Ubisoft Divertissements Inc., doing business as Ubisoft Montreal, is a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Montreal.
The studio was founded in April 1997 as part of Ubisoft's growth into worldwide markets, with subsidies from the governments of Montreal, Quebec, and Canada to help create new multimedia jobs. The studio's initial products were low-profile children's games based on existing intellectual property. Ubisoft Montreal's break-out titles were 2002's Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and 2003's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Subsequently, the studio continued to develop sequels and related games in both series, and developing its own intellectual properties such as Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and For Honor.
As of 2021, the studio employs more than 4,000 staff. The studio helped to establish Montreal as a creative city, and brought other video game developers to establish studios there.
History
Background and foundation (1997–2001)
Following Ubisoft's initial public offering in 1996, the Montreuil, France-based publisher began looking to expand into more global markets. Establishing a studio in Quebec was of strong interest to the company; according to Ubisoft's CEO Yannis Mallat, a Quebec studio would allow them to bring in French-speaking employees and help with communication with the Montreuil headquarters, and was in close proximity to the United States, one of the largest markets for video games.
At the same time, the city of Montreal in Quebec was looking to recover from job losses due to disappearing manufacturing and textile industries from the early 1990s. The controlling political party, Parti Québécois (PQ), pursued new job creation in technology, computers, and multimedia. Lobbyist Sylvain Vaugeois, hearing that Ubisoft was searching for jobs, came up with a plan called Plan Mercure which would incentivize Ubisoft to found a studio in Montreal by having the government subsidize each employee for five years, but the government rejected this plan, believing it was too expensive for use of public funds. Vaugeois still went on to meet with Ubisoft, inviting them to visit Montreal and suggesting Plan Mercure was viable, and upon their visit, discovered that they had been misled, leading to some embarrassment on the city and province. PQ representatives of Quebec's and Montreal's government met with Ubisoft to convince them to establish a studio in Quebec after hearing that Ubisoft was considering a studio instead near Boston or in New Brunswick, and recognised they needed to follow on some form of Vaugeois' Plan Mercure to convince Ubisoft to form a studio in Montreal. Pierre Pettigrew, the Minister of Human Resources Development worked with the Quebec and federal government to come to a solution, whereby the two governments would split the previously considered per employee ( from the Quebec government) to provide 500 new jobs to young persons and provide training in the multimedia sector. Ubisoft was agreeable to this, and established Ubisoft Montreal (formally named Ubisoft Divertissements Inc.) on 25 April 1997. The studio was founded in offices in the , a former textile factory, located in the Mile End neighbourhood along Saint-Laurent Boulevard.
Martin Tremblay joined the studio as executive vice-president in 1999, and was promoted to chief operating officer a year later.
The studio began with 50 employees, with half having coming from Ubisoft's Montreuil headquarters, and the other hired in under the government subsidies. According to Mallet, a founding myth of the company was that they had thrown the new employees in a room with computers and were told to develop a game, but Mallet did acknowledge that there was a lack of experience in game development from this group. Initially, the studio developed children's games based on licensed intellectual property (IP) such as Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers and games based on the Playmobil series of toys. While these were not critically significant games, they sold well to keep the studio profitable, and allowed them to establish an internal program for creating their own IP.