Ubisoft has made another round of layoffs, this time cutting staff from two of its US studios.

A total of 45 employees have been let go across the Assassin's Creed publisher's San Francisco studio and Red Storm Entertainment, which is based in Cary, North Carolina. It is unclear which departments have been affected.

"Yesterday Ubisoft San Francisco and Red Storm Entertainment informed their teams of a restructuring that resulted in 45 employees leaving Ubisoft," a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN in a statement.

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The Ubisoft Forward 2024 showcase has drawn to close. Don't worry if you missed it, though, as we're about to go over everything which made an appearance during the showcase. From major releases to updates for existing titles to Assassin's Creed - because this is Ubisoft Forward and there has to be Assassin's Creed news. It's the law.

You'll find all of the announcements below, along with their accompanying trailers, for everything shown during Ubisoft Forward 2024.

While the Ubisoft Forward 2024 pre-show actually began with a dicussion about Skull and Bones water mechanics, the first proper game trailer we got was for Rocksmith+, a game designed to teach you how to play the guitar. Well, it can now also teach you how to play the piano. You can try RockSmith+ for free on PlayStation 4 and 5.

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Ubisoft's free-to-play arena shooter XDefiant's first patch has been released.

Entitled "Preseason Patch 1", it addresses a number of specific issues, including one with loading into the Practice Zone – some players found themselves "in a hellscape" outside the world – and another that sees devices dropped at players' feet should they die during device deployment. Up until now, they would still be thrown as if you hadn't just carked it.

This means Practice Zone has been turned back on, although the team warns "it's possible weird things could still happen". So make of that what you will.

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Ubisoft's Tom Clancy-adjacent free-to-play shooter XDefiant has - after several delays last year - been given a release date, and launches for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on 21st May.

XDefiant - a 6v6 mash-up of Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and The Division - was initially revealed as Tom Clancy's XDefiant back in 2021, but Ubisoft later announced it was dropping the prefix following criticism from Tom Clancy fans who felt XDefiant's flamboyant action strayed too far from the franchise's more serious military themes and formula.

Since then, it's seen numerous closed Insider tests and open sessions, but hasn't quite managed to get its foot out the door. It first missed a planned summer launch last year, then received another delay in October, due to "inconsistencies in the game experience".

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Good news, people whose day-to-day lives are woefully short on blingy Clancified squad-murdering. Ubisoft's elusive free-to-play shooter XDefiant finally has a release date, 21st May 2024. Or at least, that's when the preseason launches, providing six weeks of access to the modes, maps and factions from last month's server test.

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