{"id":120660,"date":"2020-11-13T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T19:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/373717"},"modified":"2020-11-13T19:06:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T19:06:00","slug":"police-say-hoax-emergency-call-prompted-ubisoft-montreal-studio-scare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/11\/13\/police-say-hoax-emergency-call-prompted-ubisoft-montreal-studio-scare\/","title":{"rendered":"Police say &#8216;hoax&#8217; emergency call prompted Ubisoft Montreal studio scare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Update 12:46 PST:&nbsp;<\/strong>Employees are being safely escorted out of the building and a heavy police presence remains. Montreal Police say &#8220;no threat has been identified,&#8221; while a group of people remain on the building&#8217;s rooftop.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update 2:01 PST:&nbsp;<\/strong>According to&nbsp;Journal de Montreal, those on the rooftop were being evacuated one by one with hands raised. Police sources <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/montreal\/montreal-police-ubisoft-1.5801236\">speaking to Canadian media<\/a> confirm the 911 call that prompted the emergency response&nbsp;was a &#8220;hoax.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"und\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3fKlfoZMsi\">pic.twitter.com\/3fKlfoZMsi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ubisoft Montr\u00e9al (@UbisoftMTL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UbisoftMTL\/status\/1327406771904929792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 14, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Original story follows<\/em><\/p>\n<p>News reports are emerging that a possible hostage situation is underway at Ubisoft Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>The news outlet Journal de Montreal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.journaldemontreal.com\/2020\/11\/13\/possible-prise-dotages-chez-ubisoft-a-montreal\">has reported<\/a> that a &#8220;possible hostage situation&#8221; is taking place in the building that houses Ubisoft&#8217;s Montreal offices in Canada. Their reporting states that &#8220;dozens of people&#8221; are being held hostage.<\/p>\n<p>The Journal&#8217;s reporting was quickly corroborated by Ubisoft employees working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Community developer Eric Pope <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MrPope\/status\/1327323646923321345?s=20\">tweeted that he was on a call<\/a> with several employees from the office, who had to leave abruptly before the Journal&#8217;s report emerged.<\/p>\n<p>Aerial shots (via the Journal) show numerous people on the roof of the building, which houses other businesses aside from Ubisoft Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>Some Ubisoft Montreal&nbsp;employees have tweeted that they were at the building and were able to leave and are safe, while still stating concern for the colleagues still in the building.<\/p>\n<p>A Ubisoft spokesperson told Gamasutra the company is&nbsp;&#8220;aware of the situation and working with local authorities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update 12:30 PST: <\/strong> <span>Police have told Radio-Canada&#8217;s Kim Vermette that the operation near the Ubisoft building in Montreal seems to be related to an armed robbery<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal police <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SPVM\/status\/1327342860404973568\">also tweeted<\/a> that there are currently &#8220;no injuries&#8221; and it is inspecting the building.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update 12:46 PST:&nbsp;<\/strong>Employees are being safely escorted out of the building and a heavy police presence remains. Montreal Police say &#8220;no threat has been identified,&#8221; while a group of people remain on the building&#8217;s rooftop.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE 4:30 PST:&nbsp;<\/strong>Ubisoft issued a statement on today&#8217;s incident via Twitter:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"und\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3fKlfoZMsi\">pic.twitter.com\/3fKlfoZMsi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ubisoft Montr\u00e9al (@UbisoftMTL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UbisoftMTL\/status\/1327406771904929792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 14, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>This is a developing story, we will update it when more details are confirmed by Ubisoft and the Montreal authorities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update 12:46 PST:&nbsp;Employees are being safely escorted out of the building and a heavy police presence remains. Montreal Police say &#8220;no threat has been identified,&#8221; while a group of people remain on the building&#8217;s rooftop. Update 2:01 PST:&nbsp;According to&nbsp;Journal de Montreal, those on the rooftop were being evacuated one by one with hands raised. Police [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}