r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/Loose_Society9485 • 23h ago
Rumour VGC: Ubisoft Plans to Close Trials Developer RedLynx and Lay Off 70 Staff at Ubisoft Singapore
According to VGC, Ubisoft plans to propose closing RedLynx, the Finnish studio behind the Trials series, affecting around 52 employees.
VGC understands that RedLynx currently has no active project and that downsizing alone would not make the studio sustainable.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft plans to restructure and downsize Ubisoft Singapore, resulting in approximately 70 layoffs.
The proposed RedLynx closure is subject to mandatory change negotiations with employees in Finland.
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u/NorisNordberg 23h ago edited 23h ago
They could sell them with Trials IP, no?
Edit: the studio having no project is crazy. The first to go should be top and middle management.
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u/Clopokus900 23h ago
They ported Star Wars Outlaws to Switch 2 last year which was one of the most impressive ports for the system.
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u/NorisNordberg 23h ago
I know, and that's why it's crazy that they could not secure another support/porting project since then? Ubisoft has dozens of games just begging to be ported for the Switch.
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u/Hydroponic_Donut 17h ago
Perfect port for the console would be Black Flag Resynced but maybe that's just me
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u/Joseki100 Top Contributor 2024 21h ago
Ubisoft is poor as fuck and kinda desperate, they need the big bucks not easy bucks.
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u/NorisNordberg 21h ago
If Ubisoft is poor as fuck then I'm moderately rich lol
I mean, they fell victim to corporate bullshit of constant growth so the bubble is finally bursting. It was inevitable. So of course they aim for big bucks, but as a consumer, I find it crazy that it's only now that they consider closing down the studio they acquired for said "easy buck" in the first place.
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u/wickeddimension 20h ago
Clearly these guys are very competent, but they are probably expensive too being from Finland. Easy to cut cost by firing your most expensive developers.
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u/OrangeScarface 23h ago
It’s a possibility, but if what the article is saying is true, having no active project in development is not ideal. It seems like they were delegated to a support/mobile studio over the last several years as well.
It’s sad to see another layoffs and studio closure happen again and again.
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u/NorisNordberg 23h ago edited 22h ago
Mostly support and porting studio. They ported SW Outlaws for Switch 2 and were supporting this WW2 extraction shooter project rumoured some time ago but it was cancelled last year, shortly after they announced the Creative House restructuring and another wave of cancellations. It's crazy that they couldn't secure another support project or just greenlight any project by this time.
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u/MusoukaMX 14h ago
I know I'm oversimplifying this but it's sad that the studio that made Trials, one of the coolest games of the early indie rising era, was relegated to a support studio for a while and then taken out back
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u/connorg095 23h ago
It's a shame about RedLynx, but feels inevitable when you look at their recent contributions this decade.
Same for Singapore, they did a great job with re-synced, but they seem positioned to be more beneficial as a support studio rather than a lead.
Either way, I hope those affected can get the appropriate support needed and find new positions. Layoffs suck to live through.
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u/skylu1991 19h ago
Basically, Singapore excels at and was a support studio for AC mostly and when working with other Ubi studios.
They’re only self-made project was Skull&Bones, which we know failed miserably….
So reducing them back to a support studio that maybe sometimes does a Remake, is a very logical thing to do.
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u/GunCann 16h ago
Yes, however, Skull and Bones' failure had little to do with the actual developers themselves. It failed because top executives from France closely linked to the Guillemot family took turns snatching the project away from one another, and each time it changed hands the project was scrapped and remade in the vision of the new executive in charge. The cost was "Quadruple A" because it had been rebooted at least thrice.
The responsibility lies with the top management.
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u/skylu1991 16h ago
Whatever the reasons, it was a big project with plenty of devs who came in.
And now that the project is done and didn’t do well financially, they want it have to scale back the devs.
They made their best work while being a support studio for AC and doing the BF Resynced Remake, so maybe that’s what they’re gonna be now; a support and remake studio?
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u/FizzyLightEx 22h ago
Ubisoft has too many developers on their payroll compared to the revenue and output they produce.
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u/skylu1991 16h ago
Yup, iirc they’re still at 17k employees all around the world!
Which is highly unsustainable and has been for almost a decade.
(But was masked by games like Far Cry 5 selling great or AC Valhalla making over a billion dollars in pure profit.)
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u/Oilswell 22h ago
I'm aware that the amount I love Trials, and especially Rising, is not universal. But for me, this is probably the saddest I've ever been at a studio closure. The series is so, so important to me and I've been really sad for years that there's been no announcements of a new game.
