‘Assassin’s Creed’ creators cling to family control at Ubisoft

Every second Monday of the month for over three decades, the five Guillemot brothers — whose company gave the world such blockbuster video-game series as the Assassin’s Creed, Rayman and Rabbids — have gotten on a call from their homes in London, New York, Paris and Brittany.

Often stretching into the wee hours of the Paris morning, the chats on everything from industry trends to threats from the metaverse have helped the brothers forge a common vision for Ubisoft SA, the company they founded in the 1980s in a sleepy northwestern French town, catapulting it into one of the largest, stand-alone studios in the $200 billion global video games industry. Now, that vision is being tested by a series of crises.