Ubisoft | Code Like It's 198x

Ubisoft started as a sideline to a distribution business. The Guillemot brothers were already among France’s biggest sellers of other people’s software when, in 1986, they set up Ubi Soft to publish games of their own. Two years later they flew the European computer press to a chateau in Brittany where the company’s programmers lived and worked, and showed them Iron Lord. The same family runs it forty years on. In between, Ubi Soft grew from a publisher of French adventure games for the Amstrad and Atari ST into one of the largest game companies in the world, with Rayman, Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed, and twice held off bigger companies that bought large parts of it.

Fast facts

Founded: 1986, by the brothers Christian, Claude, Gérard, Michel and Yves Guillemot, from Brittany.
Run by: Yves Guillemot, founder and president in 1988, still chairman and chief executive in 2026.
First game: Zombi (1986), an icon-driven adventure.
Stock market: floated in Paris in 1996.
Bought: Red Storm Entertainment (2000), Blue Byte (2001) and The Learning Company’s games division, with Myst and Prince of Persia (2001).
Best-known series: Rayman, Prince of Persia, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance.

From distributors to publishers

The brothers grew up in Carentoir, a village in Brittany, where their parents ran a farm supplies business. According to later accounts, they started selling computers and software by mail order in the mid-1980s after finding that games cost far less in Britain than their French supplier charged, and imported them direct. By 1988 the family’s Guillemot group was, ST Action reported, “reputed to be the top software distributor in France”, and ACE listed the British and American publishers it handled there: Electronic Arts, Mirrorsoft and Elite.

Ubi Soft was the publishing arm, set up in 1986 “as an independent publishing company within the Guillemot group”. The name was chosen, Edge later explained, to suggest that the company’s games would be everywhere. Its first game was Zombi, which Amstrad Action previewed in September 1986 for the Amstrad CPC as a chance to “take part in a night of the living dead”; the same report mentioned a sprite designer, Graphic City, and a role-playing game, Fer et Flamme. Ubi Soft also did conversions for other publishers: in 1988 it was programming Cinemaware’s Defender of the Crown for Mirrorsoft’s Amstrad CPC release.

The chateau

In the summer of 1988 Ubi Soft invited journalists from Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden to Brittany. Its developers lived and worked in a 19th-century chateau near Rennes, set in 700 acres of grounds. Yves Guillemot, “Founder and President of UBI Soft”, explained that the headquarters stayed in the centre of Paris: “with a telephone, modem and Facsimile, it is not really necessary to be in the city.” ST Action counted 250 in-house and freelance developers working for the company, and ACE reported that it had released about 20 titles and hoped to double its turnover, from about $5 million to $10 million, by selling them across Europe.

The games on show were for the Atari ST and Amiga. Iron Lord, after eighteen months of artwork, was a medieval adventure with archery, arm-wrestling and swordfighting. Puffy’s Saga was a Gauntlet-style maze game with 140 levels, and Skateball crossed football with Rollerball on an ice rink. At the Personal Computer Show in London that September, Electronic Arts announced that it had signed the British distribution rights to Ubi Soft as an affiliated label, and Iron Lord, Skateball and Puffy’s Saga were among the first releases.

Rayman

Ubi Soft’s first big hit was a platform game. Rayman, designed by Michel Ancel, came out in 1995 for the Atari Jaguar, the PlayStation and the Saturn, developed and published by Ubi Soft itself. Computer and Video Games called it “superb on Saturn and PlayStation. Cool on Jaguar too.” Edge said in 2000 that it was one of the best-selling PlayStation games of all time and one of the first to be reissued as a Platinum title, though “not well regarded for its innovation or gameplay”.

In 1996 Ubi Soft floated on the Paris stock exchange. When PC Gamer visited that summer, “most of the employees” had bought shares, and a project manager was ruefully tracking the price: “On the first day the price went up 10%. On the second it was 8%. Today it is only 4% more.”

Buying its way to the top five

By December 2000 Ubi Soft had about 1,700 staff, studios in 18 countries, 65 per cent of its developers outside France, and, Yves Guillemot told Edge, the aim of being one of the world’s top five publishers by 2006. It bought its way there. In 2000 it took over Sinister Games and Grolier Interactive, and in August Red Storm Entertainment, the maker of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. “It’s one more target that we didn’t reach,” Guillemot said of Red Storm’s audience. In February 2001 it bought the German publisher Blue Byte, maker of The Settlers.

