Jon Huffman is heartbroken over this week’s announcement that Ubisoft Halifax shall be closing up store after 10 years.
The lead programmer started working on the studio 4 years in the past and, alongside colleagues, was one of many faces behind fashionable cell video games, like Murderer’s Creed Rebel.
When employees have been known as into an impromptu assembly Wednesday morning to seek out the pinnacle of Ubisoft’s cell division ready for them, he mentioned they knew one thing massive was taking place, Huffman mentioned.
“No person noticed it coming,” he instructed World Information sooner or later after the assembly. “The truth is, I don’t know that our studio administration noticed it coming. They have been simply as devastated as we have been.”
Huffman has turn into one among two spokespeople for the employees since Ubisoft broke the information.
“All of the sudden, you bought folks crying arm-in-arm. To go from the triumph of being acknowledged and authorized as a union, to, lower than 4 weeks later, discovering out that our studio is being shut down? It’s heartbreaking.”
Staff at Ubisoft Halifax unionized in late December, forming the corporate’s first-ever North American union.
“Let me share slightly little bit of one thing with you, proper? We voted to kind our union final 12 months in June, if I keep in mind accurately.” Huffman mentioned. “It was six months to the day that we received licensed, and the explanation it took so lengthy is as a result of the corporate was difficult the inclusion of a few of our members.”
He described going via a prolonged means of interviews and hearings, which proved hectic to the employees in query.
“And all of the sudden, starting of the week of December 18, we get the information that the corporate was dropping all of their challenges,” Huffman mentioned. “So, bing, bang, growth — votes counted. We discover out now we have a profitable union vote — 74 per cent of us got here collectively and mentioned ‘sure.’”
The staff joined CWA Canada native 30111, which represents staff at Bethesda Recreation Studios and the Montreal Gazette.
Initially, Huffman mentioned employees considered Ubisoft backing down as “one hell of an early Christmas current.”
“We have been, to say the least, jubilant,” he recalled.
However that might all change the primary week again to work after the vacations, when he mentioned employees had the rug pulled out from underneath them.
“What are you purported to do, except for sit there reeling?” he requested.
Ubisoft mentioned this week that the employees’s determination to unionize didn’t affect the higher firm’s conclusion to shut the studio, however Huffman has his doubts.
“The timing is questionable to say least,” he mentioned.
In a press release made to World Information Thursday, Ubisoft PR supervisor Caroline Stelmach mentioned, “Over the previous 24 months, Ubisoft has undertaken company-wide actions to streamline operations, enhance effectivity, and cut back prices. As a part of this, Ubisoft has made the troublesome determination to shut its Halifax studio. Seventy-one positions shall be affected.”
Including, “We’re dedicated to supporting all impacted staff members throughout this transition with assets, together with complete severance packages and extra profession help.”
In her electronic mail, Stelmach additionally supplied context for the closure, citing the growing competitiveness of the gaming business, requiring the corporate “to concentrate on initiatives with the best potential for fulfillment.”
Nonetheless, the Murderer’s Creed franchise, which the Halifax staff labored extensively on, has seen success lately.
Based on Ubisoft’s half-year fiscal update for 2025-26, income was up heading into 12 months’s finish, with the corporate reporting 20.3 per cent internet reserving positive aspects in comparison with the primary half of 2024-25.
“In a extremely aggressive market, Ubisoft delivered internet bookings above steering, on the again of stronger-than-expected partnerships that underscore the attraction and attain of our manufacturers,” wrote Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot within the firm’s half-year report. “(…) The Murderer’s Creed franchise exceeded our expectations, confirming its constructive momentum and talent to interact gamers over time.”
However no matter which initiatives have been considered as high precedence, Huffman mentioned his staff was adaptable and eager to work on something.
“We have been a really versatile staff. We have been capable of pivot and sort out challenges throughout quite a lot of applied sciences and platforms. Most lately, we’ve had lots of people engaged on a PC title. We prided ourselves on our flexibility, and we loved new challenges.”
An general snapshot of Ubisoft’s income over the previous six fiscal years exhibits a sequence of monetary dips and positive aspects, a lot of which can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whereas the corporate reported IFRS 15 gross sales at 2,223.8 million euros, with net bookings up 46.1 per cent in 2020-2021, it additionally reported losses in 2024-25, with revenue dipping 17.5 per cent.
