Ubisoft Barcelona Hit With Layoffs After Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Launch

Published Jul 9, 2026, 12:07 PM EDT

From the moment 4-year-old Cameron first stepped out into Glimmer in Spyro 2, he knew video games were going to play a central role in the rest of his life. Though he never planned to make it the focal point of his career, Cameron spent the vast majority of his spare time growing up playing games, and following graduation from the University of Reading, he thought he’d try his hand at writing a few reviews. Flash forward five years (four of which have been spent at GameRant) and Cameron’s passion for gaming has only grown. Whether it’s covering daily news, writing a personal feature, interviewing a developer, reviewing the latest title, or being sent across the world to preview an upcoming game, Cameron adores it all, and he wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.

Per a new report from Insider Gaming, Ubisoft Barcelona has just lost 51 employees. According to Insider Gaming’s anonymous sources close to the studio, many of these 51 Ubisoft Barcelona developers had worked on Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced prior to these recent layoffs.

Ubisoft Barcelona Has Lost 51 Employees

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced FAQs

Towards the end of June, reports surfaced that 51 employees at Ubisoft Barcelona were facing potential layoffs. The studio attempted to combat these layoffs by striking (through the official Video Game Union Coordinating Committee) every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon until July 16. A new report from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson confirms that those 51 employees were in fact laid off, and that the Ubisoft Barcelona team has been disbanded.

Anonymous sources familiar with the internal performance of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced reportedly told Insider Gaming that the game was “highly successful”, at least in terms of pre-release interest and pre-orders. Despite this early success and the game’s very positive critical reception, anonymous sources affected by these Ubisoft layoffs told Insider Gaming that the layoffs felt “premeditated” and that they were going to happen regardless of the Black Flag remake’s critical or commercial performance.

These developers felt this way as Ubisoft Barcelona had not been assigned a new project prior to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced‘s launch. According to these developers, it’s common for Ubisoft higher-ups to assign new projects to studios long before their current project has shipped. But despite the studio expressing its concerns that it didn’t have another project lined up back in Summer 2025, it never received a new assignment. An event to celebrate Ubisoft Barcelona shipping Assassins’ Creed Black Flag Resynced was also reportedly canceled and replaced by a small in-office celebration.

One anonymous source affected by this most recent wave of Ubisoft layoffs provided the following statement to Insider Gaming:

“These layoffs coincide with the broader context of ongoing workplace issues. This is not an isolated event; it reflects a pattern of constant mistreatment, loss of talent, forced departures resulting from the erosion of workers’ rights, and an increasingly top-down management culture that leaves employees with little voice in decisions affecting their work.”