubisoft announced the closure of Red Storm Entertainment, the North Carolina studio that had developed Werewolves Within, Star Trek: Bridge Crew, and Assassin's Creed Nexus VR. The shutdown eliminated about 105 development roles, with remaining staff moved to IT and Snowdrop engine support.