In March 2001 Ubi Soft bought the games division of The Learning Company, which Gores Technology Group had taken over from Mattel. That brought it the games of Brøderbund and Mindscape, among them Myst and Prince of Persia. Ubi Soft published Myst III: Exile later in 2001 and Myst IV: Revelation in 2004; the Cyan entry tells that story. Its own Montreal studio remade Jordan Mechner’s prince as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003), which Edge said “felt thrillingly modern” but whose sales never matched its reputation.

Electronic Arts and Vivendi

By then the company wrote its name as one word, Ubisoft. At the end of 2004 Electronic Arts bought 19.9 per cent of its shares. Ubisoft called the purchase “hostile”. Edge reported that the French media expected the government or Vivendi to help defend it, and Infogrames’ chief executive Bruno Bonnell said EA “did not enter Ubisoft’s capital to just stay at” that level and offered to help fight off a takeover. No bid came.

Vivendi itself was the next threat. The French media group began buying Ubisoft shares in 2015 and built up a stake of more than a quarter of the company. On 20 March 2018 Ubisoft announced that Vivendi had agreed to sell all of it, to Ubisoft, Tencent and other investors, and not to buy any more shares for five years. Wireframe described Ubisoft as having “saw off the threat of a Vivendi takeover”.

Assassin’s Creed and after

Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed (2007) became the company’s biggest series. Its assassin, Altaïr, ran, climbed and leapt across three cities of the Third Crusade, Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem, and Edge called his animation “a triumph”. Ubisoft also took on Crytek’s Far Cry (2004), first as its publisher and then as the owner of the series, and found an unexpected hit in the dance game Just Dance, which in Christmas 2009 “significantly outperformed our expectations”, its British managing director said. The company kept publishing smaller projects beside the blockbusters: Éric Chahi’s god game From Dust (2011) came from Ubisoft Montpellier, and Julian Gollop led the 3DS tactics game Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars (2011) at Ubisoft Sofia.

In July 2020, after newspaper reports of harassment and misconduct at several of its studios, Ubisoft’s chief creative officer Serge Hascoët and two other senior executives resigned, and the company said it would change its workplace culture. Wireframe’s columnist noted that a staff survey had found that about a quarter of employees said they had witnessed or experienced misconduct.

In 2025 Ubisoft moved Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six into a new subsidiary, Vantage Studios, in which Tencent paid €1.16 billion for a 25 per cent stake; it began operating on 1 October 2025, with Yves Guillemot’s son Charlie as one of its two chief executives. In January 2026, facing heavy losses, Ubisoft announced a restructuring into five “creative houses”, closed studios in Halifax and Stockholm, and cancelled six games, among them a remake of The Sands of Time. On 19 June 2026 Claude Guillemot, one of the five founding brothers and head of the family’s hardware company, Guillemot Corporation, maker of Hercules and Thrustmaster products, was killed when his plane crashed near La Baule.

