Ubisoft has cut the ribbon on a new studio in Winnipeg, Canada, that will focus on developing tools and technologies for creating immersive game worlds.
The Assassin’s Creed creator intends to sink $35 million into the new outfit, and suggests the Winnipeg office will create 100 jobs in the province over the next five years.
The studio will be led by Far Cry 5 producer Darryl Long, who’s keen to create new internal technologies that can help improve Ubisoft’s approach to world building as its open world, systemic games become increasingly complex.
“We know already that our world builders make engaging and immersive content, but the worlds we create are becoming more and more complex as we look for new ways to give our players increased freedom,” he explained, speaking to Gamasutra.
“The Ubisoft Winnipeg team will work closely with the teams in the other Ubisoft Canadian studios to identify the key parts of the world creation pipeline that will benefit from deeper investment. We have had previous successes on this on past projects by identifying bottlenecks in the world creation and iteration pipelines and streamlining these processes.”
Ubisoft Winnipeg joins the developer-publisher’s Canadian collective of triple-A studios in Montreal, Quebec, Saguenay, and Toronto.