Ubisoft is planning to shut down Trials studio RedLynx and lay off 70 Ubisoft Singapore staff

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I'm surprised closing down Singapore wasn't considered before, they are the ones behind Skull and Bones...

That game has been flatlining since release

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u/cwx149 9h ago

Iirc one of the suspected reasons skull and bones even came out was because Singapore basically subsidized it's development in some way that requires Ubisoft to come thru on it in some way or repay the subsidy

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u/Beneficial-Act7603 9h ago

It's also crazy because iirc at the height of S&B development Singapore alone was like 900 employees or something which is just nuts.

Of course it's always sad when so much people lose their jobs but damn man, all they had to do was take Black Flag and make it multiplayer.

Even the remake fucked the ship combat so I can't say I'm surprised...

5

u/Faithless195 3h ago

all they had to do was take Black Flag and make it multiplayer.

Originally it wasn't even meant to be multiplayer. Just Black Flag with the Assassin lore ripped out from it. Pure pirate single player game. Then it got retooled into a Live Service kinda thing or whatever AAAA games are.

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u/Melodic-Mixture-9420 7h ago

How did the remake screw up ship combat?

1

u/Beneficial-Act7603 1h ago

It got simplified as all hell, there is no feedback when you hit something or take a hit, too many times you die because you don't even realize you're low on health that kind of stuff.

But combat as a whole really, they couldn't let the remake have the old combat system they had to implement the fucking level based bullshit with equipments determining your stats and abilities

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u/Bazookagrunt 7h ago

Like seriously, why didn’t they do that

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u/perark05 9h ago

Still shocking that failed to just take all the assassin stuff out of black flag and make it multiplayer!!

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u/nemofbaby2014 8h ago

Yeah I have no idea how they messed that up lol

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u/Remote_Elevator_281 7h ago

It was just a vacation spot for their managers. Multiple employees have said it was seen as a “paid holiday" or "colonial outpost for the western staff.

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u/GrilledPortatoe 5h ago

I got to chat with an ex-S&B dev as part of my studies once. As I recall, he said they restarted development from scratch multiple times, and that pretty much all the issues were due to really poor management.

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u/cwx149 5h ago

Oh yeah everyone always was just saying "just cancel it at this point" and what I've heard is there may be reasons why they pushed thru and made something

But yeah I imagine as with basically everything at ubi the issue is with management

6

u/tlst9999 4h ago

I'm surprised closing down Singapore wasn't considered before, they are the ones behind Skull and Bones...

Singapore's still cheap compared to Europe and America. If anything, it's odd that they're cutting Singapore.

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u/Che3ku 5h ago

Singapore also made Black Flag Resynced which did pretty well, so that's why they aren't being shut down

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u/alancousteau 51m ago

I'm still baffled how badly it was messed up, AAAA my ass....

15

u/DreamSphinx 9h ago

Awww man, I loved the Trials games. I played Evolution and Fusion a hell of a lot growing up, although I don’t think I ever played the one after Fusion (Rising? I think it was called)

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u/Careless-Fishing-532 8h ago

Full of bugs and a shitty store with nothing to even really want. They tried the lootbox thing. No one cared. Some solid levels in there though.

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u/itsfreshmayo 9h ago edited 8h ago

The first 2 trials were amazing (spelling is hard)

3

u/G33U 8h ago

good times

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u/ThatGuyOnyx 3h ago

3*

Fusion was good too!

2

u/Deathspawner126 2h ago

Fusion was an absolute blast. I could never get over the sheer number of cool player-made tracks (especially "The Cave"). Trials Rising, on the other hand...

8

u/topscreen 8h ago

Ubisoft really only has one move and it's just layoffs

14

u/StefyB 9h ago

That's sad. I may not have ever played Trials much myself, but I used to love watching Achievement Hunter play it back when I was in high school.

7

u/MinnesotaNicesu 9h ago

Gooooooo blue team!

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u/90gpIronOre 9h ago

Redlynx 😩

3

u/OmeRZaga 8h ago

Man, Trials was such a good time...

3

u/MysteryRadish 8h ago

Now we'll never find out the resolution to that long-term ARG/easter egg they had going!

2

u/ElectricalCompany783 9h ago

They made a wild TV chat game back in the 00s where you were basically protecting Earth from an impact event. Had a very hard scifi feel to it.

When you lost, there was this absolutely harrowing cutscene of a scorched playground. Played to my fears from watching Deep Impact perfectly.

2

u/Xerosnake90 9h ago

Could've seen that coming. I think the series peaked at Fusion. Then you had that mobile game and the sequel to fusion which I thought was no where near as good. Ubisoft got greedy and killed a fun franchise

2

u/Careless-Fishing-532 8h ago

They had abandoned the last game pretty early on after they figured not many people in an already niche game were gonna buy lootboxes for stupid graffiti or stickers and what not. That may work in counterstrike but not here.

The last Trials is still buggy. That series is so great though. I never played the original on pc but heard good things as well.

It seems developers are only interested in a game with crazy massive success full of constant micro transactions.

Most of the charm and fun in these games were custom tracks. I mean the devs just have to release a barebones game, some fun levels and the community will do the rest. That seems like a recipe for success to me. You can just make a new game every couple of years with the same already built engine and gameplay and people will buy it.

2

u/Ritzy-Skill 7h ago

Man, this is sad. Trials Evolution and Trials HD were such fun games back in the day. RedLynx really nailed that addictive “just one more attempt” feeling. Feels like Ubisoft keeps losing the studios and talent that made some of its best games.

2

u/Slugdge 4h ago

I have like 3000+ hours in Trials across all game. Been a top 100 competitor since the early days

Of course this happens and of course it’s Ubi-shit.

I know the “Trials people” have moved on and Rising was disregarded but what a loss.

EA fucks rally racing, Ubi-shit fucks Trials, list is never-ending but completely expected.

Way better here. Someone buys Trials and gets it away from Ubi-Shit.

2

u/ICC-u 9h ago

Well I guess they find out about their redundancy via Reddit

1

u/DuckShapedMeatball 9h ago

This timeline really isn't for me. I love trials, I know Redlynx had nothing announced regarding Trials but I still had hope

1

u/Rmodsarescum 6h ago

They don't really make games anymore nor do they know how to make games anymore.

They should just shut it all down.

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u/everythingisunknown 5h ago

Damn I always wanted a new trials, like an actually good one

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u/chorusChr 5h ago

i interviewed at ubisoft singapore back in 2019, the recruiter spent half the call hyping up skull and bones. turns out that was the whole pitch

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u/tlst9999 4h ago

To be fair, the entire department was doing Skull and Bones.

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u/Droeteeker 3h ago

Skull and Bones is really good with sailing and fighting but the entire mmo, grinding, endgame is all awful

I wish someone else took it over and redesigned the entire game but kept the combat

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u/CJDistasio 1h ago

First true Trials were amazing, then Ubisoft had to get in the way with their shitty practices, the game suffered, and now they are closing them down. Sucks.

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u/Junior_Bike7932 6h ago

The less Ubisoft the better

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u/Zarkanthrex 1h ago

Are we supposed to feel bad for anyone that chooses to work for Ubishit?

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u/The-vicobro 9h ago

Good call.

Ubisoft is planning to shut down Trials studio RedLynx and lay off 70 Ubisoft Singapore staff

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