The complete list of projects includes seasonal content for Rainbow Six Siege, a new mainline entry in the Ghost Recon franchise dubbed Project OVR, Brawlhalla, Beyond Good and Evil 2, a small-scale Rainbow Six projected titled Slice & Dice, Splinter Cell, audio for The Division 2, concept work for The Division 3, support for Watch Dogs Director’s Cut, and an unannounced project in the concept stages.

The report indicating that the game development teams at Red Storm Entertainment had been laid off came out just last week, with 105 employees seemingly affected. Along with this, the report also indicated that the studio was essentially turned into one to offer support for the Snowdrop Engine, along with being a “global IT” team.

Throughout its 30 years of existence, Red Storm Entertainment has been quite a prolific studio. It was originally founded by Tom Clancy in 1996, and was envisioned as a studio that would primarily make games based on Clancy’s spy fiction novels. This would lead to the Rainbow Six franchise. Red Storm Entertainment would get eventually acquired by Ubisoft in 2000.

The last decade has seen the studio working alongside other teams to develop VR off-shoots, like Star Trek: Bridge Crew. It had also been working on a host of projects that would never see the light of day, namely a VR Splinter Cell title, and The Division Heartland. Red Storm Entertainment also provided support for multiplayer shooter XDefiant before that game’s servers eventually got shut down.

Red Storm Entertainment had faced another set of lay-offs back in July 2025, affecting 19 of its employees at the time. Ubisoft said that the lay-offs were part of its cost-saving measures and targeted restructuring.

“Today, Ubisoft made the decision to eliminate 19 roles at Red Storm Entertainment,” said Ubisoft in its statement. “This step is part of our ongoing, targeted restructuring and global cost-saving efforts, and reflects the needs on the studio’s projects. While this was not an easy decision, it was a necessary one given our operational priorities. We remain committed to supporting those affected with comprehensive severance packages, extended health-care benefits, and career transition assistance. We deeply appreciate their hard work and the impact they’ve had on Ubisoft.”

Ubisoft has recently been facing quite a bit of criticism due to the restructuring plans it had announced earlier this year. Along with 1,200 of its employees going on strike last month to protest the company’s cost-cutting measures and return-to-office mandate, union representatives Marc Rutschlé and Chakib Mataoui even went as far as calling for the resignation of CEO Yves Guillemot.

It’s apparently not fully shut down and will instead serve as a support studio for the Snowdrop Engine and “global IT.” Nevertheless, it’s the end of an era, given the studio’s rich history of tactical shooters. Acquired by Ubisoft in 2000, it would also work on the Ghost Recon series, including Advanced Warfighter and Future Soldier.

However, its output slowed significantly over the past decade, as it delivered VR titles like Star Trek: Bridge Crew and Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR. Two of its major projects – a VR Splinter Cell game and Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland – were cancelled after significant development time, and it didn’t help that projects it provided support on, like XDefiant, were subsequently shut down.

While Ubisoft didn’t provide a reason for effectively axing its game development team, the move is likely part of its wider reshuffle announced earlier this year. Not only did it result in teams splitting into Creative Houses with new leadership, but it also led to the cancellation of projects like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake.

In its statement, Ubisoft refers to the lay-offs has having been done as part of its global cost-saving efforts and targeted restructuring. The company has also confirmed that its employees that were affected by the lay-offs are still being supported with “comprehensive severance packages, extended health-care benefits, and career transition assistance”.

“Today, Ubisoft made the decision to eliminate 19 roles at Red Storm Entertainment,” said the company in its statement. “This step is part of our ongoing, targeted restructuring and global cost-saving efforts, and reflects the needs on the studio’s projects. While this was not an easy decision, it was a necessary one given our operational priorities. We remain committed to supporting those affected with comprehensive severance packages, extended health-care benefits, and career transition assistance. We deeply appreciate their hard work and the impact they’ve had on Ubisoft.”

Ubisoft has also confirmed that Red Storm Entertainment is the only one of its studios that is being affected by lay-offs for the time being. However, it did not respond to questions about the current state of the studio and how many employees were still working there.

