More layoffs at Ubisoft

[ThunderBoy]

A week later than this:
https://retrogametalk.com/threads/ubisoft-leads-the-first-layoffs-of-2026.19054/#post-404108

We got this:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ubiso...d-ubisoft-stockholm-as-cost-cutting-continues

Ubisoft has announced staff cuts at its Swedish studios, with 55 jobs expected to be lost at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm.

The news follows the announcement of a voluntary redundancy program in 2025, which GamesIndustry.biz understands had some takeup, but "additional steps" were deemed necessary following a "mapping of the future roadmap."

An internal email said that the job losses were not related to performance issues and "the long-term direction for the studios remains unchanged". Massive will continue to work on The Division franchise and its expansions, with development continuing on The Division 3 and the Survivors extraction shooter mode for The Division 2. Only this week a Ubisoft producer promised that The Division 3 would "have as big an impact as The Division 1", although the game has yet to be shown to the public.

The same email also stated that the studios are also working on "an unannounced innovative tech project", and will "play a central role in the development" of the Snowdrop game engine and Ubisoft's player network Ubisoft Connect. Snowdrop has been used for other Ubisoft titles including Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the upcoming Splinter Cell title being developed at Ubisoft Toronto (which had its own layoffs in 2024.

Ubisoft is going to hell

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

An internal email said that the job losses were not related to performance issues and "the long-term direction for the studios remains unchanged".

So, they are basically putting capable, reliable people through hell because they wanted to save a few bucks while making more than they could ever spend.

There was a time when this hilarious mismanagement of a business cost dearly... We should really go back to that.

 

[SliperyHippo]

I think there was a segment on the WoolieVS podcast where they were talking about how Saudi Arabia is acquiring so many random companies that sooner or later they're going to have to start cutting some of them and Ubisoft, which was recently acquired, is probably pretty low on their list of important companies to maintain.

 

[iamthemilkman]

The Division games are easily my favorite live service games. While I didn't love their Avatar and Star Wars games, I find their Snowdrop Engine to be one of the more interesting and impressive engines.

 

[ForestMump]

The same email also stated that the studios are also working on "an unannounced innovative tech project",

Well Quartz/NFTs was a massive failure. Are they getting onto the AI hypetrain now?

 

[Tonberry]

The AAA game development job landscape is looking more and more like a gig economy every year.
It's really depressing there's like zero safety for these poor devs, especially in such a novel field as making entertainment.

My heart goes out to everyone affected, but simultaneously I'm infinitely thankful I chose indie instead of this nightmare.

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

Good.
It is a sign of utter incompetence to tell your investors "Our next game will turn it all around"

For that game to have been Assassins Creed Shadows, a game so "controversial" it was debated in Japanese parliament and had Thomas Lockley stripped of his academic accolades and blacklisted from Tokyo University over cultural appropriation & racism?
That was malicious.

Ubisoft has already sold soul to Tencent who now own 25% of the companies stock.
Enough to brute force almost anything.

This could have all been avoided if they hadn't gone out of their way to make culturally insensitive games. It could have been avoided if they had made good games ahead of Shadows. Or- and I know this is controversial. Maybe take steps to reduce the sky rocketing development costs?
Nah that will never happen. Every game needs 200+ developers

Oh no! Ubi's still in trouble? Womp womp.

 

[moonbits]

They've been doing this every year, at the same time; horrible to work there. I hope they go down.

I bet Microsoft will be announcing their layoffs next week