Ubisoft announced they’re canceling six games, closing two studios, and laying off even more people. Again.
The Prince of Persia remake? Dead. Three brand-new game ideas? Dead. A mobile game nobody knew about? Also dead. And seven other games that were supposed to come out soon? Delayed indefinitely.
They’re calling it “portfolio management.” A fancy way of saying they’re trying to figure out which projects won’t bankrupt them.
Here’s what gets me, though. This is supposed to fix things. Cut the fat. Focus on what works. Become more “efficient.” But when you look at how AAA companies like Ubisoft are actually structured, cutting and merging studios might be making things worse, not better.
Remember When Ubisoft Was the Risk-Taker?
Think about what Ubisoft used to be known for. Assassin’s Creed was a massive gamble, a game about a bartender reliving his ancestor’s memories through DNA. That’s weird. That’s risky. That’s the kind of pitch that gets you laughed out of board meetings.
Beyond Good & Evil 2? They’ve been working on that thing for over a decade, trying to build something ambitious and different. (It’s still officially in development, by the way, despite all the cuts. No one seems to know what that actually means anymore.)
These were the moves that made Ubisoft interesting. They took swings. Some connected. Some didn’t. But they swung.
Now? They’re talking about “focusing on established brands and live-service style games with stronger, more predictable revenue.” Translation: we’re scared, so we’re going to make the same stuff over and over until you stop buying it.
The Gaming Industry Changed While They Weren’t Looking
Here’s what happened while AAA companies were building bigger studios and hiring thousands of people across multiple countries.
Smaller studios started eating their lunch.
Games like Stardew Valley (made by one guy) and Palworld and the Silksong aren’t just successful. They’re massive cultural moments. Players are obsessed with them. And these games cost a fraction of what Ubisoft spends on a single Assassin’s Creed title.
Better quality. More value. Lower price. It’s not complicated math.
AAA companies are like massive battleships trying to hit tiny, agile fighters zipping around them in circles. The battleship has more firepower, sure. More resources. More people. But it can’t move fast enough to land a hit.
The Structure Is the Problem
Ubisoft’s latest restructuring will cost them around €650 million in writedowns and charges. They’re expecting an operating loss of about €1 billion for this fiscal year. That’s billion. With a B.
They got a €1.16 billion investment from Tencent to help shore things up, which basically kept them from drowning. But… that money came with strings. Tencent now has a stake in Ubisoft’s future and licensing rights to their major franchises, especially for mobile games in key markets.
So they’re cutting studios. Canceling games. Laying off developers who spent years on projects that will never see the light of day.
My question is: why does it cost so much to make these cuts in the first place?
If you have to spend €650 million just to restructure, your structure was the problem from the start.
Why Do You Need Studios in Multiple Countries?
This might sound naive, but hear me out. With the technology we have in 2026 (video calls, cloud collaboration, real-time file sharing, project management tools that can coordinate thousands of people) why does a AAA company need physical studios scattered across multiple continents?
The Prince of Persia remake that just got canceled? It bounced between studios in Mumbai and Pune, then got moved to Montreal, with help from Toronto. Four different locations. For one game. That was already delayed for years.
From the outside, this looks like a nightmare. Time zones. Language barriers. Different work cultures. Coordination across teams that never meet in person. Bureaucracies are known for inefficiency, and this seems like inefficiency by design.
Now, to be fair, there are legitimate reasons for this setup. Government tax incentives can be massive. Some countries will cover 30-40% of your development costs if you hire locally. Access to specialized talent matters too. Maybe your best AI programmers are in Montreal, your art team is in Mumbai, your motion capture experts are in Toronto. And if you’re really strategic about it, you can run a 24-hour development cycle: one studio hands off work at the end of their day, another picks it up eight time zones away. Rinse and repeat.
On paper, it makes sense.
But here’s the question nobody seems to be asking: are those benefits worth the coordination nightmare?
What actually happens is the Prince of Persia remake gets passed between four studios over multiple years and still gets canceled. What happens is teams that don’t share a physical space struggle to share a vision. What happens is meetings scheduled at 6am for one group and 10pm for another. What happens is decisions that take weeks instead of walking down the hall.
The tax breaks are real. The talent access is real. The 24-hour workflow is theoretically real.
But… so is the chaos. And at some point, you have to ask: is the complexity worth it?
The Shrinking Problem
Here’s the trap Ubisoft is in. They know they’re spending too much money. So they’re cutting. Canceling games. Closing studios. Merging teams.
You can only shrink so much before it starts costing you more money than you’re saving.
Every canceled game represents years of work. Salaries paid, office space rented, software licenses purchased. That’s all sunk cost now. Money that will never generate revenue.
Every studio closure means severance packages, legal fees, breaking leases. More money gone.
Every layoff (and Ubisoft has cut over a thousand positions in the past couple years) means losing institutional knowledge. The people who understand your tools, your pipelines, your franchises. You can’t just hire them back later when things improve. They’re gone.
While you’re shrinking, you still have to make games. Games that take longer and cost more than ever before. Games that now have to compete with indie studios making hits for a fraction of the budget.
Ironically, the thing that’s supposed to make you more efficient is eating up resources like crazy.
The Other Trap: You Can’t Take Risks Anymore
Ubisoft still has four new intellectual properties in development. One of them is called March of Giants. The other three haven’t been named yet.
That’s good, right? New ideas. Fresh concepts. The risk-taking spirit that made Ubisoft interesting in the first place.
Except they’re in no position to take risks anymore.
They just posted a €1 billion loss. They’re propped up by Tencent’s investment. They canceled three other new IP projects as part of this restructuring because those games “do not meet portfolio criteria”. Which is corporate speak for “we can’t afford to gamble on this.”
So yes, they have new games coming. But they’re also terrified of failure. Which means those new games are probably going to play it safe. Which means they’re probably going to feel like everything else. Which means players probably won’t care.
You can’t innovate when you’re scared. And AAA companies are scared right now.
What Happens Next?
Ubisoft says this restructuring will hurt in the short term but lead to “sustainable growth” later. They’re focusing on their biggest franchises: Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, Far Cry. The reliable moneymakers.
Maybe it works. Maybe doubling down on what’s safe keeps them afloat long enough to figure out a better strategy. I hope it does.
Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe players get tired of the same franchises. Maybe the next Assassin’s Creed underperforms. Maybe the costs keep rising and the revenues keep falling and they end up right back here in two years, announcing another restructuring.
The problem isn’t just the games they’re making. It’s the entire apparatus built around making those games.
And I don’t know how you fix that without tearing the whole thing down and starting over.
Which, ironically, is exactly what smaller studios get to do. Start fresh. Move fast. Take risks. Make what they want without answering to shareholders or managing studios across three continents.The AAA model worked brilliantly for a long time. But… we’re watching it fail in real time. And I’m not sure anyone knows how to save it.
