Ubisoft and Tencent will be joining forces in a multibillion-dollar deal. The French company revealed the creation of a new subsidiary that will handle the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises with the Chinese tech company investing €1.16 billion for a minority stake.
This new subsidiary will include teams that are working on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Assassin’s Creed, and Far Cry franchises based in Montréal, Quebec, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona, and Sofia. All new and currently ongoing projects will now be developed under this new umbrella.
The subsidiary will also be able to act independently using the IPs mentioned as they see fit. However, they will have to pay royalties to Ubisoft, who will retain 100% ownership of this new branch, with Tencent investing to get 25% economic interest. In other words, they'll get a big piece of the pie for future projects.
It's no secret that Ubisoft has been bleeding money for the past few years. Financially disastrous decisions like putting out NFT-focused games and big AAA titles flopping commercially and critically such as Star Wars Outlaws are just the tip of the iceberg. Early in the year, the company had massive layoffs as 185 employees were let go and the UK-based studio was shut down.
The saving grace for the studio is the three IPs that will now be handled by this new subsidiary. According to the press release, AC, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six were selected "formal and competitive selection process" within the company.
It makes sense, considering the pivot to live-service titles Ubisoft has long been searching to solidify. The plan for this new subsidiary is to "focus on building game ecosystems designed to become truly evergreen and multi-platform."
Assassin's Creed Shadows has been a massive hit for the company, with a reported 3 million players already enjoying the game. Far Cry has been solidified as a staple franchise in the Ubisoft portfolio, consistently performing in terms of sales. The franchise has sold over 90 million copies as of March 2024.
As for Siege, the PvP-focused shooter remains an evergreen popular title. The game reached 55 million players back in February 2020, with Ubisoft reporting lifetime revenue of $1.1 billion in 2019.
It seems not all hope is lost for Ubisoft. With Tencent's backing, ambitious projects such as Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe could serve as the perfect platform for the company to turn its situation around.
Should they fail, it's not out of the realm of possibility that Tencent ends up scooping some of Ubi's flagship franchises in the not-so-distant future.
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