For context, Red Storm Entertainment – these days more commonly referred to as Ubisoft Red Storm – has worked on a number of games since its inception. The studio was founded by Tom Clancy back in 1996. While it was originally envisioned as a studio that would make games based on his series of spy fiction novels, resulting in various games across the Rainbow Six series, it was eventually acquired by Ubisoft in 2000.

Over the last decade, Red Storm Entertainment has largely been relegated to being a support studio that helped out with the development of VR off-shoots, including Star Trek: Bridge Crew and cancelled projects like an untitled Splinter Cell VR game. The studio was also working on The Division Heartland, which ended up getting cancelled last year.

Just last month, Ubisoft confirmed that it would not be hosting its own game showcase – often known as Ubisoft Forward – this year. The showcase, typically part of June’s slate of events like Future Games Show and Summer Game Fest, was cancelled for the year with a statement from Ubisoft. In the statement, the company indicated that it just didn’t have much to share this time around.

“We are always eager to connect with our players and showcase our game,” said a spokesperson from Ubisoft. “We are continuing to explore opportunities to share updates, and we look forward to providing more information at a later date.”

Ubisoft currently has quite a few titles under development, including a remake of the classic Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, as well as the next outing in its city builder franchise, Anno 117: Pax Romana.

During Q4 and full fiscal year financials, it touted the success of franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six Siege while promising updates for Shadows, Star Wars Outlaws, XDefiant and other titles at Ubisoft Forward on June 10th. Speaking of the free-to-play and totally-not-facing-troubled-development shooter, it’s out on May 21st. Life is seemingly looking up for the company, especially after so many underwhelming releases and controversies.

However, one announcement almost went under the radar amid all the hype for the next Assassin’s Creed. Ubisoft confirmed that development on The Division Heartland had stopped to “redeploy resources to bigger opportunities such as XDefiant and Rainbow Six.” Your response is probably: The Division What? If you know about the game, then it’s more likely, “It was still in development?” and you would be justified for asking.

The Division Heartland was first announced in 2021 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC. It was touted as a free-to-play PvEvP-focused “survival-action shooter”, but instead of Washington D.C. or Manhattan, taking place in a more rural location called Silver Creek. The story concerned some “new breed of poison”, Rogue Division Agents and hostile survivors.

Players could collect materials and supplies, fighting off other players and AI enemies while completing objectives. The hook is that night could fall and add new enemies. Like an extraction shooter, it was paramount to extract or lose all of your gear upon death. Another challenge is the virus dynamically moving around the map, which necessitated filters for players to survive. Still, it could provide some nice loot if you ventured inside.

While multiple classes are nothing new for the franchise, Heartland sported six playable characters. Presumably, they would play a role in the “expanding” story, which never came to be, but alas. As you complete operations, new missions and areas on the map become available while your Base of Operations improves. Two types of Operations were available – Storm Operations, which saw 45 players competing in a PvEvP environment and Excursion Operations, which were PvE only.

It all seems simple enough, as does the reason for Ubisoft ultimately canning the project. After all, it cancelled the team-based title Project Q, the battle royale-focused Ghost Recon Frontline, Splinter Cell VR (and an alleged Splinter Cell battle royale title), and other such projects. Clearly, the tide was turning on the extraction shooter trend, and Ubisoft decided to cut its losses.

The call would likely have been easy since Heartland suffered multiple delays and developer Red Storm Entertainment was better off supporting XDefiant (cue the “Is it though?” reaction). The studio isn’t closing down like some other publishers, so all’s well that ends well, sort of?

It would seem so on the surface, but it’s still bizarre that Heartland would still be cancelled after all this time. Lest we forget, Ubisoft is the same publisher that kept Skull and Bones alive for years and years, through multiple reboots and departures at its Singapore studio, to release it to a middling critical and commercial response. Would The Division Heartland not have found more appeal, especially considering the popularity of IP?

According to those who participated in its playtests over the years, the answer is “No.”

Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson reported after the game’s cancellation that it “changed pretty significantly the last couple of years and had constant ongoing playtests, but it still didn’t resonate with players.” While more details will be forthcoming, streamer ConnorEatsPants offered his thoughts on a playtest from last year, which boiled down “what the fridge is this.” He then posted an in-game image of signs on a telephone poll stating, “All Way,” “One Way”, “No Cycling” and “Yield to Pedestrians” (on bicycles no less).

Other impressions from alleged playtesters on Reddit indicate multiple other problems, from PvP only being available at night time (which meant waiting for nearly an hour for the night to arrive) to mind-numbing tasks that involved collecting materials on a loop. You couldn’t access higher-level zones without doing these missions, and based on impressions, it seems that some of the best content, like Vulture Raids with multiple players teaming together.

One also criticized how the best elements of The Division were either dumbed down or outright absent (aside from the shooting).  I’ve always believed that the roots of The Division Heartland lay in the first game’s Survival expansion, available in November 2016. Alone in the Dark Zone and freezing, collecting weapons and clothing to survive while battling against enemies and up to 23 other players – it felt genuinely nerve-wracking to play, especially when Hunters are on the loose.

The main goal is to gather antivirals and extract them, but looting medicine to manage your own infection was also necessary. Considering Escape from Tarkov’s closed beta launched in June 2017, The Division’s Survival may have been the first proper extraction shooter.

Maybe the goal was to capitalize on this but expand it into something more, not unlike Outbreak from Rainbow Six Siege, which spun off into Rainbow Six Extraction. Perhaps Red Storm’s vision for the game was just at odds with what people liked about The Division and couldn’t fit into the extraction shooter model despite literally having a template in Survival. Maybe it couldn’t use the same premise as Survival and had to fit this whole “evolving story” into a brand new location. Perhaps it was greenlit to tide series fans over while Ubisoft Massive worked on projects like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws.

Whatever the case, it wasn’t working, and instead of dropping millions more into a project that was too big to fail, like Skull and Bones, Ubisoft opted to cancel it while the cancelling was good. It’s unlikely to be missed since Massive announced The Division 3, with Julian Gerighty, co-director of the first two games, becoming an executive producer for the brand after Outlaws launches. The fact that Heartland was cancelled before he took the position seems to indicate that it’s more of an executive decision. Otherwise, those resources may have gone into the franchise’s future, especially given Red Storm’s experience with past titles.

For now, The Division Heartland can be considered another victim of Ubisoft attempting to chase trends, greenlighting too many projects and ultimately cutting back after several failures to focus on its top franchises. The series will continue to thrive, while Heartland is likely forgotten by everyone but the developers who worked on it. It’s a shame in many ways – there’s no comfort in having a years-long project cancelled out of the blue – but the sooner Red Storm can move on to bigger and better things (preferably after XDefiant), the better.

In a statement to IGN, the publisher said, “After careful consideration, we have made the tough call to halt development on Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland, effective immediately. Our priority now is to support the talented team members at our Red Storm Entertainment studio, who will be transitioning to new projects within our company, including XDefiant and Rainbow Six.”

The title was rated in Taiwan last November and received sporadic updates through the years, including a new cinematic intro and a deep dive into the gameplay. First announced in 2021, The Division Heartland is a spin-off of the looter shooter series with two modes focused on PvEvP with dozens of players and extraction shooter mechanics. It featured some light survival mechanics, multiple playable characters and even a day/night cycle.

Unfortunately, it would face multiple delays and go without a concrete release date for years. Its cancellation isn’t the end of the world for the franchise, as Massive Entertainment is working on Tom Clancy’s The Division 3 and The Division Resurgence for mobile. Stay tuned for potential updates in the coming months.

As spotted by Twitter user @Kurakasis (via Reddit), The Division Heartland has been rated for PC and current and last gen consoles in Taiwan. Since age ratings for games tend to happen in the latter stages of development when they’re close to releasing, this could potentially suggest that the Division spinoff is approaching launch.

Following its previous delays, The Division Heartland doesn’t have a release date, and in Ubisoft’s recent quarterly fiscal report, it wasn’t mentioned by the company as one of the games it will be releasing during the course of the current fiscal year, which means it is expected to release sometime after March 31, 2024 at the earliest.

