The work players never see: How the Ubisoft Winnipeg Tools team helped bring Rainbow Six Mobile to life
For players, Rainbow Six Mobile will arrive fully formed—polished, responsive, and ready to play. But behind that experience is a layer of invisible work that quietly shapes how the game is built, shipped, and played.
We spoke with members of the Rainbow Six Mobile Tools team about how their systems improved production, strengthened player experience, and helped shaped their own careers.
But first… what is a Tools team?
Ask ten people in game development what a Tools team does, and you’ll probably get ten different answers. That’s because good tools work is designed to stay out of the spotlight. Its success is measured by how little friction people feel in their day‑to‑day work.
As Jessica Hildebrand, generalist programmer and former Tools lead at Ubisoft Winnipeg, explains:
“Instead of building the game directly, we optimize the production line that makes the game. Our job is to make sure people spend their time creating, not waiting on processes or fixing mistakes that could have been avoided.”
Chris Janssens, game designer, adds:
“The Winnipeg Tools team supports production with systems that help the game function as a live service. They build tools for cosmetic integration, developer workflow improvements, and automated build testing.”
Tool close-up: the cosmetic pipeline
For a live-service game like Rainbow Six Mobile, cosmetics aren’t just content. They’re a steady flow of assets moving across teams and system. Managing that flow efficiently was one of the challenges that the Winnipeg Tools team stepped up to own.
They built an end‑to‑end toolset that supports a cosmetic’s entire lifecycle, from Jira task creation to viewing assets fully realized in-game. It manages required data across multiple systems, integrates in‑engine review tools for artists, and supports thumbnail generation.
“Working on the cosmetic pipeline was extremely difficult but rewarding. The best part was witnessing how every enhancement helped our colleagues. Tasks that used to take hours or days now took minutes.”
The results were tangible: a significant reduction in redundant work, more time spent creating instead of wrestling with process, and thousands of cosmetic assets delivered to players more consistently.
For players, the result is seamless. For developers, it’s transformative.
Small changes, massive impact
“When a tool or workflow adds even a little friction (think clunky UX, repeated steps, unnecessary clicks, or waiting), it doesn’t just slow down one person,” Jessica explains. “It slows down everyone, over and over. But luckily, the inverse is just as true. Small improvements add up just as fast.”
These improvements ripple beyond production. Over time, they shape what players experience.
Chris shares the impact from a different angle, one much closer to the game itself.
“It can be hard for players to understand why you need tools to make other tools (if you see a game as a tool to have fun with),” he says. “But there’s an enormous amount of work happening behind the scenes, and much of it is only possible thanks to automation and strong processes.”
For Rainbow Six Mobile, the right tools were critical, especially for technical performance. Supporting a wide range of mobile devices meant working within tight CPU and memory constraints, with very little room for guesswork.
To meet these challenges, the Tools team built systems that gave production teams clear reports on CPU and memory usage. This allowed them to calculate the memory usage of complex assets before they created performance issues. Teams could quickly see what was within budget, what might cause issues, and what needed another pass.
“The time and effort put into performance on a mobile medium was huge. Getting the game running smoothly across so many different devices was a feat of engineering. And knowing our tools made that possible made it even more rewarding.”
In these ways, tools don’t just save time. They protect quality, stability, and the player experience long before anyone presses “play.”
Different career paths, one discipline
One of the defining strengths of the Winnipeg Tools team is the diversity of backgrounds that come together within it. Members come from software development, QA, design, and other technical fields, but they share an interest in systems, efficiency, and long‑term impact.
Jessica: from software foundations to tools leadership
Jessica graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in software development and spent several years in the industry before joining Ubisoft Winnipeg. For Jessica, tools appealed to her because the work has long-term impact.
“Many of the programmers who joined our Tools team had little to no game-dev experience. However, their traditional software development background turned out to be a big advantage. Regular game development moves quickly and often requires you to pivot based on changing production needs. Tools programming works differently because the systems you build are meant to last for years. Skills like writing good, maintainable code, planning solid architecture, and building strong testing habits become incredibly valuable for keeping everything stable over the long term.”
When she joined Rainbow Six Mobile, Jessica was asked to lead a group focused on making development smoother at scale, build new tools, and refine workflows so teams could move faster, make better decisions, and avoid friction.
“Tools development puts you right in the middle of everyone’s workflow. You learn to listen, ask the right questions, and understand what people actually need. That kind of collaboration has made me more thoughtful and intentional with my code.”
Chris: from QA to tools to gameplay
Chris came from a career working with networking switches and security event management systems. This made tools testing, especially in areas that shape how players interact with the game, a natural fit.
“I started as a QA analyst on the Heads-Up Display (HUD) and Tools teams. I helped ensure the quality of how the players will normally interact with the game as a HUD tester and also had the opportunity to make sure our tools were deployed to the production at the highest quality possible to reduce potential impact to our teams when providing improvements.”
Today, Chris is a designer on the Playlist team, creating limited‑time modes and experiences for the Rainbow Six brand. The mindset he developed in tools and on the Tools team still guides his work.
“I’ve had to communicate more clearly and often than ever. Work gets completed here so fast that I need to stay ahead so my work, the team’s work, and our workflows and processes don’t get disrupted.”
While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to the mix of backgrounds and profiles of those on the team, what ultimately unites them isn’t job titles or disciplines: it’s a shared focus on enabling others to do their best work.
Built together, built in Winnipeg
While tools shaped how the game was built, it was the way people worked together in Winnipeg’s close-knit studio that left the strongest impression on the team.
Jessica recalls: “It was so great to see. A programmer from my team would raise a question, then a UI artist would share their perspective, then QC would chime in, and suddenly we had a solution none of us could have come up with alone. Watching everyone contribute so smoothly made me realize how special this project was becoming. That level of teamwork is rare and so special.”
As Rainbow Six Mobile approaches global launch, Jessica and Chris aren’t just proud of what they shipped, they’re proud of how the tools they built helped the whole team get there.
The game exists the way it does because of years of work most players will never see.
And for a Tools team, that’s exactly the point.