Ubisoft Entertainment SA (originally written as Ubi Soft) is a video game publisher and developer founded in 1986 by five Frenchmen, the Guillemot brothers. It is headquartered in Montreuil-sous-Bois near Paris, with branches in 20 different countries, including the United States, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and China. Their games have appeared on a wide variety of platforms since the early 1990s.
Currently one of the largest gaming publishers in the world, with 25 different studios and nearly 14,000 employees, Ubisoft is known for an unusual development pipeline: as opposed to most publishers, which generally have different studios work on different games in their lonesome, with any cross-studio interaction generally being limited to technical support, Ubisoft has their studios all co-develop various parts of a game and bring it together into a whole, to the point that the lead of the Assassin's Creed franchise, Jean Guesdon, broke down the map of Assassin's Creed Origins down into various chunks to highlight what studios made what parts of the map.
This system has its benefits and its drawbacks — on the plus side, it allows Ubisoft to put out massive, reasonably polished games on a regular schedule, and generally means that, while certainly not immune to the Troubled Production curse, most of their games tend to have a fairly smooth development cycle compared to what publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision frequently deal with. On the downside, it means that Ubisoft's games are frequently criticised for being Strictly Formula open-world games filled with busywork and a few specific types of side-quests.
Ubisoft is a fairly divisive publisher since about the mid-2010s — their Strictly Formula game design (which culminates with them adding intrusive RPG Elements to their long-running series such as Assassin's Creed Origins, Far Cry: New Dawn, and Ghost Recon Breakpoint), troubled relationship with the PC gamer segment, aggressive in-game monetisation, frequent always online-requirements, and overuse of the word "iconic" have all gathered them their fair share of detractors. Still, said open-world game design has plenty of fans, people appreciate the heavy amounts of post-launch support and content they give even their older games, and they generally give off the impression of being one of the better-run and better managed AAA publishers out there. However, a major scandal about widespread sexual harassment and other kinds of sexual misconduct and a generally toxic workplace culture that had festered for years in many of the company's subdivisions which surfaced to the public in the summer of 2020, has seriously shaken this perception. The further revelation that Ubisoft's HR department had been aware of the problems, but had for the most part tried to suppress and cover them up, rather than addressing them, added fuel to the fire, and resulted in resignation of many leading, high-profile figures in the company involved in the scandal to varying degrees, quite a few of whom were personally close to CEO Yves Guillemot.
Since 2008, they have also owned visual effects company Hybride Technologies, and also had a hand in the films Avatar (for which they also did the video game), Predators and, of course, Assassin's Creed.
Some of their franchises — particularly Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and Watch_Dogs — are implied to exist in a Shared Universe, but this is constantly subjected to Flip-Flop of God. On one hand, Ubisoft has denied this and the three franchises go in completely different directions, where their stories are incompatible with each other; on the other hand, they have an insane amount of references to each other, take a very Broad Strokes approach, such as how a character from AC appeared and was killed in WD - which was confirmed to be canon in the next AC game, or how Sam Fisher is confirmed to be KIA along with his crewmate in Far Cry: New Dawn but it's alive and still kicking as an Old Soldier in Ghost Recon Wildlands and Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
In 2011, the company launched Ubisoft Film & Television, a production company arm dedicated to producing feature films and television series based upon both original concepts and their own IP. Some of their most notable works include Assassin's Creed (2016), Werewolves Within, and Mythic Quest.
Subsidiaries:
Video games developed and/or published by Ubisoft:
- Anno
- Armored Core: For Answer
- Assassin's Creed
- Assassin's Creed
- Assassin's Creed II
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
- Assassin's Creed: Revelations
- Assassin's Creed III
- Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
- Assassin's Creed Rogue
- Assassin's Creed: Unity
- Assassin's Creed Syndicate
- Assassin's Creed Origins
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
- Assassin's Creed: Mirage
- Assassin's Creed: Shadows
- Minor Assassin's Creed games:
- Astonishia Story
- Battle Realms
- Beyond Good & Evil
- Blazing Angels
- Bloody Good Time
- Brawlhalla
- Brothers in Arms
- Buck Bumble
- Call of Juarez
- Castle & Co.
- Child of Eden
- Child of Light
- Cloudberry Kingdom
- Cold Fear
- Combat Of Giants
- The Crew (2014)
- Cubic Ninja
- Deep Fighter
- Driver (with the franchise and its developer bought from Atari)
- Exit (2005)
- Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles
- Far Cry series
- For Honor
- From Dust
- Growtopia (acquired from Robinson Technologies in 2017)
- Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James - the sequel too.
- Haze
- Hungry Shark Evolution
- Hurlements
- Hyper Scape
- Hype: The Time Quest
- I Am Alive
- The Imagine series (a line of games oriented toward young females)
- Immortals Fenyx Rising
- Just Dance
- Little Nicky
- Lords of the Fallen (For Japan only)
- Masque
- Michael Jackson: The Experience
- Might and Magic (acquired from 3DO when it went bankrupt)
- The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot
- My Coach
- Myst III: Exile
- No More Heroes
- Open Season
- Outland
- Petz
- Planet of Death
- Prince of Persia series (since 2003):
- Rayman
- Rayman
- Rayman 2: The Great Escape
- Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc
- Rayman Origins
- Rayman Legends
- Raving Rabbids
- Rabbids Go Home
- Raving Rabbids Travel In Time
- Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (co-created with Nintendo)
- Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (co-created with Nintendo)
- Red Steel
- Roller Champions
- RUSE
- Senko no Ronde, as publisher for the North American and European release
- The Settlers
- Shaun White Skateboarding
- Shoot Many Robots
- Skull & Bones
- Sprung
- Starlink: Battle for Atlas
- Steep
- Tetris Ultimate
- Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchise:
- Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2
- Import Tuner Challenge
- Tom Clancy's brand:
- Tonic Trouble
- Tork: Prehistoric Punk
- Toy Soldiers: War Chest
- TrackMania
- Trials series
- Valiant Hearts
- Watch_Dogs
- Wheelman
- Will Rock
- X Defiant (Formerly a Tom Clancy title)
- XIII
- Zombi
- ZombiU
Licensed Games:
- Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
- Batman: Vengeance
- CSI
- Dinosaur
- Disney's PK: Out of the Shadows
- Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers
- Gold And Glory The Road To El Dorado
- Gravity Falls: Legend of the Gnome Gemulets
- Grey's Anatomy: The Video Game
- Ice Age (First movie only)
- Peter Jackson's King Kong
- Rocky Legends
- South Park: The Stick of Truth (Purchased from THQ on January 23, 2013.)
- Sabrina The Teenage Witch: Potion Commotion, a video game based on the live action series.
- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, a video game adaptation of indie comic book series of the same name.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (from 2007 to 2011, starting with the release of the CGI movie. Konami is the current license holder.)
- Tarzan: Untamed
- Winnie the Pooh's Rumbly Tumbly Adventure
Films and Television series produced by Ubisoft:
Film
- Assassin's Creed (2016)
- Werewolves Within (2021)
Television:
- Rabbids Invasion (2013-2022)
- Mythic Quest (2020-present)
- Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix (2023-present)