This voluntary career transition program, for the employees that agree to it, involves the employee being let go from Massive Entertainment with a comprehensive severance package that would involve financial and career assistance.

“As part of our ongoing evolution and long-term planning, we have recently realigned our teams and resources to strengthen our roadmap, ensuring our continued focus on The Division franchise and the technologies, including Snowdrop and Ubisoft Connect, that power our games,” wrote the studio in its statement.

“To support this transition responsibly, we introduced a voluntary career transition program, giving eligible team members the opportunity to take their next career step on their own terms, supported by a comprehensive package that includes financial and career assistance.”

Along with this, Massive Entertainment also establishes its intent to fully commit to The Division as a franchise, which would involve more content for The Division 2, as well as development of the upcoming The Division 2: Survivors, support work for The Division Resurgence, and even work on the third game in the franchise. “These projects continue with strength, focus and ambition,” said the studio, “and we look forward to sharing more in the future.”

A recent report indicated that Ubisoft had similarly offered a “restructuring proposal” for another one of its studios – Ubisoft RedLynx. As part of this proposal, up to 60 positions in the studio are set to be affected. This proposal, however, doesn’t yet have full approval yet, and there is no timetable for when it will go forward.

“This proposal reflects difficult choices we may need to make, and it comes after careful consideration,” said Ubisoft RedLynx managing director Celine Pasula. “We recognise the weight of this announcement and want to acknowledge the impact this proposal may have on individuals and teams.”

“We are confident that, with the proposed changes, RedLynx would continue to play a meaningful role in Ubisoft’s future – driving technical excellence on mobile devices, and strengthening Ubisoft’s cross and multi-platform capabilities on small screens to expand our audience reach.”

It is worth noting that, as part of this restructuring proposal, RedLynx would move on from being a multiplatform game developer to only focusing on small-screen experiences – namely mobile.

These moves come just a few weeks after Ubisoft had officially unveiled the name of its new subsidiary company – Vantage Studios. The company, headed up by co-CEOs Charlie Guillemot and Christophe Derennes, will be in charge of the development and support for three of Ubisoft’s largest franchises – Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.

Among other things, the forming of Vantage Studios also eventually led to the departure of former Assassin’s Creed franchise head Marc-Alexis Côté earlier this month.

And with Outlaws now out for roughly a month, Gerighty is indeed preparing to transition to his next project. Speaking with Game File, he revealed that he will continue to oversee the recently-released sci-fi title for another month or so, following which he will shit his focus to The Division 3. In his stead, a team of “very seasoned Massive people” will continue to work on Star Wars Outlaws.

Ubisoft recently announced that Star Wars Outlaws had failed to sell to expectations upon release, with prior reports estimating less than a million units sold by the end of August. On November 21, the game will release for Steam, and receive its first expansion, Wild Run. The next expansion, A Pirate’s Fortune, will launch sometime in spring 2025, while the game’s next free patch is coming on October 3.

Clockwork Revolution

inXile Entertainment, the developer behind the Wasteland series is entering uncharted territory with its next project Clockwork Revolution. It’s an upcoming first-person shooter that thrusts you into the steampunk realm of Avalon where you have to travel back in time through the use of special abilities to reshape reality through your decisions. Clockwork Revolution features some impressive art direction, and the gameplay is all about juggling between your weapons and special abilities to take on different challenges. It’s heavily inspired by Prey, and might just end up being a great time if it stands true to its promises. It comes out for PC and Xbox Series X/S sometime in the near future.

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

Rocksteady has been hard at work on Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, and it will be released for current-gen consoles and PCs on February 2. It tells the story of how Brainiac has hijacked the minds of the members of the Justice League, and how the ragtag group of anti-heroes i.e. Suicide Squad rises up to the occasion to save the day. The gameplay is pretty simplistic with players having to shoot down waves upon waves of enemies all while jumping around the open-world of Metropolis. There is quite a bit of skepticism with regard to its seemingly repetitive gameplay, but it just might be a fun time with friends through the co-op mode.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Destiny 2 has been growing strong with each passing expansion, and Bungie is set to bring the Light and Darkness saga to an end with The Final Shape expansion. Set in an entirely new region, The Final Shape expansion will pit players against a new evil force namely the Subjugators. Of course, there’s going to be plenty of new loot to look forward to – and the developers have also confirmed that all classes will receive a new Super Ability with this pack. It comes out on 4 June 2024 for PC and consoles.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Set against the backdrop of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is primed to bring the classic open-world survival sandbox gameplay to a brand new set audience. The trailers have showcased a well-realized post-apocalyptic world brimming with all sorts of human and inhuman threats alongside some great use of Unreal Engine 5, so S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has plenty of great stuff to look forward to. GSC Game World has been working on this sequel for a long time, and it releases for PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles on 5 September 2024.

Exe Killer

Paradark Studio’s upcoming Exe Killer might just have one of the most unique settings for a first-person shooter. It thrusts players into an alternate post-apocalyptic reality that combines a futuristic dystopia with the Wild West, and the story revolves around the bounty-hunting adventures of our protagonist. There’s quite a bit of shooting involved in the gameplay, but Exe Killer also infuses open-world mechanics and driving to craft a compelling experience. Exe Killer releases for PC sometime in 2025.

