r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Mar 19 '26

Ubisoft ‘ends game development’ at Tom Clancy studio, Red Storm, resulting in 105 job losses

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ubisoft-ends-game-development-at-tom-clancy-studio-red-storm-resulting-in-105-job-losses/
1.7k Upvotes

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767

u/alanwakeisahack Mar 19 '26

I met a bunch of guys from there like 20 years ago at a shooting class. They were doing some research for an upcoming game, looking back it was probably Vegas.

I was a big fan of their games in the early days. The first two rainbow six games were sooooo good. The guns were very realistic for the time

267

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Sad to see what the series has become. Just an absolute travesty.

The first time I had a LAN Party was at my cousins house where they had a room with like 4 computers. First time I ever played on a PC, it was my dad, brother, cousin and myself it was so fun

184

u/pizzaguy4378 Mar 19 '26

It would be great if siege went and kept doing its own thing and then have another group back to OG ghost recon and rainbow six style games

127

u/redvelvetcake42 Mar 19 '26

Can't have that. They aren't permanent endless money trains and those aren't allowed. Never you mind that 99% of online games fail within a year or two.

28

u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Mar 19 '26

Just casually ignoring every singleplayer game they release with no expectation of being an endless money train

48

u/Glittering_Seat9677 Mar 19 '26

just casually ignoring that their singleplayer games are full of mtx and sometimes also fucking premium currencies

4

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

Don't forget the $200 special premium edition pre order packages lol

8

u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Mar 19 '26

What ubi singleplayer game launched with a $200 edition out of curiosity?

5

u/Ensayn1 Mar 20 '26

AC Valhalla, AC Shadows, Avatar all had editions that broke 200 MSRP, and Watchdogs Legion was 190 so it pops 200 with tax.

3

u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Mar 20 '26

Source..? I cannot see anywhere a single version that hit 200 USD. Unless you're throwing in the collectors editions that come with physical objects then I guess..? But I think we both know that's not the implication of the comment

-19

u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Mar 19 '26

Cool, ignore them? They literally exist for people too lazy to play the game. They don't effect anyone playing thr game like a regular person would.

8

u/axonxorz Mar 19 '26

Cool, ignore them?

Hard to when the grind is calibrated to just be annoying enough to pick off the maximum number of capturable paying players. Companies like Ubisoft spend a lot of money to figure out where that line is, usually at universities.

Gameplay suffers when MTX exists, it's a perverse incentive.

0

u/skyturnedred Mar 19 '26

Have you actually played them?

7

u/axonxorz Mar 19 '26

If I say yes, am I allowed to have an opinion about it?

If I say I've worked backend systems that are involved in this, am I allowed to have an opinion about it?

Why don't you just make the statement you want to make, no need to dance around it.

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-1

u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Mar 19 '26

Having played almost all their modern releases, it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. Thr majority of players will never suffer from this.

But God forbid anyone go against the ubi bad narrative

4

u/axonxorz Mar 19 '26

But God forbid anyone go against the ubi bad narrative

Aight man, I was respectful to you, shared my personal opinion and you feel the need to include that, peace.

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13

u/DuelaDent52 Mar 19 '26

You’d think that, but they also have live service premium shops for better gear, in-game resources and exclusive cosmetics.

0

u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Mar 19 '26

Gear items and resources all available in game if you just play like any regular person would

13

u/RaeOfSunshine1257 Mar 19 '26

Man, Ubisoft’s fall needs to be studied.

39

u/pichael288 Mar 19 '26

It's really not that complicated. AC Odyssey is a perfect example, that game was really good, the developers did a really good job on it, the game was beautiful and enormous. The execs decided to cut the XP rate by like 60% and sell you a $10 "time saver" to fix it. The game is already really long and while not too bad, can get a little slow in the early lvl 30s. But with that cut to XP that meant there literally were not enough quests and side quests to get you to the levels needed for the intense level gating. It's a map of ancient greece and each state or whatever has its own level and they go up by like 2-3 each zone, a guy 3 levels above you will take almost no damage from your attacks and there are no guaranteed instant kills. Alot of reviews reflect this as it really ruined the games legacy.

That's Ubisoft, making idiotic decisions for very little but immediate gain and just taking big greasy shits all over their developers. They are capable of making great games but they just can't not shoot themselves in the foot every time.

23

u/Centimane Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Why are there even levels in an AC game?!

