Ubisoft has hit rock bottom. The company has announced a “total reboot” and canceled six games – including one fans had been waiting on for more than five years. After a constant stream of bad news, the situation has now snowballed into a collapse that would’ve sounded unthinkable not long ago.

After several years defined more by disappointment than excitement, Ubisoft appears to have reached its lowest point. The French publisher has confirmed the cancellation of six games and the postponement of seven more. On top of that, two studios (Halifax and Stockholm) are being shut down, and thousands of additional layoffs will be officially announced on February 12. The company frames this as part of a “strategic reset” meant to reclaim a leading position in the video game industry over the next three years. For players, it’s a tragedy; for executives, it’s being sold as a necessary sacrifice.

A Total Reboot for Ubisoft

Among the six cancellations, the headline is clearly the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake. More than five years after it was first revealed, everything suggested the game was finally close to release, and it even picked up ratings from certain age classification boards. Even so, it reportedly failed to clear the new quality bar Ubisoft wants to enforce. Of the other five canceled projects, four were unannounced titles, three of them brand-new IP, while the fifth was a mobile game. That last detail makes plenty of sense given that the now-defunct Ubisoft Halifax was primarily focused on smartphone releases.

“Furthermore, the group will allocate additional development time to seven games to ensure that the new quality standards are fully met and long-term value creation is maximized. This includes unannounced titles planned for Fiscal Year 2026 that are being delayed until 2027”, the company explains in its report. In other words, this year may effectively serve as a transitional period for Ubisoft when it comes to new launches. It’s not guaranteed that nothing will ship, but the intent appears to be extra caution on each release to avoid repeats of issues like those surrounding Star Wars: Outlaws. Ubisoft expects the reset to translate into a €400 million to €500 million cash flow hit during Fiscal Year 2026. That outlook also factors in the layoffs the company plans to announce on February 12, 2025. “The strategic decision to undertake a major reboot of the company is driven by the shift towards an increasingly competitive ‘AAA’ industry, coupled with the greater difficulties publishers face in building brands in a high-cost environment. However, when successful, AAA content has more financial potential than ever before”, the company adds.

There Won’t Be a Great Revolution

Ubisoft’s financial report describes the situation as a full reboot designed to restore a strong market position in roughly three years. Yet even with four new IP said to be in development, the emphasis seems less about reinventing what the company offers players and more about tightening internal processes and raising quality. The “new operating model” the group points to is a renewed focus on open-world adventures and “native” games-as-a-service. That vision, in truth, has been repeated publicly several times over the past few years. What’s different now is the reinforcement through “cutting-edge technologies” and investment in generative artificial intelligence. This equation also includes the elimination of thousands of jobs. In the same report where it announces layoffs and a restart, the company also boasts that it completed its “fixed cost reduction” program a year ahead of schedule. “To continue this momentum, the goal has been set to reduce core costs by an additional €200 million over the next two fiscal years”, the report states.

It’s true that Ubisoft had become heavily overstaffed, but it’s still a human tragedy to see mass layoffs discussed in such cold, accounting-first language. Another piece of bad news for employees is that five days a week in the office will be mandatory. The broader mess also raises the question of whether this is the real reason Ubisoft halted its stock sales for a few days two months ago. It also forces a fresh look at a string of poor choices. In recent months, Dispatch and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 released to both commercial and critical success – projects led by former company employees. And it becomes even clearer how the push toward services and open worlds helped drive decisions like canceling the Splinter Cell remake and prioritizing XDefiant instead (the Call of Duty-style shooter that shut down a year after launch).

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