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 Montreal's CEO Yannis Mallat, a Quebec studio would allow it 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. , formerly housing the John W. Peck Shirt and Clothing Factory, became Ubisoft Montreal's headquarters in 1997 (1910). 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 it to visit Montreal and suggesting
Plan Mercure was viable, and upon its visit, discovered that it 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 it to establish a studio in Quebec after hearing that Ubisoft was considering a studio instead near
Boston or in
New Brunswick, and recognized 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
Peck Building, 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 it to establish an internal program for creating its own IP. Prior to this, Ubisoft had closed down an internal development studio at the New York offices in 1999, which had been working on a game called The Drift
, a third-person shooter with elements of stealth. Ubisoft had found the game lacking cohesion, and despite efforts to rebrand it as a potential James Bond'' game, Ubisoft opted to halt development and transfer key staff and all the work in progress to Ubisoft Montreal. In 2007, with already 1,600 employees, the government increased to to reach 3,000 employees by 2013, which would make Ubisoft Montreal the world's largest game development studio. During his time as COO, Martin Tremblay was a staunch supporter of
non-compete clauses, in large part due to an incident in which
Electronic Arts hired away several Ubisoft Montreal employees to the at the time newly opened
EA Montreal studio. When Tremblay left Ubisoft in 2006 to become President of Worldwide Studios at
Vivendi Games, he was prevented from taking the new position by a court order enforcing the non-compete clause in his Ubisoft contract. Upon Tremblay's departure in 2006, Yannis Mallat, a producer on the
Prince of Persia games, became the new CEO, also filling the same roles as Tremblay's COO position.
Ongoing development (2009–current) Ubisoft Montreal continue to develop games in the ''Tom Clancy's
, Prince of Persia
, Assassin's Creed
, and Far Cry'' series, with various Ubisoft studios assisting at times. These series established Ubisoft Montreal's approach around
open world games, a goal that Ubisoft wanted as the publisher prepared for the
eighth generation of consoles, as well as dedication to the authenticity and historical accuracy of its products. In 2013 Ubisoft acquired
THQ Montreal and merged it into Ubisoft Montreal.
For Honor represents the studio's first attempt at an "ongoing game", producing ongoing content released on a seasonal basis. In June and July 2020, as part of a larger wave of accusations of sexual misconduct through the video game industry as part of the
#MeToo movement, several high-profile people within Ubisoft as a whole were also accused of misconduct. As part of a number of voluntary regulations following internal investigations, Ubisoft Montreal's CEO and managing director for Ubisoft's Canadian studios Yannis Mallat also stepped down and left the company on July 11, 2020. Christophe Derennes was named to replace Mallat. Ubisoft Montreal ventured into mobile game development, announcing ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Mobile'' on April 5, 2022, for
Android and
iOS. The title is the mobile-adapted version of the studio's 2015
tactical shooter ''
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege''. As of 2023, the studio employs more than 4,000 people. "In 2025, the studio released ''
Assassin's Creed Shadows and is currently developing several titles, including Assassin's Creed Hexe''. == Technology ==