Updated: CWA Canada has issued a statement regarding the shutdown of Ubisoft Halifax.
In a release provided to Insider Gaming, the union says it will “pursue every legal recourse” to protect the members within the studios.
“In Canada, it is unlawful for a business to close because its workers decide to unionize,” the statement reads. “While we are not saying that this is what happened here, we will be demanding information from Ubisoft about the reason for the sudden decision to close.”
CWA President Carmel Smyth called the news devastating.
“We will pursue every legal recourse to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed in any way,” she said. “We will be looking for Ubisoft to show us that this had nothing to do with the employees joining a union. The workers, their families, the people of Nova Scotia, and all of us who love video games made in Canada, deserve nothing less.”
Original: The layoffs across the video game industry are getting started early in 2026. Ubisoft has announced the closure of Ubisoft Halifax.
The closure will see 71 people lose their jobs.
The news of the studio’s shutdown comes just days after it was announced that 61 of the studio’s employees joined the Game & Media Workers Guild of Canada, Local 30111. The certification for the union came on December 18, 2025, and was branded as the Ubisoft Workers of Canada, Halifax.
In a statement, Ubisoft says that decision comes after two years of “company-wide actions to streamline operations”.
“Over the past 24 months, Ubisoft has undertaken company-wide actions to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs,” the company said. “As part of this, Ubisoft has made the difficult decision to close its Halifax studio. 71 positions will be affected.
“We are committed to supporting all impacted team members during this transition with resources, including comprehensive severance packages and additional career assistance.”
The decision, Ubisoft claims, was made “well before” the staff unionized. Ubisoft added that it respected its employees right to join a union. Insider Gaming has reached out for a statement from members of the Union. Should that be received, it will be added to this story.
Prior to its closure, Ubisoft Halifax was working on mobile games for Rainbow Six and Assassin’s Creed.
What do you think of Ubisoft shutting down its Halifax studio, especially after the recent news of the studio unionizing? Leave your thoughts down in the comments and join the discussion in the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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Ubisoft as a whole should be closed down. Tencent wasting money as usual keeping them and Riot afloat. They could have bought Nexon and Kadokawa.
Haha! Lol that’ll teach em for getting rid of the experienced talent, in order to hire only on gender, politics, sexual orientation , skin colour.. you get no talent, no experience, and half arsed ‘games’, more like HR lectures
What do you expect when Unisoft gets cornered ( The logical answer is close the studio ) it basically sends a message to there other 17000 workers ( You unionize ) We close that studio unfortunately saw it coming ( The ones that didn’t are fools )
Of course this is Ubisoft… They are going to have the evidence of, “Well this studio wasn’t making any money, actually they were losing a shit load of money.”
But Ubisoft can literally use that exact same evidence for ALL of their studios LoL!!
The timing is very unfortunate and I feel bad for all the people who have to leave their jobs. It’s a small consoltation, but having started up a union is a help when a studio is closing down as that gives the company a line of contact to the unionized workers and the workers being let go someone that they can ask for help and information. Of course the union is going to be disbanded after the studio closes, but having it there in the meantime is a positive thing.