The French publisher behind Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed is planning even more cuts, delays, and pivots as part of a brutal new restructuring. Ubisoft announced on Thursday that a company-wide reset will include a new creative structure, “rightsizing of the organization,” and more investment in things like “player-facing Generative AI.”
The latest shifts come amid challenging five-year stretch for Ubisoft where big blockbusters like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Far Cry 6 were few and far between while big bets like Star Wars Outlaws and xDefiant failed to pay off. In its January 21 earnings press release, the company promised a “radically new value-creation model” based around a “more gamer-centric organization.” This will include “business units with faster, decentralized decision-making and a greater ability to quickly adapt to players’ expectations” and a “rightsized and more agile organization, delivering improved structural efficiencies over time.”
A management consultant company like McKinsey & Company couldn’t have written it better. For those not versed in 21st century corpo-speak, that means a slow disassembly of the global AAA factory Ubisoft spent the 2010s building up and more studio closures and layoffs. The move will also include delays of many big games and the cancellation of others like the Prince of Persia remake that’s been in development for years.
