Ubisoft Leamington (formerly FreeStyleGames Limited) was a British

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

and a studio of

Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...

based in

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply LeamingtonEven more colloquially, also referred to as Lem or Leam (). (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Pri ...

. Founded in November 2002 by six industry veterans formerly of

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under the EA Sports ...

and Rare, the studio was bought by

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

in September 2008. In January 2017, Ubisoft acquired the studio from Activision and renamed it Ubisoft Leamington. Ubisoft Leamington worked on AAA games in a supporting capacity, primarily the ''

Tom Clancy's The Division ''Tom Clancy's The Division'' is a 2016 online-only action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. It was released on 8 March for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is set in a near ...

'' franchise, in close cooperation with sister studio

Ubisoft Reflections Ubisoft Reflections Limited (formerly Reflections and later Reflections Interactive Limited) is a British video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Founded in 1984 by Martin Edmondson and Nicholas Chamberlain, th ...

. In January 2025, Ubisoft announced a series of layoffs that would ultimately affect the Leamington studio, which officially shutdown after a consultation process on 1 April 2025.

History

Early years (2002–2008)

FreeStyleGames was founded on 29 November 2002 by Alex Darby, David Osbourn, Phil Hindle and Jamie Jackson, formerly of

, and Alex Zoro and Jonny Ambrose, formerly of Rare. Their first title, ''B-Boy'', a game of competitive break-dancing, was published and distributed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in Europe in 2006, and published by Evolved Games and distributed by

SouthPeak Games SouthPeak Interactive Corporation, doing business as SouthPeak Games, was an American video game publisher based in Midlothian, Virginia. Founded on March 1, 1996, as a subsidiary of SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina, it was sold and moved ...

in North America in 2008. ''B-Boy'' features Crazy Legs of the

Rock Steady Crew {{Infobox musical artist , name = Rock Steady Crew , image = , landscape = yes , caption = , alias = , origin = The Bronx New York, Manhattan New York, U.S. , genre ...

, as well as many other well known b-boys from around the World. It won the

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

best of E3 2006 award for best PSP music game.

As part of Activision (2008–2017)

On 12 September 2008, FreeStyleGames was purchased by

for an undisclosed sum, following a period of commercial cooperation, mainly involving localised

downloadable content content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can be added for no extra cost or as a form of video game monetization, enabling the publisher to gain ad ...

for the ''

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead guitar, lead, bass guitar, bass, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Players match ...

'' series. The first game the company developed under Activision's ownership was ''

DJ Hero ''DJ Hero'' is a 2009 rhythm game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the first spin-off of the ''Guitar Hero'' series. It was released on October 27, 2009, in North America and on October 29, 2009, in Europe. The gam ...

'' (2009), a spin-off of the ''Guitar Hero'' series, in which players used a turntable-based controller to mimic the actions of a

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

across numerous songs. The title was considered successful, and they completed ''

DJ Hero 2 ''DJ Hero 2'' is a 2010 rhythm game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the sequel to ''DJ Hero'' (2009), a spin-off (media), spin-off of the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game was released worldwide in October 2010 for ...

'' the following year, though around that time, the

rhythm game Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to pres ...

genre was suffering from a glut of releases and was in decline, and Activision had decided to end further production of any ''Guitar Hero'' title. The company had to lay off some employees during this time, but still were financially viable with success of '' Sing Party'' (2012) on the

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. The W ...

, which was a collaborative effort with

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

. As ''Sing Party''s development was wrapping up, Activision approached FreeStyleGames to have them consider how to reboot the ''Guitar Hero'' franchise. FreeStyleGames developed a new guitar controller atypical of ones that has been created to that point, and crafted a different approach towards presenting the game to players through a first-person perspective

full-motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...

. This work culminated in '' Guitar Hero Live'' (2015), the first new ''Guitar Hero'' title for the

eighth generation of video game consoles The eighth generation of video game consoles began in 2012, and consists of four home video game consoles: the Wii U released in 2012, the PlayStation 4 family in 2013, the Xbox One family in 2013, and the Nintendo Switch family in 2017. The ge ...

. While ''Guitar Hero Live'' was praised by critics, it failed to have significant sales, falling short of Activision's projections. On 1 April 2016, it was announced that around 50 staff were made redundant as part of a reshuffle by Activision. Founders Jackson and Osbourn opted to leave the studio at that point, disappointed in how development studios are treated when games are not financially successful, and along with two of the laid-off staff, Jonathan Napier and Gareth Morrison, formed a new studio, Slingshot Cartel. This studio anticipates developing games in a process more akin to filmmaking, something that the studio had to do during the course of development of ''Guitar Hero Live'', which they seem can better streamline the process and reduce costs for game production.

As Ubisoft Leamington (2017–2025)

On 18 January 2017, French publisher

acquired the studio from Activision, and renamed it Ubisoft Leamington, referencing its

location. Under this new owner, Ubisoft Leamington worked closely with

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

-based partner studio

, another studio acquired by Ubisoft and rebranded. A proposal to close the studio as part of ongoing cost-cutting measures was announced on 27 January 2025. The studio officially closed its doors on 1 April 2025 following the conclusion of the consultation process, with staff not affected moving to fully remote contracts.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Activision 2002 establishments in England 2008 mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions 2025 disestablishments in England British companies established in 2002 British companies disestablished in 2025 British subsidiaries of foreign companies Companies based in Leamington Spa Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Former Activision subsidiaries Ubisoft divisions and subsidiaries Video game companies established in 2002 Video game companies disestablished in 2025 Video game development companies