Sources

Amstrad Action issue 12, September 1986, pp. 19–20: the French software scene; Ubi Soft’s Zombi, Graphic City and Fer et Flamme.
Amstrad Action issue 30, March 1988, p. 12: Ubisoft converting Defender of the Crown to the Amstrad CPC for Mirrorsoft.
ST Action issue 5, September 1988, p. 15, “Special report: UBI Soft”: the chateau near Rennes; Yves Guillemot as founder and president; Paris headquarters; founding in 1986 within the Guillemot group, “the top software distributor in France”; Zombi; 250 developers; Iron Lord, Puffy’s Saga, Final Command, Skateball.
ACE issue 12, September 1988, pp. 34–35, “Gallic invasion”: the chateau and its 700 acres; founded in 1986; about 20 titles; turnover of about $5 million and a $10 million target; distribution in France of Electronic Arts, Mirrorsoft and Elite; also p. 14, Ubi Soft as Image Works’ French distributor.
Commodore Computing International vol. 7 no. 3, November 1988, p. 30: the Personal Computer Show; Electronic Arts signing the UK distribution rights to Ubisoft as an affiliated label.
Your Commodore vol. 5 no. 3, December 1988, p. 6: Electronic Arts’ European publishing deals with Dinamic and Ubi Soft; first releases Iron Lord, Skateball and Puffy’s Saga.
Edge issue 20, May 1995, p. 56: Ubi Soft as publisher and developer of Rayman for the Jaguar.
Computer and Video Games issue 168, November 1995, pp. 34–35: Rayman on the PlayStation, with Jaguar and Saturn versions.
Edge issue 57, April 1998, p. 48: Michel Ancel as “the designer behind the PlayStation hit Rayman”.
PC Gamer (UK) issue 34, September 1996, p. 34: Ubi Soft’s “recent successful stock market flotation” and Fabrice Valay’s share prices.
Edge issue 91, December 2000, pp. 56–60, Ubi Soft feature: founding in 1986; the name; Rayman on sale from September 1995; Red Storm; 1,700 staff, 18 countries, 65 per cent of developers outside France; the top-five target for 2006; Yves Guillemot’s quotes.
PC Player (Germany), May 2001, p. 92, “Das große Firmen-Schlucken”: Ubi Soft’s purchases of Sinister Games and Grolier Interactive (May 2000), Red Storm (August 2000), Blue Byte (February 2001) and The Learning Company’s games division (March 2001), with Pool of Radiance 2 and Myst.
PC Zone issue 109, December 2001, p. 80: Myst III: Exile review (Ubi Soft).
Australian PC User vol. 16 no. 12, December 2004: Myst IV: Revelation review (Ubisoft owning the rights).
Edge issue 137, June 2004, pp. 40–41: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and its sales.
Edge (Australian edition) issue 5, February 2005, p. 15: EA’s 19.9 per cent stake; Ubisoft calling it “hostile”; the French government, Vivendi and Bruno Bonnell.
Official Xbox Magazine (Australia) issue 37, February 2005, p. 20, and Computer Gaming World issue 249, March 2005, p. 36: EA’s 20 per cent stake; Bonnell’s comments.
Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 195, September 2005, p. 38: Far Cry Instincts made by Ubisoft under licence from Crytek.
Edge issue 183, Christmas 2007, p. 82: Assassin’s Creed review (publisher Ubisoft, developer Ubisoft Montreal; Altaïr, Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem).
Edge issue 211, February 2010, pp. 10–11: British retail in 2009 and Just Dance.
Edge issue 231, September 2011: From Dust review (Ubisoft Montpellier). Edge issue 227, May 2011, p. 101: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars review (Ubisoft Sofia, with Gollop).
Wireframe issue 22, September 2019, p. 15: Ubisoft seeing off the Vivendi takeover.
Wireframe issue 46, December 2020, p. 3, Jon Bailes: reports of misconduct at Ubisoft’s studios and the staff survey.
“Ubisoft reaches agreement with Vivendi for its full exit from Ubisoft’s share capital”, Ubisoft press release, 20 March 2018 (web, secondary), and “Vivendi drops bid for gamemaker Ubisoft, ending a contentious three year takeover battle”, CNBC, 20 March 2018. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/03/20/1443121/0/en/UBISOFT-ENTERTAINMENT-Ubisoft-reaches-agreement-with-Vivendi-for-its-full-exit-from-Ubisoft-s-share-capital.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/vivendi-drops-bid-for-ubisoft.html
“Ubisoft executives resign amid sexual misconduct allegations”, Game Developer, July 2020 (web, secondary). https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/ubisoft-executives-resign-amid-sexual-misconduct-allegations
“Ubisoft announces the completion of Tencent’s strategic investment in Vantage Studios”, Ubisoft press release, 21 November 2025, and Variety, March 2025 (web, secondary): the €1.16 billion investment, the 25 per cent stake, 1 October 2025 and the co-chief executives. https://variety.com/2025/gaming/news/ubisoft-tencent-assassins-creed-spinoff-far-cry-rainbow-six-1236350271/
“Assassin’s Creed Maker Ubisoft Cancels Six Games in Restructuring”, Bloomberg, 21 January 2026, and Variety, January 2026 (web, secondary): the creative houses, closures and cancellations. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-21/ubisoft-cancels-six-games-slashes-guidance-in-restructuring
“L’un des cofondateurs d’Ubisoft, Claude Guillemot, est mort dans le crash d’un avion à La Baule”, franceinfo, 20 June 2026, and The Next Web, June 2026 (web, secondary). https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/jeux-video/l-un-des-cofondateurs-d-ubisoft-claude-guillemot-est-mort-dans-le-crash-d-un-avion-a-la-baule_8071589.html https://thenextweb.com/news/claude-guillemot-ubisoft-co-founder-dies-plane-crash-69
Wikipedia, “Ubisoft” and “Yves Guillemot” (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): the five brothers’ names; Carentoir and the family business; the mail-order imports from Britain; the 28 March 1986 founding; Vivendi’s share purchases from 2015; the Far Cry rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Guillemot