SCP: EVENT CLASSIFIED

Set against the backdrop of a mysterious facility, SCP: Event Classified lets you choose between the role of a soldier, a prisoner, a scientist, or a monster with differing goals for each of these characters. SCP: Event Classified is a horror shooter with some interesting atmosphere and gameplay variety, and it also claims to be highly replayable thanks to procedural map generation and varied objectives. It comes out for PC sometime in Q2 2024.

IGI Origins

The I.G.I. series is making a grand return with I.G.I. Origins which looks like everything that fans would want out of such a sequel right from a military conflict setting to espionage-styled missions and a gameplay loop that mixes stealth and action in just the right proportions. It’s being built using Unreal Engine 5, and suffice it to say it looks really beautiful with realistic lighting and quality textures. It will come out on PC sometime in the near future.

Ripout (console release)

Pet Project Games has made its grand debut with Ripout, a first-person shooter set in outer space. It looks pretty standard affair at first glance, but it has quite a few tricks up its sleeve ranging from procedurally generated levels to a pet gun companion and regenerating monsters that help it stand out from the crowd. It was released last year for PC to some great reviews, and is en route for a console port that will come out in the near future.

Mouse

Yet another beautifully unconventional-looking game, Mouse combines a noir story with an art style that’s heavily inspired by hand-drawn cartoons, and it looks amazing to say the least. The gameplay revolves around shooting down your enemies to the tune of jazz music, and the immaculate art direction that we see in the trailer is what makes it all so compelling in the first place. Mouse will be released for PC, Xbox consoles, and Nintendo Switch.

Outpost: Infinity Siege

Outpost: Infinity Siege is a really interesting game because it combines two very contrasting genres into a single gameplay loop, and that too in a way that it all feels weirdly natural. Outpost Infinity Siege is all about taking part in large-scale conflicts that start out with placing your units and defenses on the battlefield. And once war commences, you take control of those very units in first-person and try to hold your defenses. The game thrives on this element of juggling between different roles and responsibilities, and that sounds really fun and unique. It comes out for PC sometime in the near future.

Helldivers 2

In Helldivers 2, players are tasked to take on the role of warriors who are the last hope for the salvation of humanity. It’s a co-op shooter where you take part in large-scale conflicts, and the gameplay is looking pretty slick with explosions happening everywhere and characters getting embroiled in crossfire among others. It’s a game that’s meant to be experienced with a group of friends, and we will be doing that when Helldivers 2 comes out for PC and PS5 on 8 February, 2024.

Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws will thrust players into a fictional setting as they take control of Kay Vess, an outlaw trying to find a fresh start in an era overrun by crime syndicates. In development at Massive Entertainment, Star Wars Outlaws is being built using the Snowdrop Engine and will see players taking on high-stakes missions where they are free to choose between stealth and action however they see fit. It comes out sometime this year for PC and current-gen consoles.

Unrecord

Unrecord is one of those games that you can easily mistake for real life, and a lot of that praise could be attributed to the ultra-realistic visual presentation on offer. It’s built using Unreal Engine 5, and this first-person shooter flaunts almost every tool of the game engine to great effect – right from Nanite geometry to Lumen lighting and much more. The subtle camera shake and realistic shooting mechanics also help in selling the illusion of real-life footage, and Unrecord definitely has quite a lot of potential both as a tactical FPS and a visual showcase. It comes out for PC sometime in the near future.

Killing Floor 3

The Killing Floor series is characterized by large waves of zombies and a fast and frenetic gunplay loop, and those merits seem to be shining brightly in the upcoming entry. Killing Floor 3 not only iterates on what came before but also makes some new changes like a futuristic setting complete with a whole host of bioengineered zombies. You can team up with a group of friends for some good old-fashioned zombie slaughtering, so Killing Floor 3 could really end up being a great time. It comes out for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 sometime in the near future.

The Division 3

Despite the first game suffering from a rather tepid critical reception, The Division series has managed to make a name for itself in a sea of live-service experiences. With support for The Division 2 rounding up, the developer is gearing up for the next entry in the franchise which is currently in the works at Massive Entertainment. Not much is known about what it will entail, but there’s a great chance that it will also be a similarly fun game that’s worth sinking your teeth into. It will be released for current-gen consoles and PC at an unconfirmed date.

Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland

Talking about all things The Division, we have The Division Heartland – the developer’s free-to-play offerings within the massively successful live-service franchise. It’s essentially the same experience in a new format, so you can expect some significant changes to how the content is spread out and how the progression will work. The Division Heartland will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S sometime in the near future.

Beneath

Camel 101’s upcoming Beneath is a first-person shooter that takes place in a mysterious underwater world brimming with undead creatures and all forms of hideous nightmares. Beneath takes cues from contemporaries like Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, and tries to nail the right balance between horror and action with scarce availability of resources and a sanity meter that has the ability to significantly impact the gameplay. Beneath sounds like an interesting idea, and we will be checking it out when it releases on PC sometime this year.

As per a report published by Tom Henderson on Insider Gaming, The Division 3 is not currently in development and is not part of Ubisoft’s plans at the moment. While it’s unlikely that the company will continue to hold off a new mainline The Division game indefinitely, the report alleges that for now, it’s not something Ubisoft is focused on.

Of course, the company does have a couple of other projects in the series in the works, including free-to-play title The Division Heartland and mobile game The Division Resurgence.

One would assume that The Division 3 is something that Ubisoft will eventually get around to, given the success of the first two instalments, but given the fiscal troubles the company has run into of late, there’s no saying for sure how long it’ll be before that happens.