Ubisoft Halifax closed weeks after unionizing, but the fight isn’t over

Returning to work after the holidays, the staff at Ubisoft Halifax expected to pick up where they left off. Instead, they were called into the studio lunchroom and told the entire operation was shutting down, effective immediately.

For the 71 workers at the Halifax game development studio, the announcement came without warning. Concept artist Kira Wigg said that just days earlier, she had been joking with friends over the holidays, “at least I have excellent job security.” The sudden reversal, she said, “felt like the carpet was ripped out from underneath us.”

Workers were given roughly an hour to gather personal belongings and salvage years of work for their portfolios. Wigg spent that time sifting through seven years of her artwork, the material she would need to find her next job.

The closure came just three weeks after workers at Ubisoft Halifax successfully unionized with CWA Canada, forming the first Ubisoft union in North America.

Workers say the push to unionize grew out of a tight-knit studio culture and growing anxiety about long-term stability in an industry known for boom-and-bust cycles. “We had a strong community… like a family,” Wigg said, “we wanted to solidify employment for years to come and avoid falling victim to the same things happening at other studios. We wanted to come together and speak as one voice and amplify our message.”

Ubisoft has stated that the closure was driven solely by financial necessity and corporate restructuring. But the timing and lack of documentation have raised serious concerns for workers and their union.

CWA Canada has filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Labour Board accusing Ubisoft of shutting down the Halifax studio to prevent unionization. Union lawyers have requested records demonstrating that the closure was planned well in advance, but no such evidence has been produced.

“If you’ve been planning to shut down an entire studio, you would have evidence,” said Jon Huffman, a lead programmer at Ubisoft Halifax.

Huffman said a worker contacted Employment Nova Scotia following the announcement and was told the agency had not received advance notice of the mass layoff, something that typically occurs in closures of this scale.

The shutdown also contrasts sharply with Ubisoft’s layoffs at its Abu Dhabi studio in late 2025, where workers were informed weeks in advance and given time to prepare.

The union says this closure is not an isolated business decision, but a tactical move in a global corporate manoeuvring against organized labour. CWA Canada has explicitly linked it to Amazon’s closure of unionizing warehouses in Quebec, calling both “a clear example of union busting.”

In a telling admission, a remote worker laid off in the same purge was reportedly told by the person laying him off that the reason was “to make sure Ubisoft doesn’t look like they are union busting,” says Huffman

In a public statement, CWA Canada argues that corporate retaliation against unions are enabled by weak enforcement and minimal penalties.

French Senate documents show Ubisoft received just shy of $1 billion in Canadian government tax subsidies between 2020 and 2024, adjusted for inflation—more than from all other countries combined. In Quebec, subsidies cover nearly a third of Ubisoft workers’ wages.

Despite this public investment, Ubisoft shuttered the Halifax studio without offering relocation opportunities to other teams, something workers say is highly unusual in the industry.

“It’s outrageous that a company can take hundreds of millions in public money and then walk away,” CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth said. “And it’s shocking that governments allow it to happen.”

This struggle has not gone unnoticed. Unions in Halifax, across Canada, and around the world have reached out in solidarity. Despite the sudden closure, workers say being unionized has already made a difference. 

Unlike in many mass layoffs in gaming and tech, workers were not forced to sign non-disclosure agreements in exchange for severance. Huffman believes this is directly tied to collective representation. “We have a strong team behind us,” he said. “This story isn’t done yet.”

For Wigg, the experience reinforces why workers organize in the first place. “They could shut us down regardless,” she said. “But if they do, at least we have a collective voice, some kind of power.”

As legal proceedings continue, workers say the fight now extends beyond a single studio, toward accountability for corporations that accept public money while undermining workers’ rights.