Ubisoft is continuing its extensive 2026 reorganisation by placing several development teams and major franchises under the established Massive Entertainment name. The move replaces the temporary Creative House 2 label with a studio brand already linked to some of the publisher’s most prominent recent releases.
The expanded group will oversee The Division, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell, as well as the recently acquired MOBA March of Giants. It will also be responsible for unannounced projects, potentially including whatever Massive began developing after Star Wars Outlaws, although those projects have not been identified.
A larger network under one studio brand
Ubisoft has long relied on teams in different countries working together on its games. Under the new arrangement, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto will join Massive Entertainment within the same wider organisation.
This makes the group responsible for most of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy properties: The Division, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon. Rainbow Six is excluded. The organisation will also handle March of Giants and new original intellectual property that Ubisoft has not yet detailed.
The remainder of Ubisoft’s games will be divided among five other creative houses. These include Vantage Studios, the publisher’s joint venture with Tencent, while three additional groups are still identified as Creative Houses 3, 4 and 5.
In July, Cristoph Hartmann was appointed to lead Creative House 2. He spent 20 years at Take-Two Interactive, co-founded 2K Games and briefly worked as a vice president at Amazon Games.
Former Avalanche chief development officer Natalie Francis joined Hartmann last week as studio manager at Massive’s Malmö office. The Swedish city now appears to be the centre of the expanded network.
Massive Entertainment’s journey from strategy games
Massive Entertainment began in 1997 when former students formed a studio in Ronneby, a small Swedish town. Its first release was the real-time strategy game Ground Control, followed by World in Conflict after Vivendi acquired the company.
Ubisoft purchased Massive in 2008 after it was put up for sale following Activision’s merger with Vivendi. The acquisition changed the studio’s role: rather than leading its own strategy projects, Massive supported development on Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.
Massive later took the lead on 2016’s The Division. It went on to develop the Avatar tie-in Frontiers of Pandora and create Star Wars Outlaws.
From Ronneby to Malmö
The scale of today’s organisation is far removed from Massive’s beginnings in Ronneby. The original studio grew from Ronneby kunskapskälla, a school attended by many members of the development team. Massive is now based in Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, where it accounts for a significant share of local employment.
The contrast between the two locations was evident to one visitor who travelled to Ronneby in 1997 while Ground Control was in development. The trip from Copenhagen involved an hour in a small propeller aircraft during heavy turbulence, with the pilot offering cookies as the in-flight food. Ronneby’s airport reportedly resembled a small primary school, and customs was handled by a person sitting on a wooden chair in a hallway.
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Whether the restructuring gives Ubisoft’s teams clearer direction will depend on how effectively Massive, Paris, Montreal and Toronto coordinate their future projects. For now, the change places an unusually broad collection of franchises and development responsibilities under one studio identity.
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