Check eligibility before building an entry
Ubisoft Toronto says applicants must be legally entitled to work in Canada, reside in Ontario, and be currently enrolled in or have graduated from an accredited Ontario college or university degree or diploma program no earlier than Spring 2025.
Applicants must have less than two years of professional experience, cannot be a current or former employee of any Ubisoft studio, and must complete the challenge individually. Team submissions are not reviewed.
NEXT is a competition with a paid-apprenticeship opportunity. Entering the competition is not a promise of an apprenticeship, and the discipline brief controls the exact submission requirements.
Sources[1]
Preserve the separate milestones
Do not put only January 11 in your calendar. Level Design and Programming have earlier phase-one dates, and Programming has a separate theme-release milestone just before the final submission.
| Milestone | Published date |
|---|---|
| Submissions open | September 10, 2026 |
| Level Design phase one | October 26, 2026 |
| Programming phase one | November 16, 2026 |
| Programming theme released | January 8, 2027 |
| Final submission milestone | January 11, 2027 |
The current overview does not state a universal cutoff hour. Read the relevant discipline brief before assuming the last possible submission time.
Sources[1]
Work backward from the first required stage
Open the brief for your discipline before creating final work. Make a checklist of required files, naming rules, permitted tools and submission steps. Build a second personal timeline with earlier completion targets while keeping Ubisoft’s milestones labeled separately.
For a multi-stage discipline, completing phase one is not the same as completing the competition. A theme release is an instruction point, not a deadline. For Programming, confirm the development environment and packaging process before the theme arrives rather than pretending to solve a brief that has not been released.
Sources[1]
Make the entry independently understandable
As a separate practice exercise, hand a small unrelated prototype to someone with only its instructions. Ask them to launch it, use the main interaction and explain the goal. Note every step that requires your verbal help and fix those handoff problems.
That practice does not establish that a NEXT entry has passed an official review. Because submissions are individual, keep a record of what you created and follow the discipline brief for assets, collaboration and tools rather than assuming general game-jam conventions apply.
Submit with a receipt, not just a finished folder
Before the relevant cutoff, open exported files in another clean environment where practical. Check names, links and required declarations, then keep the submission confirmation. A local folder called “final” does not establish that Ubisoft received it.
If you later describe the work on a résumé, state the competition stage and what you actually built. Do not relabel an entry as an Ubisoft internship or apprenticeship unless you actually held that position.