Ubisoft can also be in debt round 1.15 billion euros, as of the top of September 2025, that it incurred over time attributable to underperforming sport titles, comparable to Cranium and Bones and Star Wars Outlaws.
Nonetheless, based on Huffman, the corporate isn’t in dire straits.
“On the finish of the 12 months [2025], Ubisoft closed a cope with Tencent and acquired a large money infusion,” Huffman mentioned, referring to the €1.16 billion partnership that establishes Vantage Studios as a subsidiary to supervise the Murderer’s Creed, Rainbow Six and Far Cry franchises. “They made a deal to purchase an IP and studio from Amazon in December. So clearly, that they had the cash kicking round.”
He mentioned 2025 additionally noticed the Murderer’s Creed franchise attain new heights, regardless of its excessive manufacturing value.
“Murderer’s Creed Shadows is an outstanding sport, the most important flagship that launched in 2025. And it did fairly properly, proper?” Huffman mentioned. “To me, Ubisoft just isn’t a failing firm. It’s an organization that’s going via a transition. That’s all.”
Ubisoft was given substantial monetary incentives to stay in Nova Scotia in an effort to assist construct and bolster a provincial gaming business.
However that’s susceptible to crumbling with their determination to shutter the Halifax studio.
“The tax credit score that’s acquired by media firms in Nova Scotia could be very beneficiant. And Ubisoft has taken benefit of that so long as we’ve been right here, proper?” Huffman mentioned. “There’s a social contract that exists when an organization goes and depends on the federal government to assist subsidize their staff — and to take that after which reduce and run is, frankly, insulting.”
Based on the premier’s workplace, Ubisoft has earned $12,574,591 via Nova Scotia’s Digital Media Tax Credit score since 2017. Credit that may solely be claimed after qualifying jobs and investments are made.
As specified by the newest provincial public accounts report, Ubisoft additionally acquired $26,484 in grant cash from the Division of Labour, Abilities and Immigration within the 2024-25 fiscal 12 months.
The online game developer additionally noticed $47,791 and $25,445 in provincial cash come their method in 2023-24 and 2022-2023, respectively.
In a press release, the premier’s workplace says, “The federal government is deeply involved in regards to the closure of Ubisoft’s Halifax studio and the affect on the 71 Nova Scotians who’ve misplaced their jobs,” including, “This determination was made by the corporate — it was not a choice that required authorities approval.”
The federal government says Employment Nova Scotia has already reached out to the employees, and assist is offered via Nova Scotia Works to assist people transition to new alternatives.
“The very fact is, we are able to’t develop our economic system solely via authorities funding. We additionally want the federal government to make it possible for the those who do the work of constructing new business, that construct a thriving economic system, are protected and taken care of,” says Paul Wozney, MLA and labour critic for the NS NDP.
He says, following this loss within the native gaming business, his get together shall be bringing ahead laws to guard staff’ rights in Nova Scotia.
“I don’t have any smoking gun proof to say that that is union busting. However that is hardly the primary time a multinational company with fiscal points has closed a location underneath the auspices of fiscal wrestle,” Wozney says.
“We actually shall be, once more, bringing ahead concepts and laws within the session to come back to problem this authorities to step up and make that staff in Nova Scotia have the protections they deserve, together with the precise to unionize and search illustration.”
Within the wake of Ubisoft’s determination shut the situation at Halifax’s Maritime Centre, Huffman mentioned staff are left with restricted choices.
“At first, myself and different organizing members of our union are working intently with CWA Canada to make it possible for the whole lot that is happening is above board, proper?” He mentioned. “Job looking out is in my future, however the business right here in Halifax has shrunk rather a lot over the previous two years. So, with 71 folks being out of labor suddenly, it’ll be very troublesome for our business to soak up that.”
Huffman says whereas many on his staff should think about relocating, the toughest a part of the studio closure has been coming to phrases with not working collectively transferring ahead.
“Ubisoft has had its ups and downs over time (…) However Ubisoft Halifax was such a particular place that there’s no method I can’t look again at it with delight,” Huffman says.
“We have been a staff earlier than; we’re nonetheless a staff now. And this act by Ubisoft just isn’t going to alter the way in which we really feel about one another.”