In September, Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment also confirmed that development had started on The Division 3.

Throughout the shooter, there are new characters and storylines. As players explore and gather resources during the day, Rogue players and AI attack at night. There are three classes to choose from – Weapons Expert, Survivalist and Medic – with unique properties. Overall, it should look familiar to players of the looter shooters, even if the gameplay loop is different.

Sign-ups for the next phase of closed beta testing are now available, with more news to come this Summer. Stay tuned for further updates in the coming months, potentially at the next Ubisoft Forward on June 12th.

The Division Heartland is set in the town of Silver Creek and will see players taking on other players, rogue agents, and a deadly virus, which very much lines up with previous leaks. Exact details on the game, its mode, and more are scant even in the video, but Ubisoft does say that closed tests are coming up, registrations for which are live now.

The Division Heartland doesn’t yet have a release date, but Ubisoft has previously said that it’s expected launch before April 2023. Read more on that through here.

Now, new potential details on the game seem to have emerged on Reddit, where a user claiming to have gotten their hands on the game has now only shared a clip showing the game’s main menu screen and a mission selection screen, but also shared some gameplay details.

Some of the information lines up with the aforementioned report. Combat in the game will apparently be timing-based, requiring you to pick your moments to strike at enemies when they’ve lowered their cover. Meanwhile, according to the leaker, weapons will include swords, throwing knives, crossbows, smoke bombs, and of course, the Hidden Blade.

Meanwhile, the user also describes movement in the game, saying that while jumping is done by with the A button, climbing is done by manually vaulting, grabbing ledges, and pulling yourself up using the motion controllers. Interestingly, Ubisoft has apparently also included options to reduce motion success.

The user also talks about the game’s structure, which, as you may have expected for a VR title, won’t be open world unlike most Assassin’s Creed games. Instead, it seems it will adopt a linear mission-based structure. As per the leak, mission areas are quite large, with plenty of scope for backtracking as well.

In-game cutscenes allegedly provide briefings for the mission at hand, but the user claims the game doesn’t have any side missions or optional objectives. Finally, the leaker also claims that though there are multiple playable characters, which is in line with previously leaked information, players cannot switch between them freely, while the only differences the game exhibits across different characters being how your hands look and the way people address you.

These are all, of course, unconfirmed details right now, so until we hear something official from Ubisoft, it’s best to take this with a grain of salt. That said, if Assassin’s Creed Nexus is indeed launching as soon as these leaks claim, then it shouldn’t be long before it gets announced. Either way, we’ll keep an eye out for more updates, so stay tuned.

In a report published on Exputer, serial Ubisoft leaker Tom Henderson states that Assassin’s Creed Nexus will bring back several protagonists from throughout the series, including the likes of Assassin’s Creed 2’s Ezio, Assassin’s Creed 3’s Connor and Haytham, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s Kassandra, with each being playable in different levels. Apparently, the game will feature several historical settings (which explains all the different protagonists), similar to the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Infinity.

The game will reportedly have a total of 16 missions, which will also include a tutorial, while missions will involve combat, stealth, pickpocketing, climbing, and more. The game will offer the option to play either with point and teleport movement or movement with analog sticks, or a combination of both. If you’re using the former, stealth will adapt altered mechanics- the closer you are to an enemy when you’re teleporting, the more noise you make.

According to Henderson’s report, holding down a button and flicking your wrist will bring out your hidden blade, while using it and other weapons will work with motion controls, as you’d expect. The game also apparently features a full lockpicking minigame, and players will have several opportunities to lockpick past chests and doors for rewards during missions.

Interestingly, Assassin’s Creed Nexus will also allegedly have a unique take on the series’ iconic Leap of Faith mechanic, which will require players to stand in a T pose to fall off high points within the game.

Henderson claims the game is expected to launch within the next 12 months.

As per leaks, Assassin’s Creed Nexus isn’t the only new game the series is getting in the near future. Reportedly, a smaller-scale stealth-focused instalment called Assassin’s Creed Rift is also expected to launch by the first half of 2023.