r/gaming • u/Dorian182 • 4h ago

Ubisoft is planning to shut down Trials studio RedLynx and lay off 70 Ubisoft Singapore staff

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ubisoft-is-planning-to-shut-down-trials-studio-redlynx-and-lay-off-70-ubisoft-singapore-staff/
150 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

36

u/Beneficial-Act7603 4h ago

I'm surprised closing down Singapore wasn't considered before, they are the ones behind Skull and Bones...

That game has been flatlining since release

33

u/cwx149 4h ago

Iirc one of the suspected reasons skull and bones even came out was because Singapore basically subsidized it's development in some way that requires Ubisoft to come thru on it in some way or repay the subsidy

7

u/Remote_Elevator_281 2h ago

It was just a vacation spot for their managers. Multiple employees have said it was seen as a “paid holiday" or "colonial outpost for the western staff.

11

u/Beneficial-Act7603 4h ago

It's also crazy because iirc at the height of S&B development Singapore alone was like 900 employees or something which is just nuts.

Of course it's always sad when so much people lose their jobs but damn man, all they had to do was take Black Flag and make it multiplayer.

Even the remake fucked the ship combat so I can't say I'm surprised...

3

u/Melodic-Mixture-9420 2h ago

How did the remake screw up ship combat?

1

u/Bazookagrunt 3h ago

Like seriously, why didn’t they do that

5

u/perark05 4h ago

Still shocking that failed to just take all the assassin stuff out of black flag and make it multiplayer!!

1

u/nemofbaby2014 3h ago

Yeah I have no idea how they messed that up lol

2

u/GrilledPortatoe 34m ago

I got to chat with an ex-S&B dev as part of my studies once. As I recall, he said they restarted development from scratch multiple times, and that pretty much all the issues were due to really poor management.

1

u/cwx149 22m ago

Oh yeah everyone always was just saying "just cancel it at this point" and what I've heard is there may be reasons why they pushed thru and made something

But yeah I imagine as with basically everything at ubi the issue is with management

1

u/Che3ku 22m ago

Singapore also made Black Flag Resynced which did pretty well, so that's why they aren't being shut down

31

u/itsfreshmayo 4h ago edited 3h ago

The first 2 trials were amazing (spelling is hard)

3

u/G33U 3h ago

good times

10

u/DreamSphinx 4h ago

Awww man, I loved the Trials games. I played Evolution and Fusion a hell of a lot growing up, although I don’t think I ever played the one after Fusion (Rising? I think it was called)

3

u/Careless-Fishing-532 3h ago

Full of bugs and a shitty store with nothing to even really want. They tried the lootbox thing. No one cared. Some solid levels in there though.

9

u/StefyB 4h ago

That's sad. I may not have ever played Trials much myself, but I used to love watching Achievement Hunter play it back when I was in high school.

6

u/MinnesotaNicesu 4h ago

Gooooooo blue team!

3

u/90gpIronOre 4h ago

Redlynx 😩

3

u/OmeRZaga 4h ago

Man, Trials was such a good time...

3

u/MysteryRadish 4h ago

Now we'll never find out the resolution to that long-term ARG/easter egg they had going!

3

u/topscreen 3h ago

Ubisoft really only has one move and it's just layoffs

2

u/Ritzy-Skill 2h ago

Man, this is sad. Trials Evolution and Trials HD were such fun games back in the day. RedLynx really nailed that addictive “just one more attempt” feeling. Feels like Ubisoft keeps losing the studios and talent that made some of its best games.

2

u/ICC-u 4h ago

Well I guess they find out about their redundancy via Reddit

1

u/ElectricalCompany783 4h ago

They made a wild TV chat game back in the 00s where you were basically protecting Earth from an impact event. Had a very hard scifi feel to it.

When you lost, there was this absolutely harrowing cutscene of a scorched playground. Played to my fears from watching Deep Impact perfectly.

1

u/DuckShapedMeatball 4h ago

This timeline really isn't for me. I love trials, I know Redlynx had nothing announced regarding Trials but I still had hope

1

u/Xerosnake90 4h ago

Could've seen that coming. I think the series peaked at Fusion. Then you had that mobile game and the sequel to fusion which I thought was no where near as good. Ubisoft got greedy and killed a fun franchise

1

u/Careless-Fishing-532 3h ago

They had abandoned the last game pretty early on after they figured not many people in an already niche game were gonna buy lootboxes for stupid graffiti or stickers and what not. That may work in counterstrike but not here.

The last Trials is still buggy. That series is so great though. I never played the original on pc but heard good things as well.

It seems developers are only interested in a game with crazy massive success full of constant micro transactions.

Most of the charm and fun in these games were custom tracks. I mean the devs just have to release a barebones game, some fun levels and the community will do the rest. That seems like a recipe for success to me. You can just make a new game every couple of years with the same already built engine and gameplay and people will buy it.

1

u/Rmodsarescum 1h ago

They don't really make games anymore nor do they know how to make games anymore.

They should just shut it all down.

1

u/Junior_Bike7932 1h ago

The less Ubisoft the better

1

u/everythingisunknown 38m ago

Damn I always wanted a new trials, like an actually good one

1

u/chorusChr 37m ago

i interviewed at ubisoft singapore back in 2019, the recruiter spent half the call hyping up skull and bones. turns out that was the whole pitch

•

u/Slugdge 6m ago

I have like 3000+ hours in Trials across all game. Been a top 100 competitor since the early days

Of course this happens and of course it’s Ubi-shit.

I know the “Trials people” have moved on and Rising was disregarded but what a loss.

EA fucks rally racing, Ubi-shit fucks Trials, list is never-ending but completely expected.

Way better here. Someone buys Trials and gets it away from Ubi-Shit.

-18

u/The-vicobro 4h ago

Good call.