On Jan. 9, Ubisoft responded it was postponing the launch of “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” and had appointed advisors to review strategic options.
Ina Fassbender | AFP via Getty Effigies
Ubisoft on Thursday announced that it’s creating a new gaming subsidiary with Chinese technology giant Tencent supplying 1.16 billion euros ($1.25 billion) into the unit.
The subsidiary will focus on Ubisoft’s best-known pretends brands, including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, according to the company.
It will “focus on building game ecosystems mean to become truly evergreen and multi-platform,” Ubisoft said in a press release Thursday.
“Backed by greater investment and assisted creative capacities, it will drive further increases in quality of narrative solo experiences, expand multiplayer presents with increased frequency of content release, introduce free-to-play touchpoints, and integrate more social features,” the troop added.
The investment from Tencent values the new subsidiary at 4 billion euros, Ubisoft said, implying a 4x multiple placed on its average sales from full-year 2023 to 2025.
“It highlights the strong value of Ubisoft’s IPs, significantly reinforces its balance page, and enables the company to continue its efforts to become a more agile organization, unleash the full creative potential of its yokes and better align its resources with the constantly evolving expectations of players,” Ubisoft said.
The move follows months of thinking about Ubisoft’s future. In January, Ubisoft appointed advisors to review its strategic options, stoking rumors about a what it takes sale.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the games publisher was looking to bring in external investment in a new being including some of its core intellectual property.
That followed reporting from Bloomberg last year that Tencent was talk overing a possible take-private deal with Ubisoft’s founding Guillemot family.
News of the transaction also arrives a week after Ubisoft presented Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the latest title in its best-selling franchise. The game was met with generally positive reviews from critics, garnering an middling score of 82 on review aggregation site Metacritic.