IP establishment and growth (2002–2008)
Ubisoft Montreal's break-out title came through Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, released in 2002.[15] 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.[13] The next year in 2000, Ubisoft acquired Red Storm Entertainment, which had successfully produced games based on Tom Clancy novels. The acquisition included the licence to develop more Tom Clancy-based games, as well as access to the Unreal game engine.[13] The Ubisoft Montreal team started experimenting with modern spy gadgetry within the existing Drift elements, and found some potential promise to make a game in the Tom Clancy's series from it. With Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty soon to be released, Ubisoft Montreal was tasked with creating the Metal Gear Solid killer, which resulted in the first Splinter Cell game. The Montreal studio continued to develop several of the Splinter Cell sequels through 2010.[13]
In 2001, Ubisoft acquired the rights to the Myst, Chessmaster, and Prince of Persia IPs from Mattel and The Learning Company. Mattel was adamant about getting the Prince of Persia series and assured that the Montreal studio got the first chance to work with it.[13] Ubisoft Montreal took the original 2D platforming games into a third-person 3D perspective, incorporating parkour, as well as bringing the series' original creator Jordan Mechner as a consultant for the game's story. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released in 2003, and proved a critical and financial success, with over 14 million copies sold by 2014, as well as several sequels.[13]
A small team in Ubisoft Montreal worked on developing a Prince of Persia for the next-generation consoles starting in 2004. They wanted to break away from having the player-character as a prince, and soon came to the concept of having the player control one of the Assassins in protecting the prince during the period of the Third Crusade. The newer hardware allowed them to expand the linear gameplay from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time into an open world. Ubisoft was not keen on releasing a title in the Prince of Persia series where the Prince was not the prime character, and the title was reworked to be a new IP, called Assassin's Creed that ended up being released in 2007, selling over 10 million units by 2014.[13] This was the third major IP being developed at Ubisoft Montreal, and has also had numerous sequels since its release.[13]
Yet another major IP came to Ubisoft Montreal was the Far Cry series. Ubisoft had initially contracted with Crytek to expand their demonstration of their CryEngine into a full game named Far Cry, which Ubisoft published in 2004. After its release, Crytek was approached by Electronic Arts to develop exclusively for them. Ubisoft established a deal with Crytek for the rights to Far Cry and a persistent licence to the CryEngine. Ubisoft assigned Ubisoft Montreal to develop console releases of Far Cry, which allowed them to continue to work with the licence and improve upon the CryEngine, making a new proprietary engine called the Dunia engine.[13] The Montreal team created several sequels to Far Cry, starting with Far Cry 2 released in 2008.[13]
During this period, in 2005, the government of Quebec gave Ubisoft CA$5 million to expand with anticipation of reaching 2,000 employees by 2010.[16] In 2007, with already 1,600 employees, the government increased to CA$19 million to reach 3,000 employees by 2013, which would make Ubisoft Montreal the world's largest game development studio.[17]
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.[18] 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.[19] 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.[20]