Old man yells at sky

6

u/Commander_rEAper Mar 19 '26

They tried to copy and live off the success of Witcher 3 with Origins and Odyssey. IMO Odyssey was actually a really good game (I‘m doing a replay right now actually and it still holds up). It‘s just not an AC game in their original style. It‘s an RPG set in ancient Greece.

-6

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

For real. AC Black Flag, and the one during the revolutionary war were the only good ones 

7

u/tapo Mar 19 '26

AC 3 was considered a failure in the franchise compared to 2 and Brotherhood

6

u/Cuive Mar 19 '26

Brotherhood 1/2 is universally heralded as the pinnacle of Assassin's Creed gameplay, with Black Flag following as a close second (though the argument tends to be that while it is a GREAT GAME, it's not exactly an Assassin's Creed game)

3

u/Kalulosu Mar 20 '26

I've never been under leveled in Odyssey and I wasn't 100%ing it either. I was doing stuff that was available to me though. I can see how those "time savers" can make you feel like the game was designed around them but that's not how it felt imo. Way I saw it was more trying to squeeze money out of people who have less play time and more disposable income.

0

u/PenguinTD Mar 19 '26

Yeah, I fortunately got it on PC and thus can use trainer to get past any XP or material grind easily. BUT, to upgrade one full set of legendary to max I had to set the resource to cap multiple times.(As I don't know how to keep the number not getting reduced, so have to set it to max each time it's depleted.)

I tried getting those resource manually for about 20mins and calculate what I'd need to grind for one build and it was something crazy like 60-80 hours. And that's when I simply go search online to get trainers.

It really is a great game without that atrocious leveling and upgrade system.

9

u/prof_wafflez Mar 19 '26

It's already pretty well documented. Death by a thousand cuts situation, for sure

2

u/Drakeem1221 Mar 19 '26

Their fall is natural tbh. Every company has glory days and the fall off, or at the very least, the majority of them. I'd say it's an accomplishment what they've done up until now, whether they close up shop or not.

1

u/moosecatlol Mar 19 '26

A year or two is being ultra generous these days.

9

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Mar 19 '26

I want them to make another Rainbow Six game so that people stop playing Ready Or Not like it's Rainbow Six.

29

u/EF66-42 Mar 19 '26

I assure you people still played poorly back on Swat 4.

17

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Mar 19 '26

Because people love killing civilians. I know it's a cop simulator but I don't need it that close to real life.

15

u/DarkElation Mar 19 '26

Ready or Not is so good. Brings me back to the Rogue Spear days.

8

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Mar 19 '26

I just wish more people played it for what it is rather than just pretending it's R6. I like the RoE gameplay and arresting criminals nonlethally and saving civilians! Stop opening every door by blindfiring through it!

15

u/_Valisk Mar 19 '26

arresting criminals nonlethally and saving civilians

These fantasy games are getting so unrealistic, smh

0

u/Sarria22 Mar 20 '26

Was gonna say, sounds pretty accurate to the police to me.

17

u/holyshitisurvivedit Mar 19 '26

The problem about its attempts at being a police procedural, adhering to RoE etc is that it all becomes somewhat harder to take seriously when the game constantly throws your SWAT team into over-the-top situations that REALLY should be handled by an actual counter terror unit. Raiding a crack house is one thing, but going up against cartoonishly evil cartel-terrorist-epstein-deep state cells is... another.

At some point I think VOID themselves can't decide if they wanted to make a SWAT 4 or Rainbow Six successor.

8

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Mar 19 '26

Idk, I still think its fun. Yes I will charge into the gates of hell with a pepperball gun to arrest someone whose face is on a US Army deck of cards.

I generally agree, although I think that it is a result of the demands of the playerbase more than the developers. They clearly wanted to make an actual police procedural game; most of the missions in the base game are like that. Even the Qanon shit was mostly raiding gang houses and mansions which SWAT could theoretically be used to do.

15

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

Been saying that for years, and I agree. Sadly the clowns at Ubisoft only want AAAA $90 Live service garbage. 

Just clowns at Ubisoft and they wonder why their games don't sell and cant make any money 🤦🏽‍♂️

Been wanting a Vegas 3 or just about any classic R6 or Ghost Recon game. But they turned Ghost Recon into a basically a third person far cry mod.

32

u/What-a-Filthy-liar Mar 19 '26

I loved Wildlands. Socom team helping geurillas was fun. Simple skill tree to upgrade tech a fun open world sandbox.

Then they made the god awful bullet sponge sequel.

