New wave of layoffs at Ubisoft: Inside per week, round 130 workers needed to depart the French writer. One of many studios affected had solely lately been unionized.
The axe is falling once more at Ubisoft. After a disastrous 2024 monetary 12 months, the French writer introduced a rigorous cost-cutting program value round €200 million firstly of 2025. This was adopted by a number of waves of layoffs, and the studios in San Francisco, Osaka, and Leamington had been closed fully.
Ubisoft is now in a a lot better monetary place – the lately revealed monetary outcomes for the primary half of 2025/26 present an working revenue of €27 million. Because of a partnership with Tencent, Ubisoft was in a position to safe €1.16 billion in contemporary capital.
Nonetheless, the writer just isn’t out of the woods but. And so the writer is beginning the 2026 calendar 12 months with a wave of layoffs. This time, a complete of 126 workers in two completely different branches are affected. The crew in Halifax, Canada, is especially laborious hit. The studio shall be fully closed by the group’s administration , ensuing within the lack of 71 jobs.
Layoffs shortly after union membership
Notably controversial: In keeping with Canadian media stories, nearly all of the workforce had voted in favor of becoming a member of a union only a few weeks earlier than the studio closure was introduced. Ubisoft itself assured GamesIndustry.biz that the closure was a part of group-wide cost-cutting measures that had been deliberate for a while and had nothing to do with the union membership; nonetheless, the transfer leaves a bitter aftertaste.
GTA developer Rockstar Video games within the UK is at present dealing with accusations that it intentionally laid off over 30 workers to stop the formation of a union throughout the firm. The British Parliament even addressed the allegations lately.
A number of the Ubisoft workers affected advised IGN that they had been devastated, particularly since they’d solely lately determined to unionize. The CWA union stated: We’re exploring all choices to struggle for the rights of our members.
Cuts additionally on the Outlaws builders
Jobs are additionally being lower in Sweden. Ubisoft has introduced that it’s going to lay off 55 workers at Huge Leisure. The Stockholm crew most lately developed the action-adventure video games Star Wars: Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for the writer.
Nonetheless, in response to an inner e-mail obtained by Insider Gaming, amongst others, the layoffs usually are not associated to the studio’s combined monetary efficiency. Quite, they’re a structural measure to place the studio properly for the long run.
Again in October 2025, Ubisoft had already arrange a severance program for Huge workers to encourage as many workers as attainable to go away voluntarily. Nonetheless, it seems that not sufficient volunteers got here ahead, so administration is now resorting to coercive measures.
The long-term path of the studio just isn’t anticipated to vary because of the present layoffs. Huge Leisure will proceed to work on the The Division
franchise for Ubisoft and, along with an extraction shooter mode for the second installment of the collection, will even be answerable for The Division 3 .
Huge additionally helps Ubisoft with the expertise for the Ubisoft Join consumer and continues to work on the in-house Snowdrop engine. Nonetheless, single-player experiments equivalent to SW: Outlaws and Avatar are prone to be over for now in Sweden.
It’s unlikely that the present wave of layoffs would be the final at Ubisoft. Only recently, administration introduced its intention to proceed with the cost-cutting program in 2026. With a goal of 100 million euros, additional layoffs are sadly very possible.