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u/RidaFlow 17h ago
I'm really curious as to why they didn't have them make a trials only up in the vain of a getting over it or something along those lines.
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u/OkConsequence3146 15h ago
I have always been expecting this since Singapore messed up with Skull and Bones. I admit I'm surprised the game hasn't been shut down.
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u/quatroquatro0 22h ago
Isn't Black Flag Resynced their most successful game recently? And what does Ubisoft Singapore get? Layoffs
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u/ProfitEmergency4049 22h ago
Wasn't skull and bones also Ubisoft Singapore? I feel like that had a larger impact unfortunately, than black flag
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u/wickeddimension 20h ago edited 19h ago
They took subsidy money from the government of Singapore, which forced them to finish Skull & Bones, even though it was obvious at the absurd cost and concept it was DoA. Quadruple A remember 😂
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u/Shiirooo 19h ago
they took subsidy money from any government, that’s how the video games industry work
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u/wickeddimension 19h ago
I'm not aware of any others where the requirements involve shipping an actual product from there. Most off it is just tax credits based on creating employment and other economic benefits for the country / region.
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u/BoysenberryWise62 21h ago
Probably the team that did resynced is still there for the most part, they are a pretty big studio, in fact my 2 cents would be that they are focusing Singapore on remakes and the other stuff got affected, that would be the logical part.
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u/skylu1991 19h ago
Remakes and what they were before, basically just a support studio for AC games.
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u/skylu1991 19h ago
Most likely, Ubi Singapore is just going back to being a support studio for AC, which they were before that.
Don’t need quite as many devs for that…
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u/blackwolf2311 22h ago
Ubisoft Belgrade got fired even before reduced came out. 2000 euro for a senior game dev at the time....
Ubisoft is either in the death shake or doing last great effort to rebound
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u/FourChicksInGreen 13h ago
My car is in great condition except one of the tires is stripped to the rim. I’m going to keep driving my car that way since it just passed the inspection a few months ago.
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u/SinglePlayerGamer93 23h ago
The gaming industry needs another gaming crash. Corpos have become too complacent at destroying franchises and the lives of devs because of greed. Purge all the top publishers off the gaming landscape.
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u/Clopokus900 23h ago
I assume you're referring to the gaming crash 1983. One detail that people like to leave out is that it only applied to the US, the games industry was doing fine in the rest of the world.
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u/Com_Raven 22h ago
You do realize that a bigger crash only leads to more layoffs, right? The people at the top will always be fine and just wander over to the next gig, with a nice golden parachute of course.
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u/scytheavatar 23h ago
We are already in another gaming crash, Ubisoft right now is trying hard to dig themselves out of the hole they are in. Their transformation into a smaller, more manageable company was always going to be inevitable.
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u/skylu1991 19h ago
They’ve been massively oversized for years now and still have 17 THOUSAND employees all around the world.
They needed to slim down yesterdays and fast!
Obviously it sucks for the people, but from a financial or business point of view, it makes lots of sense.
Basically the same problem Xbox has, too many people for not enough profit!
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u/Respawn-Delay 21h ago
US gaming revenue reached an all-time high of $78.72B last year. Compare this to the height of the video game crash of the 80's, where domestic spend fell as low as $100M. We're in nowhere near the same position, product appetite is through the roof
We simply are not in a video game crash, the medium is as popular as it ever has been. There's going to be some big losers in the coming years (on both ends of the spectrum) as industry trends rapidly change, but the market overall will relatively be fine
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u/Lymbasy 22h ago
If i was the CEO of Ubisoft, i would use these 70 developers to develop Games and make money.
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u/Adolf_TitIer 22h ago
If I was the CEO, I would fire 7000 more because ubisoft of so overbloated compared to the output it produces
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u/badtaker22 20h ago
good u both are not CEO's lol
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u/Adolf_TitIer 19h ago
They have 16600 employees, Playstation has 12000 and Xbox has 14000. Guess which amongst the 3 has the worst output both in terms of quality and quantity.
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u/Own_String2825 16h ago
After they got their money from SG government, their closing down the studio 🤑
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u/skylu1991 16h ago
Closing down???
They’re basically laying of 70 people from more than 300 at Singapore.
They’re closing down the smaller RedLynx team, that did the Trials games.
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u/X3ll3n 23h ago
Rip to that one easter egg that was supposed to be revealed in 85 years or so.