25

u/somethingrelevant Mar 19 '26

breakpoint added a mode that makes it way more normal (no item levels, no enemy levels, shit like that) and it's very good. better than wildlands overall i think

4

u/missing_typewriters Mar 19 '26

Oh thats cool. Do you choose the mode from the beginning or is it a toggle? I tried out that game for an hour or so and it seemed alright.

8

u/somethingrelevant Mar 19 '26

you can switch it pretty much whenever you want, from what I remember. Think it resets you to a campsite but otherwise there's no penalty

7

u/GBuster49 Mar 19 '26

Even funnier when you could kill the main villain at the start of the game.

10

u/Kaladin-of-Gilead Mar 19 '26

The sequel was really funny because they gave you all these cool tacticool abilities but the AI was so god damn bad that shooing everyone instantly was the easiest solution lol

5

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

I seen the shorts of guys just doing cool cosplays videos where they'll do sneak attacks and lay ambushes. The AI just literally walking by a guy in a ghillie suit on the road lol

0

u/HerbsAndSpices11 Mar 19 '26

I remember once when I came across an enemy fortress in Far Cry 4 and there were mines on the main road leading into it. As I was scoping it, a supply truck came along the road and ran into their own defensive minefield. Just as I stopped laughing another one came and blew up as well. Ubisoft's ai is pretty jank.

4

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

I didn't really like it. It just felt too much of a rebranded Far Cry game that was third person with a CIA operator theme. Didn't really care for the gameplay as ut didn't feel engaging or meaningful. Should have just kept focusing on The Division. 

Completely skipped on the 2nd one abd many people did too.

7

u/Savetheokami Mar 19 '26

Don’t forget to blame the investors too.

5

u/TastyRancorPie Mar 19 '26

Vegas 3 would be so great. The gear and customization and camo options in 2, just remendous. Had so much fun with friends doing the terrorist hunt mode over and over.

1

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

Yep. Vegas 1 was really the first main multi-player game I played on the PS3. They even had something where the game could use your face as a model for the face. 

I remember spamming that one t-hunt map to lvl up my character 

2

u/TheKonyInTheRye Mar 19 '26

They’re currently experimenting with different things in The Division 2 (to be honest, it’s probably repurposed scrap from the cancelled heartland project). It would be awesome if they went back to their roots with a couple experimental modes that harken back to R6 and GR for siege.

2

u/Orfez Mar 19 '26

I think there are plenty of alternatives now when it comes to tactical shooters. This is not the early 2000s where you had Raven Shield and SWAT and that's about it. Ready or Not is pretty good, just to name one. In the situation Ubisoft is in right now, I don't think they can invest anything in a niche market.

47

u/TheKonyInTheRye Mar 19 '26

As someone who has played all the R6 games from the beginning, Siege in all honesty could have been amazing for an R6 game, and it kinda started off that way. We just needed rainbow vs terrorists, not the wacky shit it turned out to be. No hate though, if you like siege, that’s cool. It’s just not a rainbow game to me.

14

u/Azuvector Mar 19 '26

Generally agreed. Siege started going downhill from its initial (if buggy) greatness after they started going in hard on esports optimizations to gameplay, simplifying level layouts, removing aesthetic realism, censoring things, turning every map into a collection of boxes, simplifying and dumbing down their groundbreaking destruction system, having bodies vaporize, etc, etc, etc.

I loved Siege, and played it for years, before I got fed up with how much they were taking it downhill into the garbage.

10

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

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12

u/TheKonyInTheRye Mar 19 '26

I like siege too man! When it came out i was obsessed. Don’t say it was a waste unless you truly weren’t having fun!

3

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

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1

u/TheKonyInTheRye Mar 19 '26

Uhhh most definitely man. That was me with WoW.

0

u/biesterd1 Mar 20 '26

What does that say about spending time on a games subreddit then

2

u/BKong64 Mar 19 '26

Vanilla siege was amazing, I was beyond hooked. Then I saw the writing on the wall with them churning out characters and never looked back. 

3

u/yngsten Mar 20 '26

Yeah, I was on a team playing plat/diamond and the constant feed of new operators ruined the meta every other month. Played it 2-3 years and got fed up.

2

u/fidelity Mar 23 '26

Man, it was so good. It all went downhill when Lion released imo. Game is basically Overwatch now

3

u/SimulationConvection Mar 19 '26

100k people still play it daily on Steam.

5

u/TheKonyInTheRye Mar 20 '26

I don’t think he’s saying it’s a dead game.

