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| Ubisoft Acquires Amazon’s March of Giants! |
In a move that reshapes the competitive gaming landscape, a legendary tactical shooter director comes home, bringing with him a bold new vision for the MOBA genre.
In a significant shift within the gaming industry, Ubisoft has acquired the upcoming free-to-play MOBA March of Giants and its entire development team from Amazon Games Montreal. The deal, finalized on December 15, 2025, is less a simple asset purchase and more a strategic homecoming, engineered to bolster Ubisoft’s presence in the highly competitive multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) market.
The acquisition is headlined by the return of Xavier Marquis, the original creative director behind the massively successful Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, and Alexandre Parizeau, former managing director of Ubisoft Toronto. For Ubisoft, this move is a dual investment: in a promising new intellectual property (IP) and, more importantly, in proven, veteran talent with a deep history of building enduring live-service games.
The Game: A New Kind of “War MOBA”
March of Giants isn’t a traditional MOBA. First announced by Amazon Games Montreal in August 2025, it pitches itself as a 4v4 “War MOBA” set in a World War I-inspired steampunk battlefield. The game aims to blend lane-based strategic combat with the epic scale of warfare.
The core gameplay revolves around three unique pillars designed to “bring the epic scale of war to the MOBA genre,” as described by Creative Director Xavier Marquis:
- Play as a Giant: Each player controls a towering, powerful hero with unique abilities, serving as the commander on the frontline.
- Lead Your Soldiers: Beyond personal combat, players command thousands of AI soldiers, directing them to assault objectives, defend positions, or swarm enemy Giants.
- Deploy Battleworks: The battlefield itself is a tool. Players can strategically place tactical structures like trenches, bunkers, tanks, and turrets to fortify positions, cut off lanes, or turn the tide of an engagement.
The game recently concluded a closed alpha test in North America, which the developers called an “important milestone” that showed a “glimpse of the game’s real promise”.
A Strategic Acquisition for Both Companies
This transaction is a strategic maneuver for both tech giants, reflecting broader shifts in their gaming divisions.
For Amazon, the sale is part of a well-documented scaling back of its ambitious internal AAA game development. In October 2025, the company announced massive layoffs and a strategic pivot away from developing large-scale, costly titles like MMOs, choosing instead to focus on areas like casual gaming and its upcoming Tomb Raider titles. Selling March of Giants allows Amazon to step back from direct development while retaining a stake in the game’s potential success through a marketing partnership on its Twitch platform.
For Ubisoft, the acquisition is a targeted strike to capture talent and IP. CEO Yves Guillemot stated that the game has a “real opportunity to bring something fresh and dynamic to players, and to help Ubisoft compete in one of gaming’s biggest arenas”. The publisher has been reorganizing its studios into “creative houses” to foster long-term IP growth, and the March of Giants team is slated to join one of these new divisions.
The deal’s financial terms were not disclosed, though a source indicated to Variety that it involved a nominal fee with additional considerations tied to the game’s future performance.
The State of March of Giants: Before and After Acquisition
What This Means for Gamers
The most immediate takeaway for players is that development on March of Giants is continuing uninterrupted. The team has moved offices but remains intact and is already working on new content, including additional Giants, expanded game modes, and foundational systems for long-term growth.
For fans of competitive and strategic games, the pedigree of the development team is a major point of interest. Xavier Marquis and his team are credited with building Rainbow Six Siege from a troubled launch into one of the most successful live-service shooters in the world. Their expertise in cultivating a dedicated competitive community and supporting a game for the long term will be directly applied to March of Giants.
As part of the transition, players can still wishlist the game on Steam and sign up for future playtests through its official website. The partnership with Amazon ensures that Twitch will play a key role in the game’s marketing, likely meaning prominent visibility and streaming integrations when it launches.
In the official announcement on the Ubisoft news site, Xavier Marquis captured the sentiment of the move: “Returning to Ubisoft brings things full circle. We built some of our most meaningful work here, and we’re excited to continue developing March of Giants from within Ubisoft”. You can read the full announcement from Ubisoft here.
Alexandre Parizeau echoed this, framing the acquisition as the next logical step: “Now, by joining Ubisoft, we’re uniting behind a shared vision to build March of Giants into one of the next great, enduring MOBAs”. With a veteran team back at a publisher known for supporting persistent online worlds, March of Giants is marching toward launch with formidable backing.