Crisis at Ubisoft leads to layoffs and studio closures

The wave of layoffs sweeping across Ubisoft has reached even more drastic levels with the revelation that the Ubisoft San Francisco office was also affected, adding to the complete shutdown of the Ubisoft Winnipeg and Ubisoft Belgrade divisions. Sources connected to GamesIndustry.biz and Insider Gaming indicate that around 380 jobs are at risk globally due to this restructuring process. It is discouraging to see that the management's solution to recurring financial troubles is always to penalize the developers instead of rethinking their own market decisions.

The restructuring has enforced severe changes at Ubisoft Barcelona, which will now focus exclusively on the Rainbow Six franchise—a decision that has already led to the cut of 61 local jobs. This creative downsizing impacts teams that have significant support experience, such as the Belgrade unit, active since 2016 and recently worked on Assassin's Creed Shadows and Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, and the Winnipeg team, established in 2019 and involved with Rainbow Six Mobile and the troubled XDefiant.

In San Francisco, the uncertainty is pervasive, with estimates suggesting that between 50 and 100 professionals were dismissed in this round. The studio, which also handled XDefiant, had already undergone a staff reduction in August 2024, when 45 employees were let go alongside Red Storm Entertainment, based in Cary, North Carolina.

"The company expects the current fiscal year to represent a low point in our free cash flow trajectory," states the company's financial report, highlighting the severance costs as one of the factors contributing to the significant revenue decline.

The promise made by management in January that the previous round would be the "final" one to save 200 million euros has completely crumbled. Relying almost exclusively on remakes for this year, such as the newly announced Rayman Legends Retold and Black Flag Resynced, Ubisoft shows a worrying inability to invigorate the market with new and relevant projects. The collapse of its internal structure indicates the company is sacrificing its future to try to balance today's finances.