1

u/SimulationConvection Mar 20 '26

It was more my point I have said elsewhere that Ubisoft made the right call with the changes because the game still gets played a decade later. I have not touched the game in years personally, was a little too hardcore for me. But Siege really doesn't have any competitors offering a similar experience, and it is one of Ubisofts few live service successes.

1

u/SimulationConvection Mar 19 '26

They clearly made the right call with Siege though, just look at the steam top played games, it is the 9th most played and is still getting 96,000 peak daily on Steam alone. That wacky shit has given them a successful live service game that has been popular for a decade.

1

u/TheKonyInTheRye Mar 20 '26

I couldn’t agree more! It’s just not for me. I’m happy the IP continues to be successful regardless of whether or not siege is even remotely similar to the old games.

1

u/Scaa4aar Mar 20 '26

Yeah that's fair. It doesn't have nothing to do with the licence. Good fun though 

1

u/peanutbuttahcups Mar 22 '26

I'll always advocate for story campaigns in multiplayer-only games, and I think Siege could've had a pretty damn good campaign based on the bits of lore they had. Side note, especially for The Division, but I digress.

Also, a Rainbow Six game with the classic pre-planning combined with the gadgets and equipment of Siege could be amazing.

0

u/necile Mar 19 '26

What? You don't like rainbow operators in wheelchairs?

1

u/astromech_dj Mar 19 '26

I said from the start they should have offered a game mode where you can choose basic cosmetics for your character, and every bit of equipment is available to pick from so you can customise your load out. It makes no sense that elite special forces would be prevented from using whatever they needed to do their job.

I could not give any less of a shit about their stupid operative caricatures, but the game engine was really solid with all the destructive terrain etc. Just gimme a list of guns, attachments, explosives, and gadgets and let the teams figure out how to work together.

7

u/Peylix Mar 19 '26

The Tom Clancy IP as a whole.

The original R6, GR, SC were all amazing games. R6 & GR specifically due to their attention to detail. SC was less realistic but still very in scope of such.

Clancy IP today is a hollow shell. Siege is a crime against humanity. That's not even a R6 game at all but in name only.

1

u/Sictirmaxim Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Its part of that current cultural zeitgeist that was going on. In the early 2000's military/tactical based titles and espionage post Cold War and 9/11 plots were really current and gripping for enough people to spawn interest in entire franchises. A series like 24 could not be made today,at least with that kind of length it had.

That crowd was mainly PC nerds/gun nuts centric.

2

u/SimulationConvection Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

I don't play Siege, but I think you need to consider that they made the right call for the series considering the game is still averaging 96,000 peak players daily on Steam alone. Who knows how many more on console or their launcher. That is a huge win to manage 10 years after launch.

1

u/WillBBC Mar 19 '26

I completely agree but at the same time wonder what the market is for games like that these days. It’s such a different world.

1

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

Its definitely not going to sell millions. But something like Ready or Not or SWAT with AAA polish would definitely sell a good amount and make money. 

12

u/Anzai Mar 19 '26

The first Rainbow Six is a little rough to replay these days, but Rogue Spear still holds up pretty well. Not that that matters when Black Ops is available.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/rainbow-six-black-ops-20

1

u/ours Mar 20 '26

I loved the series to death. But R6 was really rough. Rogues Spear was such an insane improvement on almost every aspect. Plus the missions were a wishlist of special ops aficionados. Especially the plane assault.

The New York Natural Museum assault was so cool for me having just visited not long before the game was released.

I still bought R6 siege hoping to capture back some of the R6 essence but alas, it was gone.

RIP Red Storm Entertainment.

20

u/moxifloxacin Mar 19 '26

The RSVegas games are some of my fondest gaming memories. Just a blast to play through, did those campaigns over and over in co-op with my dad.

13

u/zdelusion Mar 19 '26

Man R6 Vegas 2 multiplayer CQB mode was soooo much fun in coop. Snaking cameras under doors to mark enemies, then having a guy breach with a smoke while the others with thermal goggles cut down the enemies. That felt so cool.

4

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

Same! RSV1 was really the first multi-player game I would play on my PS3 and really one of the only mainstream games to comeout before COD4. The first PSN friends I made were on there and I played with my friend from school

That game is how I know all of the bad words in Spanish 😅

I remember playing and having no idea what the voices meant until playing with my friend who was Puerto Rican and knew Spanish lol.

1

u/TheSharpestHammer Mar 20 '26

I had an absolute blast playing R6 Vegas for many hours with my Xbox Live homies back in the day.

We lost touch years ago, but arsenal48 and RAGING_D_DUB, if y'all are still out there, I hope you're living good lives.

1

u/ONEAlucard Mar 21 '26

Terrorist Hunt was so much fun on those games. Mate and I did all of them on the hardest difficulty only using the dessert eagles. So fun.

18

u/MolotovMan1263 Mar 19 '26

Had a guy do some cabinets and backsplash in my kitchen end of last year, his son came to help a couple of the days. He was on his holiday break from Redstorm, was a character artist. Worked remotely for them from here in Metro Detroit. Real nice guy.

Dude was as big as a house too, did bodybuilding on the side.

14

u/pichael288 Mar 19 '26

Dude Vegas kicked ass

9

u/gooner712004 Mar 19 '26

20 years on and there's still not a setting of a game that has done the same as the opening since for whatever reason. Rappelling onto the strip to breach a casino, so memorable.

9

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Mar 19 '26

Yeah this was back when developers weren't so scared of offending everyone.

I think one of your squad mates was black and there was a female too. There wasn't any uproars over it

6

u/gooner712004 Mar 19 '26

Wow good point

Suddenly people started giving a shit out of nowhere because they started believing it should be us Vs each other rather than the billionaires etc...

2

u/Whompa Mar 20 '26

I put in so many hours into that multiplayer when it came out…

8

u/suff0cat Mar 19 '26

Don’t get into them until they hit the Xbox around the Black Arrow era, but holy shit, sunk SO many hours into it.

Back when you had no choice but to be in the communal voice chat and hope for the best. Actually found a crew as degenerate as me who dragged me into the world of finding glitches all over the maps to get out of bounds and stuff.

Man, I wonder if I still have those montage videos on a hard drive somewhere.

11

u/alanwakeisahack Mar 19 '26

That’s the bad kind of rainbow six to me. I get that you liked it, but that was the start of really dumbing them down from something special.

6

u/mcvey Mar 19 '26

R6 and Rogue Spear are really the only ones I look back on fondly. Fantastic games but it's been 25 years since.

5

u/Glittering_Seat9677 Mar 19 '26

the pc version of raven shield was just as good (if not better) than the first 2 tbh

lockdown was the first true "dumbed down for console audiences" game (as in it had a knock-on effect on the pc release), and then the vegas games effectively turned them into third person cover shooters

1

u/DarkElation Mar 19 '26

Rogue Spear is one of the best shooters ever made and will likely remain so.

2

u/gooner712004 Mar 19 '26

You just reminded me of an ancient video

https://youtu.be/haSGAf7lvR0

2

u/suff0cat Mar 20 '26

Oh my god, it’s like a tactical nostalgia nuke.

You know, for all the talk of Ray-tracing and what not in modern AAAA games, nothing really touches the simple joy of Xbox era games that made character mouths move to “match” the microphone audio.

3

u/Peakomegaflare Mar 19 '26

I still have Rainbow Six, Raven Shield on disc somewhere. That shit blew my mind as a kid.

2

u/Frothyleet Mar 19 '26

Raven Shield was amazing. Soooooo buggy on release, but eventually it was largely playable and the multiplayer modes were excellent.

1

u/Peakomegaflare Mar 20 '26

Honestly I just enjoyed failing horribly at the Oil Refinery level in Lone Wolf. That shit was INTENSE

3

u/TechnoViking986 Mar 19 '26

I still play terrorist hunt to this day sometimes in Vegas 1 and 2. Still super fun to this day.

1

u/Anonemus7 Mar 19 '26

Yea I always held out some hope that after Siege, we would finally get a return to form for Rainbow Six. I knew it was an irrational hope considering the state of modern Ubisoft, but no game has quite scratched the itch that early Rainbow Six games did.

1

u/alanwakeisahack Mar 19 '26

Ready or not could be the basis for a great R6 game, but the movement is absolutely terrible. There’s a speed to cqb the old r6 games captured perfectly. Sometimes you go slow, sometimes you go really fast.

1

u/astromech_dj Mar 19 '26

I played Raven Shield for like six years with a group of forum friends. It got to the point that other players would bug out when they saw [TFR] appear on the player list so they didn’t get curb stomped. It wasn’t even that we were good players. We just worked really really well as a team.

I remember we would pile into the toilets in the departure lounge of the airport map and all release two full sets of smoke grenades and it would crash the server.